"I want it ". Are you sure you need it?

Tonight I am leading a discussion on wants and needs. One of my favourite subjects. 

I'm a member of a women's service organisation called Soroptimists International. This year's project is to organise some workshops using the resources of the club members, which are many and varied. The workshops will be presented, free of charge, to groups in the community, who may find the topics helpful. The idea has grown from some successful workshops on healthcare and first aid, which some members gave to the residents of a women's refuge in Pune, India. 

We will presenting our first workshops to The Young Carers group in York later this year. In order to develop the content, we need to look at the particular needs of the group. ' Wants and Needs' is one of my favourite subjects. Hence the reason I'm leading the discussion tonight.


In 1943 Abraham Maslow, an American Professor of Psychology and founder of Humanistic Psychology, presented his 'Hierarchy of Needs' Most people who have taken business and healthcare studies, will have come across his famous diagram of a pyramid. 
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Maslow%27s_Hierarchy_of_Needs.svg


Maslow's work focused on an idea that a person's mental health is connected with getting their individual needs met. Moving on a few decades and psychologist Joe Griffin and psychotherapist Ivan Tyrrell, began promoting a psychological theory they named, The Human Givens. They had re-visited Maslow's work along with many other psychological theories. 


Griffin and Tyrrell realised that while the needs which Maslow had mentioned were important, perhaps there was no hierarchy in getting them met. They were all as important as each other. Using their experience and research, they fine tuned these needs and called them The Human Givens. It is what every human has been given in order to survive and thrive in the world. 


Needs met healthily = emotional balance. 
Needs not met or met unhealthily = emotionally instability.


Today, someone or some people have won £166,000,000 in the Euro Lottery. It's going to take people of emotional intelligence to be able to manage the win. We are all aware of the many stories of "The Lottery ruined my life.". It's more like as a case of, "What I did with the lottery win, ruined my life."


Material wants make our world a brighter place. They can make us work harder, enjoy attaining them and give us a degree of satisfaction. People who are given some expensive or hard to attain item, are appreciative, but have expressed that they've missed the satisfaction of working to get it. Something will often mean less to us, if the effort in obtaining it has been minimal. Most people, especially young people, if asked to look after something they have worked on or for, will tend to respect and look after it with greater care.


If something has been attained at the expense of getting our emotional needs met, then all may not be well. 


"I don't know what's wrong with me. I have everything I want." "Maybe, but do you have everything you need?" Probably not. We're judgemental too. 'What's wrong with them? They've got everything anyone could want." Want maybe, but need?


A lottery winner takes the cheque, gives up work, moves away from their community to a big house, buys a flash motor or two, has expensive holidays and continually does a great deal of personal shopping. They may find that the money is controlling them and achieving a level of 'happiness' difficult, however much they spend.


Another lottery winner could spend the money in a similar fashion. They may also stay in their community, invest in a business, work with local projects and voluntary work, finance something challenging and plan for a longer term gain. They are in control of their money.


What are these personal needs that should be attended to? Remembering that all these needs can be met unhealthy too.


Basic needs are: food, water, shelter, clothing and money for purchasing the previous four items. Then comes, in no particular order:

• Security in home, work and environment.
• Giving and receiving of attention.
• Feeling in control.
• Being part of a wider community
• A relationship where there is physical and emotional acceptance.
• A sense of achievement that comes from being stretched.
• A feeling of competence in at least one area of life.
• A sense of acknowledged status or feeling good enough.
• Ability to obtain privacy when required.

I have never met anyone with emotional health problems, who doesn't feel that one or more of those needs is missing OR recognises that the need is getting met in an unhealthy way. e.g: the manner of receiving attention is a classic example. 


For emotional health problems, also read mental health problems. Sometimes people diagnosed with 'mental' health problems are actually experiencing emotional health problems. Attending to the patient's needs is ultimately often more helpful than medication. 


These needs come loaded. With emotional memories and expectations. But I can honestly say I have never met anyone who has recovered from a depressive episode, who hasn't done it by changing something in getting their emotional needs balanced. I will return to this subject in greater detail in the future.


I could write a blog on each of those needs and probably will do, as the topics present themselves. But for today I will finish with a prayer I found pinned up in a church. It's challenging, but may provide one answer to the age old question, "Why?"


                      Adapted from a prayer by Swami Vivekananda (1863-1902)  


I asked for strength and I was given difficulties to make me strong.

I asked for wisdom and I was given problems to learn to solve.

I asked for prosperity and I was given brain and brawn to work.

I asked for courage and I was given dangers to overcome. 

I asked for love and I was given troubled people to help.

I asked for favours and I was given opportunities. 

I received nothing I wanted. 

I received everything I needed

      
©RitaLeaman2011