Human Givens Therapy

A guide to Human Givens therapy: how it identifies unmet emotional needs and misused innate resources to provide rapid, practical relief from anxiety, depression, and trauma.

7 min readLast reviewed: March 24, 2026

What Is Human Givens Therapy?

Human Givens therapy is a practical, solution-focused approach to psychotherapy developed in the United Kingdom by Joe Griffin and Ivan Tyrrell in the late 1990s. It is built on a central premise: every human being is born with a set of innate emotional needs and innate resources (the "givens") for meeting those needs. When emotional needs are met in a balanced way, people thrive. When they are not — or when innate resources are misused or blocked — psychological distress follows.

Rather than spending extensive time exploring the past or analyzing personality, Human Givens therapy focuses on rapidly identifying which emotional needs are currently unmet, which innate resources are underused or misdirected, and what practical steps can be taken to restore balance. The approach is characteristically brief, often producing significant improvement within one to six sessions.

Human Givens therapy draws on research from neuroscience, psychology, and evolutionary biology to explain why certain approaches work and to guide treatment decisions. It is pragmatic rather than dogmatic — practitioners use whatever evidence-based techniques are most likely to help, including relaxation, guided imagery, reframing, behavioral tasks, and a specific protocol for trauma processing. In this sense, it shares philosophical ground with integrative therapy and solution-focused brief therapy.

How It Works

Human Givens therapy follows a structured assessment and intervention process:

Needs audit. The therapist begins by systematically assessing which of the client's innate emotional needs are currently being met and which are not. This is done through focused questioning and often reveals clear patterns — for example, a client with depression may have lost their sense of meaning and community connection following retirement, or a client with anxiety may feel they have no autonomy in a controlling relationship.

Resources assessment. The therapist also evaluates how well the client is using their innate resources — their ability to build rapport, think rationally, use memory and imagination, problem-solve, and manage emotions. Often, the resources are present but misdirected. For example, imagination is a powerful resource, but when used to catastrophize and worry, it fuels anxiety rather than serving the person.

Pattern matching and the REM hypothesis. Human Givens therapy incorporates the "expectation fulfilment theory of dreaming," which proposes that REM sleep exists to discharge unresolved emotional arousal from the day through metaphorical dream scenarios. When a person experiences excessive worry or emotional arousal (as in depression or anxiety), the REM system becomes overloaded, leading to excessive dreaming, depleted energy, and the flat, exhausted state characteristic of depression. Understanding this cycle helps the therapist target interventions at reducing emotional arousal.

Targeted interventions. Based on the assessment, the therapist uses specific techniques to address the identified problems:

Relaxation and de-arousal — Reducing high emotional arousal that prevents clear thinking and problem-solving
Guided imagery and the "rewind technique" — A non-intrusive method for processing traumatic memories without requiring the client to describe the trauma in detail
Cognitive reframing — Helping the client see their situation from new perspectives
Behavioral planning — Concrete, practical steps to get unmet needs met (joining a group, setting boundaries, changing routines)
Metaphor and storytelling — Using stories and analogies to bypass resistance and promote insight

What to Expect

Human Givens therapy is notably brief compared to many other approaches. Many clients experience significant improvement within one to four sessions. The initial session typically runs 60 to 90 minutes, with follow-up sessions of 50 to 60 minutes.

In your first session, the therapist will gather focused information about your current difficulties and conduct the needs and resources audit. They will explain your difficulties in terms of the Human Givens framework — which needs are unmet and how your resources are being used or misused. This explanation is often itself therapeutic, as it provides a clear, non-pathologizing understanding of why you are struggling.

The therapist will then begin active intervention, often within the first session. If you are experiencing high anxiety, they may guide you through a relaxation exercise. If you have a trauma history, they may use the rewind technique to begin processing it. You will leave the first session with a clear understanding of what is driving your distress and specific steps to begin addressing it.

Follow-up sessions review progress, address remaining obstacles, and continue building practical strategies. The approach is collaborative and educational — the therapist wants you to understand the principles well enough to continue applying them independently.

Conditions It Treats

Human Givens therapy is applied to a wide range of conditions:

Anxiety disorders — including generalized anxiety, panic, social anxiety, and phobias
Depression — understood as a consequence of unmet needs and the exhaustion cycle of excessive REM sleep
PTSD and trauma — using the rewind technique for rapid, non-intrusive trauma processing
Phobias — often resolved in a single session using guided imagery techniques
Addiction — understood as a misguided attempt to meet legitimate emotional needs
Anger problems — addressing the unmet needs driving aggressive responses
Psychosomatic conditions — where unresolved emotional arousal manifests physically

1–6 sessions

typical treatment length for Human Givens therapy — the approach is designed to produce rapid, practical results by directly targeting unmet emotional needs

Effectiveness

Human Givens therapy has a developing evidence base. A study by Andrews, Twigg, Minami, and Johnson (2011) published in the Human Givens Journal examined outcomes from over 3,000 cases and found that approximately 75 percent of clients showed reliable improvement, with an average of 3.6 sessions. A subsequent audit of NHS primary care services using the Human Givens approach reported similar results.

The rewind technique for trauma, a core component of Human Givens practice, has been evaluated in several studies. Research published in Human Givens and presented at clinical conferences has shown rapid reduction in PTSD symptoms, often within one to three sessions.

It is important to note that while these results are promising, the evidence base for Human Givens therapy is not yet as extensive as that for CBT or EMDR. Much of the published research has appeared in the Human Givens Journal rather than independent, peer-reviewed journals. Larger, independent randomized controlled trials are needed to establish the approach's evidence base to the same standard as more widely researched therapies.

That said, many of the techniques used within Human Givens therapy — relaxation, cognitive reframing, behavioral activation, guided imagery — have strong independent evidence bases in their own right.

Frequently Asked Questions

Human Givens therapy achieves rapid results by focusing directly on what is maintaining the problem right now — which needs are unmet and which resources are misused — rather than spending extensive time on historical exploration. The structured assessment quickly identifies targets for intervention, and techniques like the rewind method can process trauma efficiently. Not everyone resolves their difficulties in a few sessions, but many do.

The rewind technique is a guided imagery method for processing traumatic memories. While deeply relaxed, you are guided to imagine watching the traumatic event from a safe, distanced perspective — like watching it on a screen — and then rewinding and fast-forwarding through it multiple times. This process appears to shift the traumatic memory from the amygdala (the brain's alarm system) to the hippocampus (the narrative memory system), reducing its emotional charge. Crucially, you do not need to describe the trauma in detail to the therapist.

Human Givens therapy has a growing evidence base with promising results from clinical audits and outcome studies. However, it does not yet have the extensive research support of approaches like CBT or EMDR, which have been evaluated in numerous large-scale randomized controlled trials. The individual techniques used within the approach (relaxation, reframing, behavioral activation) do have strong independent evidence.

CBT focuses primarily on identifying and changing unhelpful thought patterns and behaviors. Human Givens therapy uses a broader framework that begins with assessing unmet emotional needs and misused innate resources, then applies whatever techniques are needed to restore balance. It incorporates cognitive and behavioral techniques alongside relaxation, guided imagery, and psychoeducation about the role of REM sleep. The approaches are complementary rather than contradictory.

Understanding Brief and Practical Approaches

Short-Term vs Long-Term Therapy — How to decide what duration of therapy is right for you.
What Is Evidence-Based Therapy? — Understanding how to evaluate the research behind different approaches.

Behavioral Activation for Depression — How reintroducing meaningful activity lifts depression, a core element of Human Givens work.
Behavioral Activation Exercises — Practical exercises for getting unstuck.

Finding the Right Approach

Best Therapy for Anxiety — Comparing approaches to anxiety, including brief therapies.
Best Therapy for Depression — How different approaches address depression.