Your psychosocial needs
Your self-needs
You experience a set of ongoing self-needs. For all those moments when you must rely on your own wits, you experience the need for autonomy, for self-efficacy, for self-initiative, and the like. You suffer when lacking autonomy, or self-efficacy, and the like.
Your social-needs
You also experience a set of ongoing social-needs. For all those moments when you cannot resolve some need on your own, like getting all the food you require or for others to protect you from foreign threats. You suffer when feeling unloved, or insecure, and the like.
Your psychosocial needs
Each self-need tends to be complementary to a social-need. We naturally yearn for balance between our self-needs and social-needs, as illustrated by four examples in this chart.
We all need the same, don’t we? Well, yes. And no.
Your need experience funnel
Anakelogy describes needs occurring within a need experience funnel.
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A need starts out at its core as a fluctuating level of functioning. For example, when your body’s fluid level drops, provoking you to feel thirsty.
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Second, some resource is sought to restore that level to functional balance. You seek water to quench that thirst.
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Next, the need addresses access to that necessary resource. You find your water bottle empty, so you go to the nearest drinking fountain.
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Finally, a need includes the psychosocial question: who shall or can access that resource? You or another, or both? You walk over to that drinking fountain yourself, but you rely on others to provide and maintain that drinking fountain.
At the core we all need in common, but then it can sharply diverge.
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You share the same core needs with everyone.
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You seek the same satisfying resources as most.
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How you access those resources can deviate widely.
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You either rely mostly on yourself, or mostly upon another, for accessing those necessary resources. Here it gets political.
Your situational needs
Your life’s situation greatly impacts your many psychosocial needs. You may find urban dwellers more at the mercy of others for their many needs. You’re likely to find rural dwellers fending more for themselves.
You’re apt to see minorities more reliant on the public sector for protection and economic security; emphasizing their social-needs. By contrast, Middle Americans generally feel more secure protecting themselves, and apt to find more economic meaning in interpersonal free trade; emphasizing their self-needs.
Your life’s situation, far more than any political reasoning, shapes your experiential balance between your self-needs and your social-needs. You can think of this as a need atop of your needs, which gets politicized. For relief from this uncomfortable imbalance, shared political reasoning comes later.
self-acceptance & companionship
You need to love yourself enough to internalize love from others; and to receive enough love from others to reinforce loving yourself.
autonomy & belonging
You need to assert your individuality while trusting others have your back in case you fall; and to belong to a group that reliably supports your emerging personal capacities.
self-sufficiency & support
You need to grow your personal capacities while enjoying access to resources beyond your limited reach; and to be supported enough to routinely develop your self-efficacies.
resilience & inclusion
You need to endure when excluded in some social spaces while knowing you are fully included somewhere; and to be personally supported to strengthen your personal resiliency.
Your self-needs Your social-needs
self-acceptance companionship
autonomy belonging
self-sufficiency support
resilience inclusion
Of course, the process is much more complex than briefly represented here. For a more thorough treatment, please check out the eCourse at Udemy, starting with the free previews. If you're on a tight budget, ask me about any available discounts. I trust it will open doors for you in ways you’ve never seen before.
How you experience this balance of self-needs and social-needs impacts your psychosocial wellbeing. Which in turn grounds your political outlook.
