HUMAN GIVENS

Every single one of us is born with essential physical and emotional needs and, if we are born
healthy, the innate resources to help us fulfil them. These innate needs have evolved over millions
of years and are our common biological inheritance, whatever our cultural background. It is
because these needs and resources are incorporated into our very biology that they have become
known as the human 'givens'.
Our innate needs seek their fulfilment through the way we interact with the environment using the
resources nature 'gave' us. But when our emotional needs are not being met, or we are using our
resources incorrectly, we suffer considerable distress. And so can those around us.
In everyday terms, it is by meeting our physical and emotional needs that we survive and develop
as individuals and a species. As animals we are born into a material world where we need air to
breathe, water, nutritious food and sleep. These are the paramount physical needs. Without
them, we quickly die.
We also need the freedom to stimulate our senses and exercise our muscles. In addition, we
instinctively seek sufficient and secure shelter where we can grow and reproduce ourselves and
bring up our young. These physical needs are intimately bound up with our emotional needs — the
main focus of human givens psychology.
There is widespread agreement as to the nature of our emotional needs. The main ones are listed
below.
Our fundamental emotional needs are:
 Security — safe territory and an environment which allows us to develop fully
 Attention (to give and receive it) — a form of nutrition
 Sense of autonomy and control — having volition to make responsible choices
 Feeling part of a wider community
 Emotional intimacy — to know that at least one other person accepts us totally for who we
are, “warts 'n' all”
 Friendship, Fun,
 Privacy — opportunity to reflect and consolidate experience
 Sense of status within social groupings
 Sense of competence and achievement
 Meaning and purpose — which come from being stretched in what we do and think.
Along with physical and emotional needs nature gave us guidance systems to help us meet them.
We call these 'resources'.
The resources nature gave us to help us meet our needs include:
 The ability to develop complex long term memory, which enables us to add to our innate
knowledge and learn
 The ability to build rapport, empathise and connect with others
 Imagination, which enables us to focus our attention away from our emotions, use language
and problem solve more creatively and objectively
 Emotions and instincts
 A conscious, rational mind that can check out emotions, question, analyse and plan
 The ability to 'know' — that is, understand the world unconsciously through metaphorical
pattern matching
 An observing self — that part of us that can step back, be more objective and be aware of
itself as a unique centre of awareness, apart from intellect, emotion and conditioning
 A dreaming brain that preserves the integrity of our genetic inheritance every night by
metaphorically defusing expectations held in the autonomic arousal system because they were
not acted out the previous day.
As we mentioned above, it is such needs and tools that, together, make up the human givens:
nature's genetic endowment to humanity. Over enormous stretches of time, they underwent
continuous refinement as they drove our evolution on. They are best thought of as inbuilt
patterns — biological templates — that continually interact with one another and (in undamaged
people) seek their natural fulfilment in the world in ways that allow us to survive, live together as
many-faceted individuals in a great variety of different social groupings, and flourish.

It is the way those needs are met, and the way we use the resources that nature has given us,
that determine the physical, mental and moral health of an individual. As such, the human
givens are the benchmark position, to which we must all refer— in education, mental and
physical health and the way we organise and run our lives. When we feel emotionally fulfilled
and are operating effectively within society, we are more likely to be mentally healthy and stable.
But when too many innate physical and emotional needs are not being met in the environment,
or when our resources are used incorrectly, unwittingly or otherwise, we suffer considerable
distress. And so do those around us.

The human givens framework, therefore, offers a revolutionary new organising idea, one which
is derived from the latest scientific understanding from neurobiology, psychology, ancient
wisdom and original new insights. (See: Where did the HG ideas came from?) Disseminated
and taught for less than ten years in the UK, and initially focused on the treatment of mental
distress, this new school of psychology is rapidly being recognised as a profoundly important
shift in our understanding of human functioning. It has been called “the missing heart of positive
psychology”. The startling success produced by the efficacy, adaptability and practical nature of
these new ideas, is borne out by the speed at which the human givens model is moving into new
areas, ranging from psychotherapy, education and social work to international diplomatic
relations and the corporate world of business.

For more information about the human givens approach:

Read 'Human Givens: A new approach to emotional health and clear thinking'
Visit the Human Givens Institute's Website which has a wealth of information including
an archive of articles about how the approach is being used in different fields
Subscribe to the Human Givens Journal
Visit the MindFields College website for details of training in a wealth of effective
therapeutic techniques, all working in tune with the givens of human nature
Listen to: 'Evolution and the human givens... hope for the future'
Visit the online Register of Professional Human Givens Practitioners for details of the
human givens approach to psychotherapy and a list of fully qualified therapists working in
private practice from this approach.
Sign up to the HGI's free monthly e-newsletter
Read: About the Human Givens Journal