The Human Givens Institute

For anyone affected by addiction or helping others to overcome it

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This exciting online event, which looks at addiction from a variety of different angles, brings together highly experienced psychotherapists and experts who are keen to share their extensive knowledge and experience with you.  The science-based insights encompassed in the human givens approach represent a major leap forward in the way we view and treat addictions – avoiding the medicalisation of addictive behaviour and offering realistic, practical solutions – as this day shows. 

Drawing on real life examples and the latest neuroscience, the speakers will look at the causes of addiction (including links with trauma and self-harm), the 3 key steps needed for recovery, the many faces of addiction, the neurobiology of screen addiction and strategies for avoiding it, the best ways to help those affected by someone else’s addiction, and much more – view programme.

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Special Price: £59

for unlimited access

Brought to you by the Human Givens Institute, this absorbing one-day conference provides excellent CPD for welfare and mental health professionals and invaluable information for anyone interested in addiction for personal reasons.

Our expert speakers will explore the causes of addiction, demonstrate how it is possible to help most people overcome it, answer your questions about addiction and signpost you to where you can find help or learn the methods covered. You’ll gain new insights into the addictive process, practical tips drawn from our therapists’ case histories and experience, guidance on how best to help those affected by someone else’s addiction, insights into screen addiction, the links with trauma and more.

You will leave the event with life-changing insights and empowering information that will help you break free of addiction or help others to do so…

Human Givens Institute
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The Speakers

Click on each picture to find out more about our speakers.

Joe Griffin

Co-founder of the human givens approach

Dr Aric Sigman

Expert psychologist

Ros Townsend

HG College tutor and HG practitioner

Emily Gajewski

HG College tutor and practitioner

Mandy Cooper

Chief Executive of Bayberry Clinics

Jenny Wakelin

HG Practitioner and Trainer

Programme

Welcome and introduction to the day

1st Session

Including live Q&A

Joe Griffin
Joe Griffin

The path to recovery

Joe Griffin has a wealth of experience working with addicts, as well as training addiction counsellors and supervising trainee addiction counsellors working with clients in rehab. His key neuroscientific insights into the addictive process, combined with the HG framework for wellbeing, have proved invaluable in helping 100,000s of people successfully overcome their addiction.

In the best selling book ‘Freedom from addiction’, which he co-wrote with Ivan Tyrrell, he outlined his new, effective model of how to beat addictions and ‘get your life back’. In this fascinating talk which outlines the approach, Joe will take these ideas further and explain:

  • how to know when you or someone close to you has an addiction
  • what the three most important steps to recovery are
  • why a history of relapse can be a positive sign that recovery is possible
  • how to minimise withdrawal symptoms and release natural highs which we all need to be healthy
  • why encouraging someone to stop their addiction may be pushing them further into addiction
  • and how his recently developed ‘Human Needs ladder’ can be a very powerful tool in helping an addict to stay in recovery.
2nd Session

Including live Q&A

Ros Townsend
Speaker-Ros-Townsend-100px

Trauma: The many faces of addiction

Unresolved trauma is often behind a problematic addiction. Using our shared, innate needs as a starting point, Ros Townsend will explore some of the different ways in which an understanding of the mechanisms at work in addiction can inform therapeutic work with clients who have experienced trauma.

  • How does addiction to a damaging or dangerous substance or behaviour become a learned survival response for traumatised individuals?
  • Do people really become ‘addicted’ to toxic relationships?
  • And what does grieving, perhaps through the traumatic loss of a key person, role or pet, have to do with addiction?
  • Drawing on the many thousands of cases that she has worked with as a Human Givens therapist, as well as research and personal experience, Ros explores how a solid understanding of addiction and how to work successfully with it, can provide answers to all these questions and more, and how therapists can best use this understanding to help their clients to move forward effectively.
LUNCH BREAK
3rd Session

Including live Q&A

Mandy Cooper
Mandy Cooper - Speaker

Getting behind addiction

Mandy Cooper is the chief executive of Bayberry Wellness and Recovery Clinics, a successful group of private clinics which offer residential treatment for alcohol and substance misuse, as well as mental health and wellbeing challenges. The human givens approach is central to the care and treatment they provide. Based on her extensive experience of using HG for helping people overcome addictions, and using case history examples, Mandy will look at:

  • The language of addiction – what is it and how we talk about it
  • The need to treat addiction both physiologically and with psychological therapy
  • How addiction can mask or ‘meet’ our emotional needs
  • Why just stopping is not enough – we must treat the cause and deactivate the underlying ‘coping’ mechanism pattern (counter-conditioning)
  • The need to validate the trauma and de-stigmatising the behaviour
  • The grief of addiction 
  • Phased reduction and detox
  • Ways to get our needs met that give scope for hope and future growth.
4th Session

Including live Q&A

Aric Sigman
Aric Sigman - Speaker

Screen Dependency Disorders

We are delighted to be joined by Dr Aric Sigman, a widely recognised researcher, writer and mental health educator with a special interest in the effects of screen use, particularly the impact they have on children’s and young people’s development, and how we can prevent screen-related and alcohol addictions in the young. There is now growing formal recognition of screen-related behavioural addictions, such as Gambling Disorder and Gaming Disorder, and the problems these are causing, as well as other forms of emerging problematic screen use (such as pornography and social media), that are not yet formally recognised as distinct disorders. Aric’s richly informative talk will give us an overview of the latest research findings in the area of screen addiction, including:

  • The neurobiology of screen-related addictive behaviour
  • Genetic predispositions for different addictions
  • The impact of excessive discretionary screen time
  • Strategies for preventing screen addiction in children, young people & adults
  • Insights from his vast world-wide experience of cultures’ pre/post screen use
SHORT BREAK
5th Session

Including live Q&A

Emily Gajewski
Emily Gajewski - Speaker

The addictive nature of self harm – new ways to break the cycle

Reports of self harm and self injury, particularly in younger people are hugely on the increase. Emily Gajewski, a highly experienced psychotherapist and self-harm expert, looks at why this might be happening and what can be put in place to minimise more dangerous forms of self harm. Looking at the biological effects of self injury deepens our understanding of its potential to become addictive, and enables us to work in a way that is most effective. Her talk will cover:

  • Understanding the underlying causes of self harm
  • Why self harm is potentially addictive and how to begin breaking that cycle
  • Creating the optimal environment for letting go of self harming behaviour
  • The importance of working with the families of young people who self harm
  • How we can approach self harm most helpfully, with a harm minimisation approach
  • A brief exercise in self compassion, a vital tool for recovery!
6th Session

Including live Q&A

Jenny Wakelin
Jenny Wakelin - Speaker

The impact of addiction on families – and how to help them

Addiction is a ‘family illness’. It wasn’t until she was working as a psychotherapist and supervisor at an Addictions clinic, and became involved with a new self-help group set up by the families and friends of addicts, that Jenny Wakelin truly appreciated the immense suffering someone’s addiction can bring to those who care about them. She felt driven to help, particularly as the families’ predicament receives little attention from the health services. Jenny’s enlightening talk highlights the wider impacts of addiction and how we can best support the families and friends of addicts. Her talk will include:

  • The impact of having an addict in the family
  • How to help the families of addicts understand the negative consequences to themselves of a constant focus on the addicted member
  • Why individuals are often traumatised and may suffer psychologically and/or physically themselves when their own needs are largely unfulfilled
  • Ways to help families avoid falling apart – an all-too frequent result of addiction
  • Recognising that the source of a family’s troubles might not always be resolvable, human givens therapy can support and help a suffering individual to heal psychologically and provide them with the ‘tools’ they need to build resilience and gain the courage to recognise and let go of old non-productive behaviours
  • To this end, how family members can come to realise the importance of changing the focus and ensuring they get their own needs met
  • Case-history examples that demonstrate how the human givens approach can be so powerful in helping family members heal and cope with their situation.

Closing remarks. Day ends

We hope you you enjoy viewing this absorbing 1-day online conference – you will leave the event with life-changing insights and empowering information that will help you overcome addiction in yourself and others…

Purchase the replay

Special Price: £59

for unlimited access

What people say

“I would recommend HG to anybody for anything, anywhere anytime any place, because it’s a lifeline."
Sue Hanisch
Sue Hanisch
“I would unhesitatingly recommend the human givens approach to GPs - because of the human givens techniques, I find I can manage a lot of the anxiety and depression cases myself, and I don’t have to refer people on to the overstretched NHS mental health services"
Dr Andrew MorriceGP
Dr Andrew Morrice
“The human givens approach is a comprehensively built model, very well researched and very well built, with a simple, strong framework that I can plug tools and strategies into all the time. It is flexible and non-prescriptive, I can adapt it to whatever situation I am in really easily."
Gareth HughesStudent Wellbeing Service, University of Derby
Gareth Hughes

About the human givens approach

The human givens approach to psychotherapy works from the crucial understanding that mental ill health occurs when essential emotional needs are not being met and/or innate resources to help us meet them are being used wrongly. (These needs and resources together make up our human ‘givens’.) It is a powerful approach that focuses not on what’s wrong with people but on what is not working in people’s lives, and that is what it addresses.

The approach is growing hugely in popularity in the UK and beyond because it is repeatedly found to be fast, effective and reliable. Studies have shown extremely high success percentages, including recovery or reliable improvement in three out of four people.1, 2, 3, 4

Clients find it respectful and empowering – it gives them clear explanations about the causes of mental ill health and troubling behaviour patterns, essential knowledge for establishing and maintaining wellbeing, and specific tools to help them cope with any future setbacks in their lives without sinking back into depression, anxiety or addictive behaviours.

Increasingly, organisations seek the assistance of human givens practitioners when staff are off work with mental ill-health, because speedy recovery is in everyone’s interests – and saves organisations money, too. The approach is also influencing fields as diverse as parenting, politics, education, work, law and communication – indeed, it has a role in any setting where there is a will to understand and nurture people and make best use of valuable human resources.

  1. Andrews, W P, Twigg, E, Minami, T and Johnson, G (2011). Piloting a practice research network: a 12-month evaluation of the human givens approach in primary care at a general medical practice. Psychology and Psychotherapy: Theory, Research and Practice, 84, 3, 389–405.
  2. Andrews, W P, Wislocki, A P, Short, F, Chow, D and Minami, T (2013). A 5-year evaluation of human givens therapy using a practice research network. Mental Health Review Journal, 18, 3, 165–76.
  3. Tsaroucha, A, l Kingston, P, Stewart, T, Walton, I and Corp, N (2012). Assessing the effectiveness of the human givens approach in treating depression: a quasi experimental study in primary care. Mental Health Review Journal, 17, 2, 90–103.
  4. Tsaroucha, A, Kingston, P, Corp, N, Stewart, T and Walton, I (2012). The Emotional Needs Audit (ENA): a report on its reliability and validity. Mental Health Review Journal, 17, 2, 81–9.
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FAQ

If you can’t find the answer to your question below – please email us at info@humangivens.com and we will get back to you as soon as possible with an answer.

Sales are processed through HG College’s Online Courses Portal. You will receive an email confirming your purchase which will include the details you need to access the replay. The replay is accessed via the HG College Online Courses Portal.

You will get unlimited access to the replay so you can watch all the presentations in your own time. You can also revisit any of the content whenever you wish. 

Yes. Once you have completed viewing all the sessions you will then be able to download your CPD certificate issued by the Human Givens Institute.

If you are a professional working with people affected by addiction in any way and are keen to be able to offer better, swifter help, you will gain invaluable insights and practical guidance by attending.

The event also includes a wealth of useful information for anyone who has personally been affected by addiction who wants to learn more about its causes and how to prevent it, or for you if you have a loved one or friend suffering from an addiction and you want to learn more about what might be driving it and be able to direct them towards the most effective help.

This online event is a unique opportunity for you to benefit from the considerable experience of our speakers.

There is a lot of information available online; the following links are a good place to start:

If you, or someone you know, is struggling right now, please visit our register of human givens therapists to find your nearest one: www.hgi.org.uk/find-therapist  

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Joe Griffin

Joe Griffin

Co-founder of the human givens approach

Joe Griffin is a psychologist with many years’ experience both in psychotherapeutic practice and in training psychotherapists. His influence on psychotherapy has been enormous among those who value effectiveness above all. Over the last two decades, as co-developer of the human givens approach to psychology and behaviour, thousands of health professionals have enjoyed his practical workshops and seminars on brief therapy for treating anxiety related disorders, depression, trauma and addiction. Many of these can be watched online.

Since it is widely recognised that much mental distress comes from work related stress he is increasingly in demand by businesses to help them run more effectively by taking account of the innate needs of customers, employees, suppliers, owners and shareholders.

For many years the educational director of the Human Givens College, he is at the leading edge of skills-based therapy research and practice. He is widely recognised as one of the most informed and entertaining speakers on human behaviour and is also co-author, with Ivan Tyrrell, of numerous books and publications.

Dr Aric Sigman - Speaker

Dr Aric Sigman

Psychologist, researcher, writer and mental health educator

Dr Aric Sigman lectures in child health education and publishes peer-reviewed medical papers on child health and development subjects including excessive discretionary screen time, screen dependency disorders and preventing alcohol use disorders in children. His paper on excessive discretionary screen time is published in the Nature research journal Pediatric Research, other papers include ‘Screen Dependency Disorders: a new challenge for child neurology’ published in the Journal of the International Child Neurology Association, and Virtually Addicted published in the Royal College of General Practitioners’ British Journal of General Practice. A peer-reviewed paper on preventing alcohol use disorders is currently in press with BMJ. He has travelled extensively to observe various cultures including North Korea, Turkmenistan, Republic of Congo, Bhutan, Mali, Borneo, Tonga, Myanmar (Burma), Irian Jaya (West Papua), Laos, Iran, Vietnam, Bolivia, Burkina Faso, Far Eastern Siberia, Sumatra, South Korea, Cambodia, Chile, Philippines, Jordan, Mongolia, Japan, China, Uganda and India. He is a peer reviewer for the medical journals Acta Paediatrica, Preventive Medicine, and the Nature research journal Pediatric Research. He is a member of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on a Fit and Healthy Childhood and contributing author to its 4 recent reports on children’s mental health. He is the author of five books on health and development topics including Getting Physical, which won The Times Educational Supplement’s Information Book Award. For further information visit: www.aricsigman.com
Ros Townsend - Speaker

Ros Townsend

HG College tutor and HG practitioner

Ros Townsend is an experienced psychotherapist and supervisor with a busy online practice where she combines private therapy work with referrals from Occupational Health and the NHS. She has a special interest in working with those affected by psychological trauma and has worked extensively with members of the blue-light services, survivors of domestic abuse, and with military veterans through the veterans charity PTSD Resolution, of which she is also a Trustee. She is author of the highly regarded self-help book, ‘PTSD: Understanding and Recovery’.

Before training as a therapist through the Human Givens College, Ros’s background was in teaching, and, alongside her therapy practice, her passion is for ensuring that good quality information for those in need of support is available, when most needed, in accessible and effective form. She lives in Cornwall with her two children, and when not working enjoys walking the cliffs, swimming in the Cornish sea, reading and mountaineering.

Emily Gajewski - Speaker

Emily Gajewski
SROT, HG.Dip.P, MHGI

HG College tutor and HG practitioner

Emily Gajewski has worked in mental health services in the NHS and privately, for over 25 years as an Occupational Therapist and since 2001 as a Human Givens Therapist. In her NHS work She was most recently employed as a Lead Occupational Therapist in Sussex and has developed and managed specialised services for treating severe and complex mental health difficulties and has a interest helping those who self harm.

She lectures nationally on the subject of self harm and She has also co-authored a self help book ‘49 ways to think yourself well‘ based on Human Givens Principles. Emily loves teaching on part 1 of the human givens diploma and relishes nurturing and mentoring new therapists through supervision.

Mandy Cooper - Speaker

Mandy Cooper
MSc (Psych), BSc (Hons) (Psych), HG.Dip, GradCert, GMBPsS, MACC (Reg), MNCS (Accred), RQTU (Psych)

Chief Executive of Bayberry Clinic

Mandy Cooper has been Chief Executive of Bayberry Clinics (UK) for over 10 years. She holds an MSc in Organisational Psychology (Birkbeck, University of London), a first-class honours degree in Psychology, an HG Diploma, a GradCert in Philosophy and Ethics (Harvard), and is qualified to deliver BPS accredited psychometric testing. Mandy has also studied bio-technology and the clinic’s inhouse facility is developing and implementing the use of technology to support wellbeing.

Based in England, with three clinics near Birmingham, Bayberry offers short term (10 days to 6 weeks) residential treatment for alcohol/substance use and mental health, based very much along human givens lines. Mandy’s interaction with clients is usually related to complex in-patient cases; she also provides clinical supervision, clinical training and writing programmes, books and articles on a variety of subjects.

Bayberry clinics are a family organisation – Mandy’s husband and two of their sons are also HG practitioners; they have a team of 40 staff. “We believe that we are the only residential facility in the world that underpins our programme with the Human Givens model” Mandy says, “We see our organisation as positively disruptive – pioneering changes that have been emulated throughout this sector – including working with the University of Warwick on the neurobiology of the environment, as it relates to wellbeing.

“Our organisation sits in an interesting space in the sector – allowing us to work with clinicians to support clients during acute phases (such as with problematic alcohol or substance use, or mental health crises) that require rapid intervention (detox or stabilisation of an acute issue) before being discharged back to the care of their therapist and GP.”

Jenny Wakelin - Speaker

Jenny (Jennifer) Wakelin
PhD., Dip.Psych., MHGI

Psychologist, Human Givens Practitioner and Trainer, Netherlands

Based in the Netherlands since 2012, Jenny Wakelin now works independently as a human givens practitioner, psychologist and trainer with particular interest in treating addictions, depression, anxiety disorders and trauma. She is a certified HG Supervisor and past president of the Dutch Society for Human Givens.

Prior to this, she spent many years as a psychotherapist and supervisor in a health-service Addiction Clinic (Tactus) and also worked as an ‘after-care’ counsellor for Castle Craig Clinic. In 2004 Jenny became associated with a (now national) self-help group set-up by families and friends of addicts. Through these experiences she became aware of their suffering as they are largely ignored by the health services.

She started her working life as a Clinical Research Physiologist at Guy’s Hospital (University of London, UK) where she gained a PhD., and subsequently worked as a Research Fellow in the Department of Vascular Surgery at Downstate Medical Centre, State University of NY, USA.

After a long stint in psychiatric research, particularly in the fields of depression and anxiety, she became aware of the limitations of pharmacotherapy. Patients often relapsed, having returned to unchanged social environments and repeated old behaviours. This motivated her to study psychology and subsequently to the discovery of the Human Givens approach – which she calls “a significant milestone in my life!” She qualified as a human givens practitioner in 2007.