Importance Of  Needs Being Met In Relation To Mental Health

Importance Of Needs Being Met In Relation To Mental Health

Hierarchy is an arrangement that ranks people or concepts from lowest to highest.

According to Maslow, individuals must meet the needs at the lower levels of the pyramid before they can successfully be motivated to tackle the next levels. The lowest four levels represent deficiency needs, and the upper three levels represent growth needs.

Physiological Needs

Notice that the physiological needs are the foundation of the pyramid. Why do you suppose these needs occupy this position?

Maslow suggested that the first and most basic need people have is the need for survival: their physiological requirements for food, water, and shelter.

People must have food to eat, water to drink, and a place to call home before they can think about anything else. If any of these physiological necessities is missing, people are motivated above all else to meet the missing need.

Safety and Security Needs

After their physiological needs have been satisfied, people can work to meet their needs for safety and security. (But the physiological needs must be met first.)

Safety is the feeling people get when they know no harm will befall them, physically, mentally, or emotionally; security is the feeling people get when their fears and anxieties are low.

Love and Belongingness Needs

After the physiological needs and the needs for survival and for safety and security have been met, an individual can be motivated to meet the needs represented at higher levels of the pyramid. The third level of the pyramid are needs associated with love and belonging. These needs are met through satisfactory relationships. Satisfactory relationships imply acceptance by others.

Self-Worth and Self-Esteem Needs

Once individuals have satisfactorily met their need for love and belonging, they can begin to develop positive feelings of self-worth and self-esteem, and act to foster pride in their work and in themselves as people.

It is worth noting that the four levels have to be fulfilled before one gets to the next level. In the event that these levels are not met, people tend to have mental health issues as these are very basic requirements to be in a safe space mentally.

The Need to Know and Understand

The fifth level of Maslow’s pyramid represents an individual’s need to know and understand. According to Maslow’s hierarchy, this motivation cannot occur until the deficiency needs have been met to the individual’s satisfaction.

Aesthetic Needs

Aesthetics refers to the quality of being creatively, beautifully, or artistically pleasing; aesthetic needs are the needs to express oneself in pleasing ways.

The Need for Self-Actualization

At the top of the pyramid is the need for self-actualization, which is a person’s desire to become everything he or she is capable of becoming—to realize and use his or her full potential, capacities, and talents. This need can be addressed only when the previous six have been satisfied.

The Growth Needs

The upper three levels of the pyramid constitute a person’s growth needs. Growth needs can never be satisfied completely. Contrary to the deficiency needs, for which motivation diminishes when a need is satisfied, as growth needs are met people’s motivation to meet those increases. The more these needs are satisfied, the more people want to pursue them.