The Need To Be Human. Part 1 - Society

The definition and use in psychology of a spiritually-oriented model of basic needs of an individual can be traced back to Maslow's pyramid. Alderfer's theory is also widely known in science. He puts forward three basic needs: the need to exist, the need to communicate with others, the need to grow and develop. His theory has a fundamental difference from Maslow - the movement along the hierarchy can be carried out both from the bottom up and from the top down. Psychologist, priest, anthropologist Andrei Lorgus proposes an author's model of human needs. How does it differ from its predecessors?

In this model, the qualities arising from the anthropological definition of personality, the psychological model of personality, which could describe the experience arising in counseling, psychotherapy of clients and teaching students, through psychological connections and relationships. Let's consider the basic needs for this model. The first and most important of these is being.

Being is the first statement that matters to us. It is about the being of the personality and the fact that the personality is somehow connected with being. And from here arises the author's hypothesis that the personal level of humanity, a person, the personal level of psychology is responsible for being in the broadest sense of the word.

The personality is called upon to affirm being and "serve" it

1. Choice "to be or not to be"

No matter how literary or stereotyped it may sound, each person in one or another existential or even everyday form can have a choice: to be or not to be. This does not mean to live or not to live. This does not mean choosing death, or a large dose of drugs, or anything else. This means an attitude towards your being and towards your death as well.

Well, for example, when a person says (to the same extent I hear both as a priest and as a psychologist): “You know, the simplest thing in my situation is simply to disappear and all problems will be resolved”. Such a quick, rather spontaneous response of a person in certain situations means that for him in the depths of his soul there is no question, for him being is not a problem, for him being is not a task.

In another case, a woman who said the following phrase at a consultation: “They didn't want me.” And then he generalizes: “This world does not want me. I am not required in it. " Here, as you can see from the most everyday situations, a person is faced at this level with a choice - to be or not to be. And this, in fact, is, perhaps, the most fundamental personal question.

2. Desire to be

For some people, the recognition of the fact "Yes, I exist, but I do not want to do this," or: "Do I really have to add myself to this world, to this being?" - or: “Do I really have to take care of myself and, finally, be myself? And who asked me if I want it or not? " Thus, this existential question also needs support on the ontological basis “to be or not to be”.

3. Choosing "Do I accept my being?"

How often - Dostoevsky wrote about this in his "Diary of a Writer" - young people reproached their parents: “Why did you give birth to me? Yes, here I am, unfortunately, but I do not want to be. " And this is also a choice. And I think that many questions, primarily questions of a neurotic personality, about which many books have been written by psychologists, run into this existential choice: does a person choose, does he accept his being and can he lean in his soul, in his main motivations on this fundamental choice.

So, the first fundamental, basic need, which Rollo May wrote about in his book "The Loss of Being", is precisely the need to be

This need is felt by a person not only as a positive aspiration, aspiration to assert oneself. On the contrary, it is felt as a refusal - a refusal to fight for one's being, to assert one's being and in general to apply forces to it. Because for many people this is a problem - where to find the resources to assert themselves in their own inner life, including in the spiritual life.

Thus, it is a fundamental, one might say, central basic need - the need to be. In addition to her, we propose to consider six more basic needs, one way or another related to the need to be: self-worth, involvement, independence, self-realization, security, spirituality.

Read more about these needs in the second part of the article

Based on the materials of the conference “Psychology of the Present. Crises and Resources"