What Are Your Core Emotional Needs? (Schema Therapy)

Emotional core needs are fundamental, universal and non-negotiable ... and often confused with wants. This is the first in a series of articles on Understanding Core Emotional Needs.

Needs are fundamental, universal and non-negotiable. A large body of research indicates that the ongoing frustration of core emotional needs detrimentally affects childhood development and leads to immediate long-term on physical and psychological well-being.

System of Needs - Maslow Humanistic psychologist, Abraham Maslow outlined a range of needs that is beautifully captured and reframed (in the way Maslow originally conceptualised his work) by Professor Scott Barry Kaufman, in his book Transcend. Kaufman's aim is to promote the field of humanistic psychology by revisiting and upgrading the work of Abraham Maslow. Maslow's "hierarchy of needs," which was later turned into a pyramid "by a management consultant in the sixties" (xxix), became famous as a way of understanding both the bare necessities of healthy living as well as "higher" modes of being such as self-actualization.

Kaufman's research reveals that, toward the end of his life, Maslow realized that self-actualization wasn't the upper limit of human potential, and "became convinced that healthy self-actualization is actually a bridge to transcendence" (xiv).

Kaufman's starting point is to examine how best to get people to live more in what Maslow called the "Being-Realm," or "B-realm" for short. This is accomplished primarily by approaching life with a mindset focused on growth rather than deficiency. Kaufman suggests that thinking about one's life journey as a sailboat (reflected in the figure below) - rather than a pyramid of needs - cutting across a vast ocean can help us access the B-realm with more consistency and ease:

Need for Safety

The need for safety is tied to a particular form of meaning in life. Psychologists have identified three different forms of meaning: coherence, purpose, and mattering. Purpose involves a motivation to realize future-oriented and valued life goals. Mattering consists of the extent to which people feel that their existence and actions in the world are significant, important, and valuable.

Need for Connection

The need for connection actually consists of two subneeds: (a) The need to belong, to be liked, to be accepted, and (b) The need for intimacy, for mutuality, for relatedness.

Need for Self-esteem

The most important attitude we have may be the attitude we have toward ourselves. A basic sense of self-worth and confidence in the effectiveness of our actions provides a fundamental foundation for growth. Self-esteem is one of the strongest correlates of life satisfaction (although the strength of the correlation differs based on culture), and low self-esteem is one of the biggest risk factors for depression.

Need for Exploration

People who score high in the general tendency toward exploration are not only driven to engage in behavioral forms of exploration but also tend to get energized through the possibility of discovering new information and extracting meaning and growth from their experiences. These 'cognitive needs,' as Maslow referred to them, are just as important as the other human needs for becoming a whole person."

Need for Love

To have the capacity to give love to those whom we don't even have direct contact with, or feel a personal connection to, is a major pathway to a life of greater health, vitality, meaning, and growth as a whole person, not to mention a way of feeling more secure.

Need for Purpose

The need for purpose can be defined as the need for an overarching aspiration that energizes one's efforts and provides a central source of meaning and significance in one's life. Having a purpose often causes a fundamental reordering of the most central motives associated with the self. Things that once preoccupied you suddenly cause you little concern and may even seem trivial.

Needs: Deci and Ryan

Self-Determination is a theory of human motivation developed by psychologists Edward Deci and Richard Ryan Motivation, in this context, is what moves us to act. The theory looks at the inherent, positive human tendency to move towards growth, and outlines three core needs which facilitate that growth. Those needs are Autonomy, Competence and Relatedness:

1) Competence – need to feel like we've done a good job.

2) Autonomy – need to feel like we have control over what we do.

Relatedness – need to have meaningful relationships and interactions with other people).

Needs: Jeffrey Young

Dr Jeffrey Young Jeffery - founder of Schema Therapy - conceptualised five basic needs:

• Secure attachments to others (includes safety, stability, nurturance, and acceptance).
• Autonomy, competence, and sense of identity.
• Freedom to express valid needs and emotions.
• Spontaneity and play.
• Realistic limits and self-control

Young believes that these needs are universal. Everyone has them, although some individuals have stronger needs than others.

A psychologically healthy individual is one who can adaptively meet these core emotional needs. The interaction between the child's innate temperament and early environment results in the frustration, rather than gratification, of these basic needs.

The goal of schema therapy is to help people find adaptive ways to meet their core emotional needs. All of our interventions are means to this end.

A Simplified Model of Needs

Roediger, Stevens and Brockman provides a simplified model of needs that integrate Maslow, Deci & Ryan and Young.

They present a models that describes the needs for attachment (connection or relatedness) and assertiveness (autonomy, competence and control) as poles in the psychological, physiological and social orientation of the person. This is provided in more detail in the table below.

Attachment and assertiveness have an inverse relationship with one another: the more you strive for attachment, the more you have to sacrifice assertiveness and autonomy, and vice versa. The aim is for good and flexible balance between them - this can be difficult.

Alarm System

When we feel individually threatened, or when our attachment needs are constantly frustrated, our alarm system gets activated, providing us with the energy to fight or flee. If we are energetic and strong enough, being excluded or dominated can create a secondary anger, driving us to stand up for our rights. Thus we can try standing on our assertiveness leg in order to get the situation under control. Successful social interaction is based on a good and flexible balance between these two poles of human behaviour.

My next article will focus on How Are Needs and Basic Emotions Connected.

Psychological, physiological & social orientation Assertiveness Attachment

Activated autonomic system Sympathetic branch - flight or fight Parasympathetic (vagal branch) - restore the body to calmness and composed state)

Focus of attention Outward directed Inward directed

Physiological reaction type Activation of the alarm system Calming down, recreation

Social tendency Autonomy and competence Connecting. relatedness

Type of breathing Into the chest Into the belly

Metabolic tendency Exhaustion Regeneration

Motoric tendency Expansive activation Receptive reaction

Social tendency Self-centred, being dominant Prosocial, seeking harmony

Tendency to react Fight or flight Cooperation up to submission

Active child pole if threatened Angry child Vulnerable child

Direction of inner critic mode Directed to others Directed to self

Direction of action Externalising Internatlising

Coping style Alloplastic - changing the environment Autoplastic - changing onself

Parenting style Paternal - trains self soothing Maternal - soothes directly

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