Welcome to our October 2009 newsletter.
In this issue:
- 'Healing with Metaphor': HG on BBC Radio 4
- Health Professions Council Consultation Latest
- Back to basics in the Middle East
- The New Economics Foundation's '5 Ways to Wellbeing'
- SPECIAL OFFER for our enewsletter readers
'Metaphor for Healing': HG approach to feature in forthcoming Radio 4 programme
Tuesday 27th October at 9.00pm
Dr Grahame Brown, who teaches the popular MindFields College workshop How to manage pain and accelerate healing was recently interviewed by Dr Phil Hammond for a forthcoming BBC Radio 4 programme entitled 'Healing with Metaphor'.Dr Hammond, who has read Grahame's book, How to liberate yourself from pain (see below), sets out to investigate the transformative power of metaphor. Those familiar with the human givens (HG) approach will, of course, already know about the therapeutic benefits of metaphor and language, but it is only recently being recognised more generally in health care, coaching and therapy as a way of engaging the unconscious to activate self-healing, reclaim optimism and fuel the imagination with the energy necessary to attain goals.
Grahame was able to give lots of examples of how he uses metaphor and therapeutic language with great success in his work with patients suffering sub-acute and chronic musculoskeletal pain as an integral part of the human givens approach.
Health Professions Council Consultation Latest
The Health Professions Council's (HPC) consultation on the Psychotherapists and Counsellors Professional Liaison Group's (PLG) recommendations about the potential statutory regulation of psychotherapists and counsellors is due to close on 16th October 2009. The Human Givens Institute has submitted its response.
If a future government decides to act on the HPC's recommendations and instigate regulation of the fields of psychotherapy and counselling, the HGI intends to apply for voluntary registration of its register of fully-qualified human givens practitioners.
If you would like to find out more about the consultation, including downloadable versions of the documents, visit the Council's website at: www.hpc-uk.org/aboutus/consultations/
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Back to basics in the Middle East
With the surprise announcement last week that Barack Obama has been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, world politics and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict are once more headline news.In their latest posting on The Missing Peace (a blog which looks at the crisis in the Middle East from the human givens approach), John Bell and John Zada discuss the increasing expectation that President Obama will try to bring together Israeli and Palestinian leaders for yet another round of negotiations and look at the one possible approach (which Obama sometimes hints at in his speeches) that might just work.
In The Foundation Stone posting they clearly detail the Israelis' and Palestinians' unmet emotional needs and suggest that acknowledging the existence of these needs is the crucial first step in successfully tackling this intractable and complicated conflict, something that political involvement and negotiators have so far failed to do.
"Israelis and Palestinians would agree beforehand that they both have a common set of human needs that are essential to their future, but that if these needs continue to be unmet, it will simply perpetuate the conflict between them. These fundamental needs underlie and fuel the problems between the two peoples and remain unaddressed because they are intangible by nature and are not traditionally considered in the realm of statecraft."
The authors know what they are talking about - each has spent over 10 years working and living in the region (as a diplomat and journalist respectively). They are keen to promote the understanding that for anything lasting to be achieved both the Israelis and Palestinians must recognise the existence of their shared 'human givens' as a basis for negotiation and propose that such a common foundation between the two sides would provide an objective, emotionless perspective free from argument and spiraling obsession over useless detail.
If you agree, why not forward their blog details to others who might be interested.
(John Bell is also the author of the HG Journal article Common Ground: diplomacy and the human givens.)
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The New Economics Foundation's '5 Ways to Wellbeing'
In 2008, the New Economics Foundation (NEF) was commissioned by the UK Government's Foresight Project and the Institute of Wellbeing at Cambridge to review the inter-disciplinary work of over 400 scientists from across the world. The aim was to identify a set of evidence-based actions to improve wellbeing, which individuals would be encouraged to build into their daily lives.
On 16th September, members of the Human Givens Institute attended a major conference in Norwich which was promoting the resulting evidence-based '5 Ways to Wellbeing' (Connect, Be Active, Take Notice, Keep Learning and Give), which are designed to be as memorable as the Five Fruit and Vegetables a day campaign. These 5 Ways obviously have clear parallels with the emotional needs of the human givens approach to psychotherapy and education first published in 1997 and set out in greater detail in Human Givens: A new approach to emotional health and clear thinking and An Idea in Practice.The speakers at the conference were Prof Felicia Huppert, Director of the Institute of Wellbeing at Cambridge University, the author and educationalist Andrew Willoughby and Nic Marks from the New Economics Foundation. Breakout workshops took place throughout the day on each of the five ways, to generate ideas for using the 5 Ways to improve local communities and strengthen mental wellbeing in individuals.
For more information on the '5 Ways to Wellbeing', please visit the New Economics Foundation website
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SPECIAL OFFER: for our enewsletter readers
Take this opportunity to buy Dr Grahame Brown's best-selling new book, How to liberate yourself from pain, and get the perfect accompanying audio
CD The therapeutic power of guided imagery by Joe Griffin and Ivan Tyrrell for HALF PRICE with no additional postage to pay.
Click here to buy online.
(This offer will be available for a limited period only.)
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One last thought...
"Do not fear the winds of adversity – a kite rises against the wind rather than with it." Anon
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We hope you've enjoyed this latest newsletter. If you feel that a greater awareness of innate human needs and resources is important for society, please tell others about the human givens (HG) approach and perhaps forward this newsletter to them.
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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
You have been sent this email because you subscribed to it, or someone who thought you might like it has subscribed you to it. If you would prefer not to receive it, please email us at: hgi@humangivens.com