User talk:MIDaffin/Human Givens

Untitled
I have removed the following sentence from the article:
 * It has a greater measure of scientific respectability than most psychotherapies.

I did so because I could not find sources to support this. I did however find what appears to be some contradictory information, including the source below that quotes Ivan Tyrell, one of the two developers of the framework:
 * The anecdotes are positive, so where’s the evidence? Ivan Tyrrell comments: "People are starting to do it [research]—but we aren’t doing it ourselves. If a plane is flying, you don’t need to keep showing that it’s possible to fly. In the same way we have shown that our method works and it works repeatedly. So it’s up to people who want to provide evidence to do the research."

This state of affairs seems common to many psychotherapeutic techniques. Practitioners develop techniques that they find to work. --Tabor 20:31, 26 July 2005 (UTC)

This whole article sounds like an extract from publicity produced by Mindfields - the commercial organisation who promote the Human Givens approach. It completely lacks any reference to external sources - unsurprisingly, since as far as I am aware no research has been conducted or published on the approach.Kim dent brown 22:50, 15 September 2006 (UTC)


 * I've been trying to find some decent research on Human Givens, but have been unable to do so. The quote above is worrying - "We think it works so we haven't researched it", and contrasts with many other therapies.  (EG CBT, which does have a large body of evidence.) I don't want to go as fas as to say Human Givens is pseudoscience, but is it? 82.33.46.11 15:27, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

The previous comment quotes Tyrrell as saying "We think it works so we haven't researched it" but this is a misquote, it doesn't say "We think", but rather "we have shown". The previous comment cites CBT as having a large body of evidence and the Human Givens approach uses a CBT model which has been brought into line with current research from neuroscience. A great difference between HG and other approaches is that it takes neuroscience and evolutionary biology as it's starting point rather than previous psychological theories. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Beathead (talk • contribs) 19:38, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

afd... references?
maybe put in some peer reviewed reference soon, or throw this up on AfD. Search the first bolded term in the article on just edu sites on Google. As of today there are zero results. --Emesee (talk) 20:37, 24 May 2008 (UTC)

I googled for Human Givens site:ac.uk and found over 400 hits for the phrase on british university websites as of 13 June 2008 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 137.73.104.143 (talk) 10:53, 13 June 2008 (UTC)


 * We do need secondary sources that specifically comment on the Human givens approach to justify this article. At the moment, many of the secondary sources we have actually predate the human givens approach by one or two decades, so their being cited in this article here is inappropriate. If these authors are cited by the originators of the human givens approach, this should be made clear, but we can't use these cites as cites commenting on the human givens approach if that approach had not even been formulated yet when the works were written. Furthermore, we should not rely too much on primary sources (see WP:PSTS). The majority of an article's citations should be secondary sources discussing the article topic. Jayen 466 19:40, 4 April 2009 (UTC)

I am putting this up for prod since not a single independent source is quoted that would support the notability of this. There needs to be at least one reference establishing that the entire field of "human givens" has received attention, even if deprecating, in peer-reviewed literature. Notability seems to depend on that of Mindfields College, for which academic notability has not been established so far. --dab (𒁳) 08:44, 20 April 2009 (UTC)


 * I've started a thread at OR/N: . If any editors are aware of good secondary sources that clearly establish notability and give a good overview of the approach, please post them here. Jayen 466 15:20, 21 April 2009 (UTC)

non-importance of their books
Their core book "Human givens : a new approach to emotional health and clear thinking" is found in only 34 WorldCat libraries. For a summary, see WorldCat identities. Tyrell seems to do a little better but the only significant one is earlier than this movement & not actually on the subject. The only actual 3rd party ref given in the article is Griffin, J. "The Dreamcatcher", New Scientist, April 12th 2003, an interview of him. That might establish some notability, but not enough to support the article as it is. Google News Archive gives a few more--most of them are PR or based on it, but some might just be possible. I note the interesting wording to get around the fact that the college is not itself accredited. There a reference to nomination for an award in the article--I'm not sure of the significance of mere "nomination" for this particular award, and there's no actual reference given. Borderline notable, but the article would need so much rewriting not to be advertising, that I wonder about CSD G11. DGG (talk) 23:54, 25 April 2009 (UTC)
 * This smacks of source padding. After reviewing the sources, it appears that nearly all the third-party sources simply refer to ideas by other professionals upon which the "Human Givens" approach is based. For example: Its theoretical premise is the organising idea that psychological interventions are most effective when allied with a recognition that humans have innate physical and emotional needs[2][3] and The human givens approach can therefore be seen as developing the insights of Abraham Maslow, William Glasser, Edward Deci[5] and Richard Ryan[6]. and The monograph was prefaced by two quotations. The first was from Henri Bortoft, "All scientific knowledge is a correlation of what is seen with the way that it is seen,"[9] and the second from Idries Shah, "The analysis of a situation is one thing, the prescription of the remedy, when indicated, is another. Diagnostic capacity does not prove therapeutic ability. In dealing with human conditions, the procedure almost always has to be specific, not generalised."[10]
 * Also, the following section's references have nothing to do with the "Human Givens" approach except through some tangential connection:


 * 1) Security – safe territory and an environment which allows us to develop fully[22][23]
 * 2) Attention (to give and receive it) – a form of nutrition[24][25][26]
 * 3) Sense of autonomy and control – having volition to make responsible choices
 * 4) Being emotionally connected to others[27][28][29]
 * 5) Feeling part of a wider community
 * 6) Friendship, intimacy – to know that at least one other person accepts us totally for who we are, “warts 'n' all”[30][31]


 * This leaves two references, one to goodtherapy.org and one which refers to being "shortlisted" for a 2008 award, that aren't self-published sources. Wperdue (talk) 16:42, 26 April 2009 (UTC)wperdue


 * I think we are all agreed that there is a problem then. I am leaning towards deletion; we are not here to promote new approaches. If someone would like to recreate a shorter article using a bona fide selection of sources, all well and good. Jayen 466 18:39, 26 April 2009 (UTC)