What are Your Basic Needs?

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What are Your Basic Needs?

And are they being met?

During the late 1950s, the psychologist Abraham Maslow coined the term “positive psychology“. The “major mistake of psychology is that it has a pessimistic, negative and limited conception of what people can attain”, he concluded. Accordingly, he formulated “a system” for individual growth that he believed could bring happiness to the American people.

Today, Maslow is best known for his “hierarchy of needs” – a staple of every management manual but did you know that his “positive psychology” theory was dismissed as unscientific by his contemporaries?

There are 5 different levels in Maslow’s hierarchy of needs:

• Physiological Needs
  These include the most basic needs that are vital to survival, such as the need for water, air, food and sleep. Maslow believed that these needs are the most basic and instinctive needs in the hierarchy because all needs become secondary until these physiological needs are met.
• Security Needs
  These include needs for safety and security. Security needs are important for survival, but they are not as demanding as the physiological needs. Examples of security needs include a desire for steady employment, health insurance, safe neighborhoods and shelter from the environment.
• Social Needs
  These include needs for belonging, love and affection. Maslow considered these needs to be less basic than physiological and security needs. Relationships such as friendships, romantic attachments and families help fulfill this need for companionship and acceptance, as does involvement in social, community or religious groups.
• Esteem Needs
  After the first three needs have been satisfied, esteem needs becomes increasingly important. These include the need for things that reflect on self-esteem, personal worth, social recognition and accomplishment.
• Self-actualizing Needs; This is the highest level of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. Self-actualizing people are self-aware, concerned with personal growth, less concerned with the opinions of others and interested fulfilling their potential.

Dawn Pugh expert therapist.

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