Welcome to our latest newsletter! If, like us, you think making people more aware of our innate needs and resources is important for society, please tell others about the human givens (HG) approach and forward this newsletter to them. In this issue: Human givens approach helps turn around failing school New research supports expectation fulfilment theory of dreaming Parent Pods Update New CD by Pat Williams ------------------------------------------------------------------ HG approach helps turn around failing school It's fantastic to be able to report that yet another educational establishment has been dramatically transformed by a human givens diploma graduate. When Sean Pavitt (HG.Dip) was appointed head teacher, Longspee School had been judged by an Ofsted inspection in November 2007 to require special measures. But since then, using ideas informed by the human givens approach, he and his staff have worked hard to improve matters at the special educational needs school for children with severe behavioural, emotional and social difficulties (as well as related difficulties, such as Autistic Spectrum Disorder). One of the first things Sean did was to carry out an Emotional Needs Audit (ENA) with every staff member and whenever difficulties arise with children, parents or staff, he always looks for which emotional needs are not being met in the situation. Mike Beard, another HG Dip graduate who runs the HGI's Education Section, was brought in to give helpful inset HG training days to staff. Their excellent work was clearly recognized by the latest Ofsted inspection (Nov 08). The report is full of praise for the "outstanding progress" that had been made in a variety of areas: "Much has been achieved in the last year, particularly in meeting the pupils' emotional needs and increasing the learning opportunities". Behaviour has also improved: "Most pupils behave well and attend lessons ready to learn. This is a significant improvement from the last inspection". Highlighted as significant factors in this success were "the outstanding leadership of the headteacher and the very clear direction of his leadership team who have an unrelenting focus on raising attainment". ------------------------------------------------------------------ New research into nightmares supports the expectation fulfilment theory of dreaming A recent five year study has found that women have more nightmares than men. Jennifer Parker, who led the study at the University of the West of England, said, "To discover more about women's dreams I asked participants in my project to fill out a structured dream diary. The evidence was collected in a very different way to that used in previous dream analysis projects that largely depended on recall after the dream has happened. The participants in my study were all primed to record their dreams before the dreams happened. I took a sample of 100 women and 93 men. They were aged between 18 and 25 and were predominantly Year 1 Psychology students at UWE." "...it appears that men and women differ in the frequency of nightmares - women have more - and women perceive those nightmares to be more emotionally intense.... I believe these results show that women carry over their waking concerns into their dream life more so than men do, and they appear to have more difficulty with 'switching off' their concerns." These latest research findings are yet more support for Joe Griffin's expectation fulfilment theory of dreaming, which predicts that women would suffer more nightmares than men, since women suffer twice as much from depression, and from more anxiety disorders, than men. The theory states that worries (expectations in the autonomic nervous system) are de-aroused during dreaming, which is nature's stress reducing mechanism for unacted out expectations. If women ruminate more about their feelings during the day, it would make sense that they experience more dreams in order to dearouse these unresolved stresses and that many of these would be anxiety dreams or nightmares. Too much dreaming in the REM state exhausts the motivation circuit in the brain and can induce depression when people wake up feeling exhausted and more tired than when they went to bed. For more information, visit: www.why-we-dream.com ------------------------------------------------------------------ HG Parent Pods Update On 29th January, the National Academy for Parenting Practitioners' new online Commissioning Toolkit went live. Kathy Hardy, Jane Tyrrell and Kim Hirschman from MindFields College were at the well-attended launch at City Hall in London. The new facility, which features the 'Just What We Need' human givens programme for parents, is designed to help parent commissioners when choosing parenting programmes. For more information, visit: www.commissioningtoolkit.org As a result of considerable interest in the benefits of the 'Just What We Need' programme, Sue Saunders (who attended the first pod leader training course last year) has arranged with MindFields College for the training to be run in Dublin in May for Irish HG.Dip. graduates. Although this course is already full, there are still a couple places of left on the next training course for pod leaders and facilitators being held in Milton Keynes on 17th-20th March. If you're interested in attending the March course, which is Open College Network accredited, please email Kathy Hardy. For more information about the course, click here. ------------------------------------------------------------------ New CD: 'Which you are you?' Pat Williams' new audio CD, 'Which you are you? Our many minds and how to manage them, is a fascinating look at the world of what psychologists call our 'sub-personalities'. Whilst eloquently exploring their effect on our behaviour and relationships, Pat shows how a powerful metaphorical approach for managing them can be used in a variety of situations to help people regain control of their lives.  To find out more or order a copy onlines, click here. ------------------------------------------------------------------ One last thought... "Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power." Abraham Lincoln ------------------------------------------------------------------ We hope you've enjoyed this latest edition of the HGI e-newsletter. If someone has forwarded this to you and you would like to continue receiving it, please sign up by clicking here. (To make sure it doesn't end up in your junk mail folder, please add our email address to your address book.) Best wishes Jane Tyrrell Human Givens Institute www.hgi.org.uk Further information: Useful publications: www.humangivens.com Courses and training:www.mindfields.org.uk Talk about the human givens: www.vimeo.com/754995 Registered charity:www.hgfoundation.com Blog: www.mindfields.org.uk/blog Website about depression: www.lift-depression.com