Some Notions of Needs

Volumes have been written on the subject of the needs, the specific requirements for survival of each living creature. The psychologist Abraham Maslow wrote about the Hierarchy of Needs in his seminal 1943 paper, “A Theory of Human Motivation.”

When needs are met, they are as natural and automatic as the heartbeat, respirations, and the metabolic workings of every cell in the body.

Human needs are complex in at least two major ways:

First, we may tune in and be affected by the spirit with which our needs are met in early life. Second, humans have imaginary needs beyond the real ones.  These may or may not serve us well.

In the psychotherapeutic process, the team of client and therapist approach the perceptions of our psychological needs in our relationships with our self and others.

Donald Winnicott’s concept of “good enough” is useful. If our needs for love and safety were met in a “good enough” manner, they don’t impinge on our lives in negative ways.

At first parents must meet all their baby’s needs. The parent or care-taker must balance the infant’s needs with their own. Gradually the parent teaches the child about the needs of others.

 Examining our destructive behavior later in life, we’ll often find it is based on a distortion of our needs. We turn to food, money, or stuff to substitute for what we experienced as lacking.

The hoarder, for instance, accumulates and holds on to “stuff” to substitute for feelings of love and safety he did not experience early in his life. (Please refer to my post, The Paradox of Hoarding, March 25, 2013)

The sociopath (or person with antisocial personality disorder) has not learned to care about others’ needs. (Please look back to the post “Christopher Dorner and Bonnie and Clyde,” February 25, 2013).

The person with psychosomatic problems may not have had the opportunity to recognize and express her needs. (Please refer to the case of Ms Y in the post, “Age and Change,” July 16, 2012).

Conclusion: A major goal in life is to learn to meet our real needs (and distinguish them from imaginary ones) in constructive and creative ways and to recognize the needs of others.

Dear Reader, I welcome your contribution on this complex subject. Jsimon145@gmail.com