Five Vital Needs: A Pathway to Understanding Ourselves
Click here to see the companion graphic to the five vital needs blog post.
Safety/Security: I am protected, physically and emotionally.
Connection/Belonging: I am loved, I have a “secure base”
Esteem/Respect: I am valuable, I am respected
Power/Autonomy: I have control over my choices, I am empowered
Balance/Fulfillment: I balance self-care with other-care; compassion with accountability
Whether we ascribe to Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, Glasser’s Choice Theory Basic Needs, or John Bowlby’s Attachment Theory Needs, we understand each human soul has certain vital needs. When working with clients from a nonjudgmental stance, it is especially helpful to look at an individual’s behaviors, both healthy and unhealthy, as ways of protecting their vital needs. I often see clients struggling to protect themselves, especially in the context of these vital needs, and suffering because these unhealthy protections harm them and create difficulties for them in their most important relationships.
Understanding the vital needs helps a client learn how to be true to themselves as they grow in their capacity for healthy protection.
When a client is using denial, it is important to the healing process to increase the client’s awareness of the vital need they may be protecting, albeit an unhealthy and false sense of protection. A client may have had to use denial growing up to survive in an abusive environment; they may be protecting their vital need for Connection & Belonging. “It’s my fault I’m being abused” may feel safer to a child’s mind than “I have no one to love me.” As they look at their vital needs, the client can safely look within and more deeply integrate why they may have taken on this false protection. The client may spark with a new insight: “Oh, now I understand: The need is vital and valid! The unhealthy protection I habituated at a younger stage of development or that I perhaps even saw modeled by my family system needs an update for healthier and more fulfilling relationships with myself and others!” Understanding the vital needs helps a client learn how to be true to themselves as they grow in their capacity for healthy protection.
Here are the five vital needs I have most often seen in my work with clients:
Safety & Security: The vital need for safety and security is multifaceted and can be best summarized as a sense of physical and emotional safety. The components of physical safety include a safe shelter, where I have sufficient food and clothing. Physical safety also incorporates safety from physical abuse, i.e., safety from being beaten or watching someone else being physically harmed. Emotional safety means safety from being demeaned, criticized, yelled at, or verbally abused. Emotional safety means I have enough space to be my own self and safely explore my world in a way that is unique to me. A rigid environment creates unbending expectations for compliance and does not allow space for an individual to express themselves, explore their environment, and learn from mistakes. “You are right if you do it my way and wrong if you don’t” might be the message in a tightly constrained environment. Imagine going through childhood and adolescence integrating a sense of “I’m wrong” if I do a task my way. Maslow incorporates this idea for safety and security in his first two hierarchies as “Biological and physiological needs” and “Safety needs.” Glasser names this need for safety as “Survival.”
Connection & Belonging: Connection is best defined as having a “secure base”, a place where I belong and am accepted for who I am. John Bowlby, in his book entitled The Secure Base(1988, p. 46)states, “the secure personal base, from which a child, an adolescent, or an adult goes out to explore and to which he returns from time to time, is one I have come to regard as crucial for an understanding of how an emotionally stable person develops and functions all through his life.” A secure base provides a feeling of nurture, love, attunement, and caring for a human soul. A secure base is an essential component for healthy exploration in the development of a unique individual. Maslow labels this need for connection and belonging in his third hierarchy “Love and belongingness.” Glasser states this basic need as “Love & belonging.”
Esteem & Respect: The need for esteem and respect is best defined as a vital need to feel important, valued, and respected, especially by our most important attachment figures. An abusive, detached, or habitually disrespectful primary caregiver or environment will often thwart a sense of value and importance and often instills a sense of being worthless or bad. Maslow names this vital need in his fourth hierarchy as “Esteem.” Glasser incorporates this basic need under his category of “Power,” which includes a sense of significance and competence.
If individuals feel trapped in a no-win situation, powerlessness or hopelessness can develop, most often accompanied by depression and anxiety.
Power & Autonomy: The vital need for power and autonomy is deeply integrated into the sense of knowing self (identity) and being true to self. Power is defined here as being able to make choices and to impact your life toward a positive outcome. An important part of this vital need is a sense of autonomy, which means being able to express self in a unique way. One of the most damaging dynamics in a family system or community is the double bind, where no matter which choice I make, I lose my sense of self or will experience a negative outcome. If individuals feel trapped in a no-win situation, powerlessness or hopelessness can develop, most often accompanied by depression and anxiety. The need for power and autonomy is seen throughout the lifespan as a desire to be a unique self and to know self. Maslow incorporates the need for independence and autonomy in his fourth hierarchy “Esteem.” Glasser expresses these vital needs in two of his basic areas, both “Power” and “Freedom.”
Balance & Fulfillment: The vital need for balance is the emotional equivalent to the physical need for homeostasis. Our bodies maintain a very essential state of balance internally to create stability in body temperature, glucose levels, fluid volume, etc. Likewise, we need a healthy balance in our behaviors, especially in our responses to environmental stimuli in order to thrive individually. We need to find healthy balance between self-care and other-care, for example. If there is an imbalance toward self-care, or what the self needs, then others’ needs are overlooked or ignored, with severe consequences to relationships and overall fulfillment in life. If there is an imbalance toward other-care, the individual neglects self and may become run down or resentful, again with severe negative consequences.
Another example is the balance between compassion and accountability. If an individual is imbalanced toward compassion, oftentimes the result is an enabling of unhealthy behaviors, with ensuing negative consequences. If a person is imbalanced toward accountability with little or no compassion, there is an expectation for perfection or a harsh attitude when mistakes are made. Other examples of balance needed for a healthy life is the balance between structure and flexibility, the balance between activation and relaxation, and the balance between leading and following.
While balance is essential for healthy living, another important part of this vital need is the sense of fulfillment, in and of itself. However defined by the individual, there is a yearning for a sense of wholeness or fulfillment in life. A person thrives in an environment where they experience accomplishment, joy, growth, and satisfaction, again, as uniquely defined by the individual. Stagnation, rigidity, or apathy leave a soul dry and withered. Maslow expressed this vital need for balance and fulfillment in the fifth hierarchy as “Self-actualization.”Glasser incorporates these vital areas of need under “Power” and “Fun.”
Click here to see the companion graphic to the five vital needs blog post.
