The Spirituality of Need

Interestingly, in psychological circles, "needs" are generally classified as physical. A need is any physical departure from the ideal value. The  psychological result is a drive–an aroused state or urge that results from the need.

It would seem to me, however, that the classification of a basic need would depend on the context of its referral. In other words, are we referring to basic survival, or psychological or physiological health, or spiritual?

Many would take issue with this last item (spiritual), saying that it does not belong in psychology. One major psychological theorist, Abraham Maslow, however, seemed to have other ideas. Maslow took exception to how scientific issues have been "desacralized"–that is, all possibility of spiritual factors have been discounted and removed. This has, said Maslow, effectively "removed the emotion, joy, wonder awe, and rapture from their study in order to purify and objectify it"(1).

This is significant, coming from Maslow. His “Hierarchy of Needs” has become so legendary that it has set him up as a foremost authority in that area.

Yet it would seem that Maslow was somewhat remiss in his hierarchy in that he arranged these contexts in successive order, with the satisfaction of the more basic needs as prerequisites to the succeeding ones. He addressed hunger and thirst first, any other needs coming only after slaking them, which, taken generically, seems to reduce the human to the animalistic level. A pair of dogs will fight viciously over a bone, but would a balanced human sacrifice a true friendship for a meal?

Along the same lines, love is placed after safety. Yet what truly devoted parent would not throw him- or herself in front of a truck (figuratively or literally) to save his or her child? Of course, we could have a transference of need here, as it were, where the parent is now concerned with the safety of the child, but, in such a case, did not love precede that concern?

In this area, another theorist, Carl Rogers, would seem to have provided better general coverage since individual attitudes and approaches depend on "how we perceive and understand the world and ourselves"(2). Nonetheless, Maslow’s attention to detail picks up where Rogers leaves off.

I believe the most important inference that can be drawn from the works of Maslow and Rogers is the basic difference between animals and humans: that of the abstract levels of thought and behavior. The animal’s quest for satisfaction is generally species-specific (instinctual). The human, while having some of the same species-specific tendencies, must rely on more cognitive choices, or those that involve the processes of abstract thinking.

It is through making proper decisions that the human arrives at satisfying needs on all levels. Or, as my dear grandfather said, “Make the right choices, good things happen. Make the wrong choices, bad things happen. There is no gray area."

On the human level, it involves the ability to grasp hold of the concepts that make us what and who we are. Without this, our human needs, which transcend those of animals, will never be met. And this is where the spritual aspect comes in.

1. Maslow, A. H. (1970). Motivation and personality (2nd ed.). New York: Harper & Row, page 514.
2. Atkinson, R. L., Atkinson, R. C. , Smith, E. E., & Hilgard, E. R. (1987). Introduction to psychology (9th ed.). Orlando, FL: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, page 435.

(Taken from “Needs,” 2002, by Lora Morrow.)


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