FAQs

The Human Givens Diploma was originally designed for people already working in mental health, education or social services, who would like to develop their skills, knowledge and effectiveness, but because the course deals with fundamental issues that affect all human beings, and the approach provides a highly practical framework for improving emotional health and wellbeing, other professions – such as education, social work, business consultancy, parenting programmes, physical health, chaplains, diplomacy, back-to-work schemes and more – find it hugely beneficial too.

The course is presented in clear jargon-free language, so anyone wishing to embark on a career in counselling or psychotherapy for the first time will  find it easy to understand as well as beneficial. This accessibility, and the flexibility of the part-time course structure, enables anyone with the appropriate aptitude to progress through the Diploma at a pace that suits them.

People from a wide range of caring professions have taken the Diploma, including: counsellors, psychiatric nurses, psychiatrists, clinical psychologists, speech therapists, psychotherapists, consultant physicians, occupational therapists, childcare managers, teachers, police counsellors, family court welfare officers, drug project managers, nurses, GPs, youth workers, social workers, addiction counsellors, complementary therapists, community development consultants and midwives (you can read some of their comments here).

The appeal of the Human Givens Diploma is reaching far and wide – English speaking professionals have come from all over the world to attend, including: America, Brasil, Canada, France, Italy, Malta, Scandinavia, Ireland and South Africa, as well as from Scotland, Northern Ireland, England and Wales. The United Nations have sent someone on the course and in 2017 the Diploma was taught in America for the first time.

No. Although our courses are primarily for the caring professions, all of our training is presented as clearly as possible without jargon so that anyone who is interested in the subject matter, whether for professional or personal reasons, can benefit from the material covered. 

Human Givens College is dedicated to spreading high quality information about mental health and wellbeing to as many people as possible, worldwide.

Yes. The Human Givens Institute – which holds the register of human givens therapists – was one of the six organisations, along with BACP, UKCP and NCS, involved in developing the SCoPEd framework, which was officially adopted by them all in February 2023.

Work is now being carried out by each organisation to identify appropriate pathways for their own members to enable individuals to transition between the SCoPEd framework’s 3 columns, given the appropriate training and experience.

Human Givens College is working closely with the HGI to ensure that all graduates of the Human Givens Diploma will have routes open to them to transition between the 3 columns. Further information on this will be shared with Diploma graduates (who are HGI members) later in the year.

We’ve designed the Diploma to be as flexibile as possible so you can fit it in around your other commitments and work through it at a pace that suits you.

Students typically take between 1.5—3 years to complete the training and associated therapeutic practice, depending on their previous professional experience, aptitude and individual circumstances. We recommend that you take plenty of time to thoroughly absorb what you are learning and to practice your new skills as often as possible. Some elements of the training are completed online, the rest is taught in person. Students are also expected to carry out home study, including a reading list, and therapeutic practice under close supervision with an HGI-accredited supervisor.

Once you’ve successfully passed Part 2, you have two years in which to take and pass Part 3 to become a fully qualified human givens practitioner. If you go over that time, you will need to retake some of the training, please contact the office for details.

You must have completed all of Part 1 before attending the first week of Part 2.

For full details of the fees for all 3 parts of the Diploma course, click here.

Yes, once you’ve successfully passed your Part 3 assessment, you are eligible to join the Human Givens Institute as a Registered Member and be entered on the HGI’s Professional Register. The HGI’s register is independently accredited in the UK by the Professional Standards Authority – the same organisation that accredits BACP, the National Counselling Society, UKCP and others.

• Find out more

The human givens approach is a genuinely holistic joined-up approach, which takes into account the biological, psychological and social factors of a person’s life. It is informed by the very latest research from various disciplines, including neuroscience, which it combines with a powerful ‘tool box’ of the most effective therapeutic skills and psychological interventions to help people move on in their lives as quickly as possible, ancient wisdom and unique insights of its own.

It is a highly respectful, humane and down-to-earth approach, which empowers people by giving them the knowledge and skills to maintain their own mental health and enables therapists to work creatively, tailoring their therapeutic interventions to each individual.

Also see:

• What makes the human givens approach different?
• Research findings
• Benefits of the human givens approach
• Case histories
• Success stories

Many counselling and psychotherapy training courses – even at degree level – fail to give people enough information and skills to be really effective. This lets down the increasing numbers of people seeking help for psychological distress, sometimes harms people (for example, some approaches unintentionally make depression worse) and wastes time and money. This diploma course was created to provide that missing knowledge and to teach the necessary skills so people can be genuinely more effective at helping others.

It is a scientifically sound, skills-based qualification, which enables practitioners to tailor their therapeutic interventions to each individual client, young or old.

Also see:

• How human givens differs from other therapy approaches
• How a human givens therapist can help
• Research into the efficacy of the human givens approach
• Accreditation

To be accredited to practice as a human givens practitioner you need to complete the Human Givens Diploma to Practitioner Assessment Level – what we call Part 3. You can read more about this by clicking here.

To become a fully-qualified Human Givens practitioner you need to have successfully completed all 3 parts of the HG Diploma training with Human Givens College and fulfilled the HGI’s criteria for Registered Membership.

However, some people take the Diploma up to Part 2 level to benefit from its unique insights, and the key psychological understandings and effective therapeutic skills it gives them, so that they can incorporate them into their own field of work. Others have taken the Diploma up to Part 2 for their own personal interest and development.

No. One of the many myths that grew up in the field is that practitioners need to undergo many hours of psychotherapy or counselling themselves. We are clear about this ‘requirement’. Extensive research shows conclusively that therapists who have personal counselling are not more effective.^1,2 Moreover, the type of counselling that many trainees are required to undergo can actually be harmful to them.^3,4

People only need counselling or therapy when their lives aren’t working. Just as we only need to take medicine when we are ill – and then in the right quantity, and at the right time, from someone who really understands our condition. What you need to become a therapist or counsellor is intelligence, aptitude, spare capacity and life experience.

1. People do not need counselling before doing counselling: The objective evidence for this view is overwhelming. See Russell, R. (1993), Report on Effective Psychotherapy: Legislative Testimony. Hilgarth Press, which was later endorsed by the American Psychological Association.

2. See also Hogan, D.B. The Regulation of Psychotherapists, 4 vols. Ballinger.

3. Dawe, R. M. (1994). House of Cards: Psychology and psychotherapy built on myth. Simon & Schuster.

4. Dineen, T. (1996). Manufacturing Victims: What the psychology industry is doing to people. Robert Davies.

No, we do not recommend this. Your learning overall will be improved by taking the Part 2 course separately and each having your own space to process your learning. With your partner there, inevitably some of your attention will be drawn to them, leaving you less mental space to learn. We are also aware from experience that having a couple in the room can affect the dynamics of the student group as a whole, which can impact on everyone’s learning experience. During therapeutic practice work, students sometimes work with issues, share information or come to realisations about themselves and/or their lives, which might put themselves, their fellow students or their partner in an awkward or conflicting position. To avoid these ethical conflicts and to ensure everyone can learn to their potential we strongly recommend students do not undertake Part 2 or Part 3 with their partners.

8 of the Part 1 diploma-linked courses are available online – these give you the opportunity to learn from the co-founders of the human givens approach, Joe Griffin and Ivan Tyrrell, and to complete some of the required elements remotely.

There is increasing international interest in the human givens approach and 8 of the Part 1 courses, as well as several others, are available online to help more people access the beneficial information and techniques we teach.

Some students travel to the UK to complete the remaining in-person elements of the Diploma (we have created two ‘fast track’ weeks of Part 1 courses to help people complete lots of courses at once), but we appreciate that this isn’t possible for everyone.

We have taken our training to the USA, and also run a bespoke Part 1 and Part 2 course in the UK for a group of students who flew in together from South America. We try to be as accommodating and flexible as possible and are always open to suggestions from groups who would like to do this type of training, whether in the UK or abroad – please contact us if you would like to discuss your training requirements.

Even if you have previously taken other psychotherapy or counselling courses, or taken a psychology degree, we still require you to attend all parts of the Human Givens Diploma course. This is because, not having assessed other training, we cannot vouch for the quality of what you have been taught.

The psychological skills and information we teach are incredibly effective, but also very powerful and must be used with care, it is therefore essential that you complete and practise all elements of the Diploma course.

To ensure you get the most out of our training, we recommend, wherever possible, that you take the Part 1 courses in the order shown here.

It is particularly important that you attend the Guided Imagery workshop before attending the The Rewind Technique 2-day workshop.

Work-based placements are not currently a mandatory aspect of the course, but we actively encourage our students to get as much practical experience as possible and to continually practise their new skills, either in their own current place of work, or through voluntary positions.

The opportunity for these sometimes come up in practices where human givens therapists are already working, and the HGI has a nationwide network of HG therapist peer-groups who can help students with advice on finding suitable practical experience if needs be.

Every course that makes up Part 1 of the Diploma has a set of accompanying notes, which complement the training.

There is also a fascinating reading list for Part 2 (none of which is overly academic) and you are encouraged to start that as soon as you like. Part 2 students receive a comprehensive course manual to read through thoroughly before the attending the first week.

We’re sorry but as we’re not a funded educational establishment we are unable to offer bursaries.

You need to know how to quickly set about treating depression, anger and anxiety disorders, addiction, compulsions, trauma, sexual and relationship problems. The effective counselling checklist produced by the HGI outlines what a member of the public seeking help should expect from any form of counselling or psychotherapeutic intervention.

It can also help counsellors and other health professionals assess whether they need more training to deal with serious emotional distress (by simply asking themselves how confident they feel about doing everything on the list).