Linda Singer M.FETT

of Salisbury Road, Edinburgh

Human Givens Psychotherapist

Linda Singer B.Ed.Hons, HG DipP, MHGI, is a Human Givens Psychotherapist and a Member of The Human Givens Institute. She is currently a Lecturer in Psychology and Human Development, an alcohol addiction counsellor, a bereavement counsellor and a counselling supervisor. Linda specialises in The Human Givens Approach to Counselling. In particular, she specialises in the reduction of anxiety and depression. She runs her practice from The Salisbury Centre - a large Georgian house set in beautiful, organic gardens. A peaceful haven in the middle of the city of Edinburgh.

Address:
The Salisbury Center,
2 Salisbury Road,
Edinburgh,
EH16 5AB

Telephone: (Message Centre) 0845 281 8602

Website: www.humangivenstherapy.com

Email

Linda explains:

We all have basic emotional needs, such as the need for love, security, connection and control, and the self-esteem which arises from feeling competent in different areas of our lives. We also have the innate resources to help us meet these needs including: memory, imagination, problem solving abilities, self-awareness and a range of complementary thinking styles to employ in various different situations. It is these needs and resources together, which are built into our bio­logy, that make up the human givens. When emotional needs are not met or when our resources are used incorrectly, we suffer consider­able distress. And so do those around us. Human givens therapists focus on helping clients identify unmet emotional needs and empowering them to meet these needs by activating their own natural resources in new ways. To do this they use a variety of up-to-date, proven, brief solution­ oriented techniques. Human givens therapy offers effective and practical help for people who are depressed, anxious, phobic, or suffering from trauma, addiction, anger disorders or relationship problems. Human givens therapists like to help clients:

• Reduce anxiety (be it generalised anxiety, panic attacks, fears, phobias, lack of confidence or overwhelming stress and pressure. All can be treated swiftly by a human givens therapist).
• Break the cycle of depression (even chronic depression can often be lifted quickly and the meaning and joy returned to life).
• Resolve trauma (Human Givens therapists are trained to treat post traumatic stress disorder effectively and quickly).
• Manage anger (anger disorders damage health, increase the likelihood of an early death and cause enormous misery among relatives, colleagues and innocent bystanders).
• Stop addictive behaviour (all forms of addiction can be helped; alcohol, drugs, gambling, sex, TV, eating disorders, providing the person wants to make the effort to stop).
• Relieve medical conditions (many conditions such as psoriasis, eczema, asthma, irritable bowel syndrome, chronic pain and migraine, have an emotional component. Stressful events often trigger an outbreak because emotions affect health and vice versa).
• Harmonise relationships (Relationship difficulties are often self-perpetuating because our beliefs and reactions to one another trigger patterns of behaviour which stop us solving them. When couples want to stay together but are having problems, human givens therapists can help).

Human givens counselling is effective because it draws on the findings from psychology and neurobiology about how people really function and international research studies that have established which counselling techniques are most effective. There are hundreds of different counselling and psychotherapy models that people use to try to help others but it has only recently been realised that effective counselling always depends on how attuned the counsellor is to the givens of human nature. Human givens counsellors do not waste time just endlessly listening to you or attempting to dredge up real or imagined miserable memories from the past, since research shows this tends to confuse and upset vulnerable people. Instead they offer practical help that deals with mental and emotional distress in the here and now. They are trained by MindFields College and accredited by ETSI for their competence. They have a reput­able body of knowledge and the necessary skills to help people quickly with a wide variety of psychological difficulties.

Resolving emotional distress; Strong emotions like depression, anxiety, and anger are at the root of why so many people seek help from GPs, counsellors, psycho­therapists or clinical psychologists. At any one time millions of people in the UK suffer from the negative effects of these emotions. Despite their training many professionals are not good at dealing with the disruption that out of control emotions cause their clients. Some common forms of counselling, for example, are known to make depression and anxiety disorders worse. Con­versely, the right type of counselling is known to be more effective than drug treatments for all of these conditions. Human givens therapy is in this category of counselling. Human givens therapists focus on helping clients identify unmet emotional needs and empowering them to meet these needs by activating their own natural resources in new ways. To do this they use a variety of up-to-date, proven, brief solution­ oriented techniques).

Effective Counselling; An effective counsellor or psychotherapist: understands depression and how to lift it, helps immediately with anxiety problems including trauma or fear related symptoms, is prepared to give advice if needed or asked for, will not use jargon or ‘psychobabble’, will not dwell unduly on the past, will be supportive when difficult feelings emerge, but will not encourage people to get emotional beyond the normal need to ‘let go’ of any bottled up problems, may assist you to develop your social skills so that your needs for affection, friendship, pleasure, intimacy, connection to the wider community etc. can be better fulfilled, will help you to draw on your own resources (which may prove greater than you thought), will be considerate of the effects of counselling on the people close to you, may teach you to relax deeply, may help you think about your problems in a new and more empowering way, will use a wide range of techniques, may ask you to do things between sessions, will take as few sessions as possible, will increase your self confidence and independence and make sure you feel better after every consultation, will be able to talk to you about the human givens approach and how the way they work relates to it.