Anakelogy is the study of need

Here, we’re focused on human need. As a broader field of study, all life experiences need.

Expanded further, even planets “need” to revolve around its star. The basic concept of need involves self-perpetuating movement in relation to inward and outward forces.

As covered here, anakelogy includes human biology, psychology, sociology, anthropology, economics, and more. Each of these speak to our experience of needs in its own way. You may well wonder if we even need another academic field around need.

If you think about it, aren’t these academic fields simply trying to find answers to our many needs? If so, why not get to the point? Why not simply study the needs themselves?

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A holistic or “systems” approach

Anakelogy offers a holistic approach complementary to the scientific reductionism widely applied in the social sciences. As used here, anakelogy takes a systems approach that starts with the whole. Then deduces from there.

A systems approach lets me deduce predictable relationships from observable patterns. The more water I drink, for example, the less thirsty I feel. As offered here, anakelogy claims an observer is less prone to distorting biases when their needs remain sufficiently resolved.

As its founder, this may reflect more of my own observational bias. Later “anakelogists” with a richer history in the discipline of scientific reductionism may elicit insights overlooked by my more holistic approach.

Nature-based paradigm

A key pattern applied in this systems approach is the cycle. Indigenous wisdom provides an illuminating lens through which to understand needs as inward-outward movement.

The four-quadrant cycle illustrates two things relating to each other. Movement inward. Staying inward for a while. Movement outward. Staying outward for a phase. Rinse and repeat.

This organized way of looking provides anakelogy its first theoretical framework: nature-based paradigm. Others taking up the study of need are welcome to add their own paradigm.

Levels of usability

Scholarly anakelogy [SA]

As any scientific field, anakelogy anchors itself to a scholarly discipline. Peer review. Accountability to accessible evidence. Repeatable findings. Critique of theories. New findings unraveling previous assumptions.

Good science, I believe, provides solid but provisional answers. Great science, I believe, inspires better questions. Continuous improvement for our continually changing world.

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Clinical anakelogy [CA]

We can immediately apply anakelogical insight to our stubborn needs. I’m already applying it to persisting problems of poverty, to over-prosecution, and to political polarization.

Value Relating exists to apply anakelogy. Psychosociotherapy as a practice emerges from this anakelogical perspective. That wellness is psychosocial, and not merely psychological nor reductively biological.

Accessible anakelogy [AA]

Unlike other academic fields, anakelogy anticipates its need to be accessible to those without the means of scientific rigor. Indeed, I question the apparent priesthood of academia.

Accessible anakelogy closes the gap between knowledgeable experts and the masses of lay people who utilize anakelogy insight. Accessible anakelogy keeps popular science-based ideas accountable to its disciplined core, while encouraging their communication in the most user-friendly ways.

Anakelogy understands your needs.

List of articles

Do keep in mind the youth of this field. Below, you will find a list of specific entries on particular anakelogical topics. They are organized by overarching areas, such as emotions or need experience.

For now, the entries feature accessible anakelogy articles only. The diagram and title for each opens the blog entry article for that anakelogical material. Below the list I’m keeping my previous list, like an old road next to the new highway still being built.

Later, I expect to expand on this. Each “AA” blog entry is to be matched to a “CA” article, available only to registered site members. Then an in-depth “SA” article is to be added, available to paid subscribers.

You Need This

The material will eventually go into a book tentatively titled “You Need This.”

• The AA version is to be released as a free PDF.

• The CA version is to be published as an eBook on Amazon or wherever books get sold online.

• The SA version will be much more densely packed, available as a hardcover textbook.

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Indigentology?

Further below, you can check out my earlier attempt to share this. Back then, I was calling it indigentology (from the Latin word for need). I had just wrapped up a decade of earning college degrees, so you can guess where my head was at.

Since then, I’ve shifted from head-in-the-clouds abstract writing to something much easier to read. But you be the judge. By keeping this transparent, I welcome you to add your voice to this emerging field. Please share your constructive comments at the bottom of the page. Thank you.