The new 'ERA' approach

Emotional Resilience in Action (ERA) is an approach which has been designed to enable people to move quickly and effectively from a place of feeling ‘held back’ or ‘not good enough’ to a place where they are ‘resilient’ and making the most effective use of their resources.

Based on the organising idea of the Human Givens approach, which looks at our ‘emotional needs’ and ‘emotional resources’, individuals can learn how to get their needs met as well as how to better deploy and utilise their innate resources. This is the mainstay of resilience.

The ERA approach can be used to help people across all areas of their lives, for example, their personal goals and wishes; career or business lives and relationships.

There are three levels to the ERA approach:

Level one - At this level, individuals can be taught ways in which they can better get their needs met and deploy their resources. Tools and techniques can then be learned whereby individuals first become calm, and then proactively take command of their life. This will make it easier for the individual to move towards the place of resourcefulness. Teaching can be given either in a one to one counselling session or as part of a group counselling programme.

Level two - Next, individuals can begin to practice the new learning as part of a group or with their counsellor, whilst the new tools are becoming more familiar to them. At this level they may still find that ongoing support is needed to guide them, as they become more confident in using the ERA tools.

Level three - At mastery level, individuals feel that the learning they have gained has become embedded and so it will feel more like natural behaviour. They will feel at ease with taking action in their life which is now more self-guided. At this stage an individual may find it useful, as they step up to receive some additional counselling, to move life forwards again.