Belinda specialises in a solution focused approach to counselling for depression and anxiety developed in the UK which  incorporates the best elements of many of the more "standard"  therapies in a way that seems to address the core of depression and anxiety. The "Human Givens" approach focuses on human emotional needs and why they are so very important to our self-concept; our mental and physical well-being and how we make sense of the world around us.        

The "Human Givens" Approach to Mental Health 

The Human Givens approach is often described as the first truly "bio-psycho-social" approach to therapy and counselling as it acknowledges and encompasses the complexity of the human experience in terms of three sets of interwoven needs:

1. "Biological" - at a fundamental level we are living organisms with physical needs & attributes
2. "Psychological" - cognitively highly developed, we have needs that go way beyond our basic biology
3. "Social" - from the time of our earliest ancestors, our survival has depended upon social bonds

These needs are innate and it is our perception of how those needs are being met (or not) that will determine how we feel at any point in time and those feelings act as a filter through which we see and interact with the world around us. 

The bio-psycho-social  view of depression is that it is not an "illness" in the same way that diabetes is but that depression is a persistent low-mood state that can be lifted by identifying and addressing which needs are not being adequately met and by helping you to make use of your own innate resources to create a shift in your emotional state. Similarly, the  excessive worrying or "rumination" which tends to characterise anxiety can be greatly lessened by working with our needs and resources.

This bio-psycho-social view of mental and emotional health underpins the Human Givens approach to depression and anxiety. It is a brief therapy (often only 4-6 sessions) and solution focused and does not require deep analysis of all your life experiences. 

To learn more about this solution-focused approach to therapy based on working with "needs" and "resources", please visit Human Givens Australia. You can also click here for a brief introduction and then also watch the short video clips at the top of this page. You may well find that watching these videos alone will go some way towards helping you to understand why you are feeling depressed and/or anxious even if you then still want to get some  professional help to "join some dots" to start to feel better and that's  OK - we all need a little help sometimes...