Looking at Needs

In a post that I wrote last fall (9/2/08) I talked about Maslow's hierarchy of needs. Briefly, his list was:

• Physiological needs
• Safety and security needs
• Love and belonging needs
• Esteem needs
• And what he called 'Self-Actualization' needs

A critic of his is Chilean economist Manfred Max-Neef, who has a non-hierarchical list of what he refers to as Fundamental Human Needs:

• subsistence,
• protection,
• affection,
• understanding,
• participation,
• leisure,
• creation,
• identity and
• freedom.

As I look at Maslow's and Manfred Max-Neef's lists, I don't see them as that different. So I am going to start with what I will call M3N3: the Modified Maslow/Max-Neef Needs Notation:

• Physiological/subsistence needs
• Safety/security/protection needs
• Love/affection/belonging needs
• Esteem and understanding needs
• Participation and involvement needs
• Leisure/rest/recovery needs
• Artistic and creativity needs
• Identity needs
• Freedom needs

(I think Maslow's need for Self-Actualization would include Max-Neef's creation, identity, and freedom needs.)

I wrote my own list of needs in my post of 9/4/09. I am going to integrate them in the lists that follow.

Let's look more closely at these needs. What do they actually consist of? Let me break them down into what I see as the specifics of each:

• Physiological/subsistence needs

What are our most basic needs? (Even Max-Neef admits that these take priority.) My list:

• Air
• Water
• Food
• Warmth
• Temporary (at least) shelter
• Emergency medical care
• Ways to deal with our waste products

• Safety/security/protection needs

What do we need in order to be safe and secure on an ongoing basis? I think we need the following:

• Land
• Permanent shelter
• Regular access to medical care
• People we can rely on when we need help (a basis for community)

We also need protection from (and, if possible the elimination of):

• War
• Crime
• Violence of any kind (including rape, verbal abuse, and any kind of intimidation)
• Poverty (ie, a situation where we can't get our needs met)
• Pollution
• Inequalities of all kinds

• Love/affection/belonging needs

What do we need to feel loved and connected?

• Touch and affection (sex is in here, but also nonsexual connection)
• Intimacy (a special closeness--sometimes physical, sometimes emotional)
• Friendship (people we can count on)
• Family (people we define as family--supportive people that we can communicate with)
• Community (a group of people where we belong)
• Social Gatherings

• Esteem and understanding needs

What do we need so we feel respected and understood, as well as being able to understand others and the world?
Esteem includes:

• Self-esteem and self-respect, a sense of confidence
• Respect from others (To be accepted and valued by others)
• Respect for others
• A sense of achievement, a feeling of being useful

This also includes systems of:

• Education and
• Communication

• Participation and involvement needs

In order to feel useful, we need to be useful and in order to do that we need:

• Meaningful work
• Energy to accomplish the work
• Organization (people willing to do the work and willing to work together)
• Transportation
• Trade (of some sort)

• Leisure/rest/recovery needs

What do we need to keep going?

• Time for (and a safe place to) sleep
• Recuperation time
• Healing time
• Connections with nature
• Spiritual connections
• Challenging (non-work) activities

Finally, I think the last three are single focused and self-explanatory (the Self-Actualization needs):

• Artistic and creativity needs
• Identity needs
• Freedom needs

I intend to do a post on each of these specific needs, outlining what we need of each and how we can meet those needs. That's forty-three more posts. There is the next segment of this blog.


Quote of the Day: “Keep high aspirations, moderate expectations, and small needs...” - William Howard Stein