Hi everyone, below I have done my best on my first article for this forum! Let me know what you think and what topics I should write on next. Hope this is helpful for you all.
When engaging in a mental health service or attending groups you might have heard of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. The Hierarchy of Needs states that lower tiers must be met before higher hierarchies can be attended to (Maslow, 1954). It is a motivational theory in psychology that discusses five stages being the things that motivate us and the things that we most need as individuals to grow and thrive. But what does it mean to put this theory into practice and how does it affect you as an individual?
What are the needs and how is it relevant to our everyday lives
The five tiers going from the top to bottom are:
- Self-actualisation
- Morality, creativity, acceptance, meaning, etc.
- Self-esteem
- Confidence, achievement, respect of others, etc.
- Love and belonging
- Friendship, family, intimacy, sense of connection.
- Safety and security
- Health, employment, property, family, and social ability
- Physiological needs
- Breathing, food, water, shelter, clothing, sleep
Before we have a closer look at the tiers, it is important to note that you do not have to ‘complete’ a tier before moving onto the next one. This is a loose guide to self-actualization, but not a list that needs to be ticked off.
When looking at the tiers it makes sense at first glance that you need to have access to housing, food, and water before you can start thinking about social ability for example. It also makes sense that these things are at the bottom of the hierarchy as they keep us alive and well. If you are physically not well, how can you focus on your mental wellbeing.
What often gets missed in this hierarchy is that multiple tiers can influence each other simultaneously. If the lower tiers are not met it can affect our mental health and behaviours. Let me show you what I mean by giving you an example.
If you are a person without employment, it is hard for you to provide yourself with stable housing and healthy food. Your sleep might also be impacting and you do not have enough money to buy clothes when needed. Even though your needs are not met, you are needing to consider the second tier to meet the needs of the first tier.
On the other hand, say that you are currently working on your self-esteem, and you are finding that you are having a challenging time. This could mean that you are lashing out, feeling frustrated, losing motivation, and experiencing negative behaviours often. Then you think about what needs of yours are currently being met and you realise that you have been eating only take-away for three weeks and sleeping 4 hours a night at most. Considering your physiological needs are not being met, how can you then focus on improving your self-esteem?
Not meeting our ‘basic’ or physiological needs can make us feel less safe during the day and have behaviours trigger that we have minimal control over such as our flight or fight response. You can notice that when you for example, do not have a large income. You start to worry about money, you get more frustrated, you are more easily prone to anger, and your physiological needs are affected. Understanding how these tiers can influence each other you can now think about how to align your current needs and future goals together.
Aligning your current goals with current levels of need
When you are starting out with the NDIS or another service providing you supports, they will often ask you what your current needs and goals are. These will then guide your service provider with a sense of direction regarding other supports and services you will need to achieve these goals. However, if you are not identifying your current needs clearly, and have not aligned them with appropriate goals, you will find that the recommended services might not be working for you. For example, say that you are applying for NDIS, and you only discuss what you would like your life to look like when you do not need supports anymore. You want to have a great social network, you want to join advocacy forums, and you would like to contribute your knowledge and skills to your community. Your plan now consists of minimal hours of support work with no additional supports when what you needed was allied health support, assistance with personal care, and help gaining long-term employment to get to these goals.
We do not want this to happen, so it is important to keep in mind that your needs change all the time, but having a good overview of what your current needs are is important to establish goals that you can achieve in a short amount of time and some over a longer period of time. Being realistic with your needs and knowing that these change over time and therefore, so should your goals. Giving yourself the time necessary to ensure your needs are met to move to other needs to provide a long-lasting effect. And having effective communication with those around you who support you in meeting your needs about when they might change or when things are not working.
Behaviour and mental health are a large topic, but I hope you have seen that establishing current needs is key to gaining the support that is right for you. The goal is to ensure that you are happy, healthy, safe, and reach those goals you have set out for yourself.
As a last mention, not all negative behaviours can be explained by this theory. This is one of the bigger theories in psychology that can give you a broad overview on topics to be mindful of. This is not a solution to negative behaviours. Hope that this helps and let me know what you would like to hear about in the future!
Rachel
