I am all in favour of the continuing development of the profession and the integration of approaches as well as cross-fertilisation between them. The article on the ‘Human Givens’ approach was therefore of interest to me, following some workshops I had attended at various conferences, and it has prompted me to engage with it more deeply. As Julia Bueno writes, the widespread uptake of the approach in all kinds of contexts must attest to its usefulness in practice. But, as she also indicates, as a relatively young approach trying to establish itself, some of its presentation and style has alienated and put people off.

It seems to me that some of the more boastful claims made by and on behalf of the Human Givens approach fly in the face of their stated intention to ‘dispel’ the confusion in the field. It does not serve the Human Givens practitioners or the profession as a whole if these claims and assertions go unchallenged. The time may have come when the Human Givens approach can benefit from an awareness of its place in the history and the plurality of the field, from which it seems quite disconnected.

At this point I am not debating the validity and usefulness of aspects of the Human Givens model, combined with some of its original formulations and research regarding dreams, REM states and trance, which I appreciate. What I want to address here is that central and significant elements of the model seem to me to be a reinvention and re-combination of earlier ideas, which the proponents seem oblivious of and consistently fail to acknowledge. On their various websites, Human Givens is presenting its model as original, unique and superior, and as an integration of those elements of all other approaches that are useful, valid and evidence-backed, leaving behind ‘the preconceived fantastical notions, myths and strange ideas, and just study what is actually going on’.

In making such claims, the proponents betray nothing so much as their own ignorance of our shared history as a field, and a profound lack of appreciation for those giants on whose shoulders we all have the benefit of standing.

In researching the Human Givens claim to ‘integrate’, for example, I cannot find any instances of acknowledgement of the various integrative endeavours and advances that have been made in the therapeutic field over the last 20 years or so,1 nor recognition of the possible pitfalls that have already been encountered and described during this process.2 There have been any number of attempts to integrate the entire field under the hegemony of one overarching, supposedly superior and essential approach which is deemed to embrace all others. These kinds of claims fail to recognise a consensus in the field of psychotherapy integration that the diverse modalities of therapy cannot and should not be reduced to one another, and that integration is not just a question of developing an overarching meta-model.3 All of these questions and challenges are not just blithely ignored by the Human Givens approach – they do not even seem to arise, let alone be taken seriously. In this context the stated commitment to continuing learning and development seems little more than paying lip-service to an idea.

So for the purposes of healthy collegial debate and to help practitioners appreciate their approach in the context of the wider field, here is an initial brief list of what I perceive to be earlier precursors for some of the central tenets of the Human Givens approach.


1. ‘This is the first approach where it is axiomatic that we look holistically at a person from a point of view of what’s missing in their lives.’

We might need to define the term ‘holistic’, but this is an outrageous and unwarranted claim. Wilhelm Reich developed a comprehensive holistic psychology in the 1920s, spelling out the inter-connections between mind, body and psychological difficulties. His theory focussed on the links between emotion and the muscular system, but already included the sympathetic and parasympathetic branches of the autonomic nervous system, linking neurosis to ‘a progressive unfolding, splitting and antithesis of vegetative functions’.4

Specifically, Reich’s formula of tension-charge-discharge-relaxation already encapsulates core ideas of the Human Givens approach, in terms of the connection between biologically-rooted needs, unexpressed emotion, incomplete or inhibited expression and the tensions and distresses accumulating on all levels of the bodymind. These ideas became even more explicit – and even closer to current Human Givens formulations – in Gerda Boyesen’s work since the 1970s: her concept of the vaso-motoric cycle and the psychosomatic digestion of the residues of unexpressed emotions and impulses are in essence indistinguishable from the Human Givens’ arousal-disarousal polarity. Neither Reich nor Boyesen extended this into a theory of dreams, which strikes me as containing some original ideas by Joe Griffin, but otherwise the basic principles were all already formulated, maybe unbeknownst to him. These prior theories go far beyond the Human Givens approach in their detail and sophistication, and are equally relevant in their impact on modern psychotherapeutic technique.

Furthermore, Gestalt therapy – and field theory which it incorporates – would claim to have laid the foundations for a holistic approach to psychotherapy since at least the middle of the 20th century.

Gregory Bateson’s ‘holistic and qualitative approach’ (Wikipedia) was summarised in 1972 in ‘Steps to an Ecology of Mind’. All of these ideas were established decades before Human Givens saw the light of day.


2. ‘It is the first ever bio-psycho-social model of psychotherapy.’

I hardly know where to start on this one. There must be any number of writers and practitioners who are jumping up and down and turning in their graves at this presumptuous statement. Any of the people mentioned in the rest of this letter would beg to differ. Not that I am claiming that all previous theories were necessarily better or more comprehensive, but the recognition of the link between biology, psychology and social dynamics – in both health and illness, in both wellbeing and suffering – has been present in varying degrees for the last 100 years (even from the beginning of psychoanalysis we’d need to include Groddeck, Gross, even Jung, Reich, Fromm, Horney, Sullivan – an endless list, even before 1950 too long to expand on). A simple search in Google will come up with references to the specific term ‘bio-psycho-social model’ well before 1990.

This is the history, not to say anything about the recent past, ie the last 20 years. To not include, in what is Human Givens’ fairly recent formulation of a bio-psycho-social model, a mention of Daniel Stern, Antonio Damasio or Allan Schore and other currently acknowledged authorities in this field is, in my view, unforgivable.

There are some Human Givens propositions that these authorities might agree with. The curious thing is that there are many others that they wouldn’t agree with.


3. Expectation fulfilment theory of dreams.

Gestalt therapists and theorists will join me in seeing little difference between the basic principles of Griffin’s theory and the notion of unfinished cycles and ‘Gestalten’. Griffin’s explanation of why dreams use metaphor seems new, but otherwise Perls – and Gestalt therapists since then – have explicitly applied the notion of unfinished cycles to dreams and dreamwork. Various versions of the ‘Gestalt Cycle’ explicitly include the arousal – disarousal polarity and the return to equilibrium as a natural function of biological and psychological systems, once needs and impulses have been fulfilled through contact with their environment. These may be slightly different terms, but they essentially point to the same dynamic. To remain oblivious of just how widespread and fundamental the idea of the unfinished cycle is throughout many humanistic approaches seems quite extraordinary to me.


4. Levels of biologically-rooted psycho-physical emotional needs

Julia Bueno’s review explicitly stated the similarity between the Human Givens list of basic human needs and Maslow’s self-actualisation pyramid: ‘So far, so familiar, with Maslow immediately coming to mind.’

Human Givens summarises: ‘The goal of treatment therefore becomes addressing how to help meet identified unmet needs, and heal damaged resources.’

To claim this as an original idea is outrageous. There are a good number of theories, predating Human Givens by decades, which almost use identical terms and see the fulfilment or frustration of those needs as fundamental to psychological wellbeing. Alexander Lowen, a pupil of Reich, explicitly talked about basic needs and rights that – if not fulfilled – will create psychological disease.5 He was building on character structure theory which has integratively and comprehensively been elaborated by the life work of Stephen Johnson.6 There are at least four distinct branches of this theory – ask any body-psychotherapist, Hakomi or Biosynthesis therapist in this country or anywhere – which all take this list of human needs for granted.

An even more unmissable manifestation of it is Wilber’s integral theory of development, describing and distinguishing that same array of basic needs, linked to different kinds of consciousness, corresponding to a different sense of self each. Wilber’s ideas were first introduced in the late 1970s and since then have been refined over the decades. They present a much more detailed, and especially developmentally coherent, account of the emergence of these needs and the psychosomatic difficulties and dysfunctions that will arise when they remain unmet or resources necessary for their fulfilment are damaged.


Conclusion

Now, proponents of Human Givens will argue that what they are offering is all new and radically different and original, and cannot be compared with these precursors. I am not debating that Human Givens is a unique re-combination of elements, integrating as it does NLP, trance and the relevance of the REM state. But in its hegemonic claims to be able to subsume all other approaches under its banner, selecting the best bits from others that fit in with its own assumptions and rejecting the rest as trash, it commits what I would describe as a professional foul: it nonchalantly devalues the existing plurality and remains oblivious of its context and – whether knowingly or unknowingly – its own lineage and historical roots. It claims as unique and original ideas and concepts which were established long before and therefore is frequently in danger of reinventing the wheel. You might say: what’s the big deal about who said it first, and what the historical origins of an idea are? Who cares about precious egos and their supposed originality? Isn’t it great that we agree and let’s go ahead and apply it?

Yes, but the biggest problem is the following: the theories and approaches that did formulate precursors to Human Givens tenets also said many other things about therapy that are being ignored or dismissed by Human Givens. If there is some agreement about basic aspects of the model, how come alongside this there are such significant disagreements as to what constitutes good therapy?

Human Givens has a simple answer: everything we don’t include or agree with is rubbish and mumbo-jumbo and we don’t need to take it seriously. For example: talking about the past just isn’t helpful. Period. In readily dismissing aspects of other approaches which do not conform to its own bias or which it fails to investigate sufficiently to understand, Human Givens is in danger of blindly repeating the errors of previous developments. If we are oblivious of our history, it’s quite likely to catch up with us.

Some of the holistic approaches mentioned above have evolved enormously since the 1960s and 1970s, based on the recognition that there were indeed shadow aspects and avoidances structured into our otherwise very valid theories.

For a new and recent approach like Human Givens to remain oblivious of these earlier antecedents, and to ignore the learning that has accumulated over decades in working with these very similar ideas, seems profoundly contradictory to the stated intentions of continuing learning and development and to the claims for more integration and coherence.

Although one of Joe’s and Ivan’s colleagues is quoted as saying: ‘I feel a more mature approach is emerging. They are far more aware of outcomes. They know there’s no panacea and they’ve become more tentative in their claims’, there is – as far as I can see – as yet little evidence of this in their websites and published materials.

Michael Soth
Integral-relational body psychotherapist, trainer and supervisor

1. Norcross JC, Goldfried MR (eds). Handbook of psychotherapy integration (2nd edition). New York: Oxford University Press; 2005.
2. Visit the UK Association for Psychotherapy Integration’s website to read articles in their journal, many of which are relevant to this discussion. www.ukapi.com
3. Clarkson P. The therapeutic relationship. London: Whurr; 1995.
4. Carroll, R. At the border between chaos and order: what psychotherapy and neuroscience have in common. In Corrigall J, Wilkinson H (eds) Revolutionary connections: psychotherapy and neuroscience. London: Karnac; 2003.
5. Lowen A. The language of the body. New York: Macmillan; 1958.
6. Johnson SM. Character styles. New York: WW Norton & Company; 1994.