What are the human givens
What are the human givens
What are the human givens?
The human givens are what nature has endowed us with, the genetic 'templates' that are expressed as innate physical and emotional needs.
Our physical needs are fairly obvious but psychological and emotional needs include the following:
- security
- attention
- love
- connection to the wider community
- status
- control
- autonomy, and
- to be stretched so as to become competent in different areas of our lives. It is being stretched and solving problems that gives us the sense that life is meaningful.
Nature also gives us the resources to help us meet these needs, including memory, imagination and problem-solving abilities, and the means to become more objective.
It is these needs and resources (which are built into our biology) that together make up the human givens.
To be effective, counsellors or psychotherapists have to work in alignment with the human givens because it is these that make us who we are.
For more information, please go to:
www.hgi.org.uk
www.humangivens.com
www.mindfields.org
Acknowlegements to MindFields College for material contained within this website