Much is said about physical needs, but do you know which ones emotional needs We will talk about the main ones in this article. Check them out!

What are emotional needs?

In outline, are needs common to all human beings and ensure a healthy emotional development.

We mentioned above that physical needs are usually on the agenda of those who are looking for wellness, so it is common to focus on the importance of exercising, eating a nutritious diet, and getting a good night's sleep.

However, Besides focusing on those things that are actually good for the body, it is also necessary to pay attention to our emotions.

In this context, the one who drew attention by using the term "emotional needs" was psychotherapist Jeffrey Young. We will talk about his main contributions to the study of human behavior next.

The emotional needs in Schema Therapy by Jeffrey Young

For Jeffrey Young, all human beings need to satisfy certain emotional needs in order to have good psychic health. Moreover, for him, these needs are met through bonds, that is, relationships.

Therefore, the need to be born and grow up in a healthy home is evident, so that each child gets a healthy first contact with other human beings from his or her parents and guardians.

Throughout life, as each person develops and comes into contact with new individuals, These new participants in life also contribute to the psychological health of their relationships by meeting emotional needs.

Scheme Therapy

Schema Therapy is the one that consolidates Young's thoughts. Within this framework, schemas can be understood as adaptive or maladaptive contexts that result in different behavior patterns.

When a person is born into a loving home and develops good relationships with his parents, peers, and his community, he is said to be in an adaptive frame of mind. As such, he has a tendency to deal with life in a balanced and healthy way.

However, on the other hand, when a person is deprived of the opportunity to develop healthy bonds with people from early childhood, he will cope with life using problematic behavioral resources.

Get to know now the 7 main emotional needs that every human being needs!

Now that you know what an emotional need is and how it can affect our behavior, check out below what the basic emotional needs are. We contemplate some of those predicted by Jeffrey Young in Schema Therapy, among others.

1 - Affection

Imagine being born and growing up in a context where there is no affection.

To summarize, Affection is a tender feeling of affection that one person has for another. Thus, those who are born in an affectionate environment know from an early age how precious and important their life is.

It seems obvious that everyone should receive this kind of feeling at least from their parents and spouses, but this is not what is observed in practice in many homes.

Furthermore, affection is the language of affection and physical touch.

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People need physical contact for many reasons, and depriving them of this need can be detrimental to their behavior in childhood or adulthood.

2 - Respect

Respect is among the most important emotional needs, but is extremely underestimated, especially in childhood.

See that Young's discussion deals with the importance of having needs met from the relationship with the parents.

This satisfaction is built on the bond But it is more common to find demands that children respect adults than demands that they respect the child's integrity, which is also important.

Unfortunately, we often see cases of child violence in the sexual, physical, and moral spheres, just to name a few examples.

3 - Autonomy

Autonomy concerns the development of skills that lead to dependence. Many children and adolescents are deprived of their power to develop into autonomous and independent adults.

It is clear that curtailing this ability, that is, not allowing this emotional need to develop, is harmful.

4 - Self-control

Self-control is also among the main human emotional needs because it deals with the human being's ability to master his or her own impulses.

It is interesting to analyze that this is not a capacity that is easily developed in solitude. In fact, people are important for this stage of building self-mastery.

You see, it is in dealing with others that we learn not to say everything that comes to mind and not to act violently when we hear something we don't like.

However, many people are not encouraged to learn this kind of lesson, carrying the habit of acting emotionally and uncontrollably throughout their adult lives.

5 - Acceptance

We cannot fail to emphasize the emotional need to feel accepted in one or more communities. In childhood, having acceptance in environments such as one's own home, school, and the city in which one lives is very important.

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6 - Self-esteem

We will now talk about one of the emotional needs that seems like an individual responsibility, but that is also built on the bonds we form throughout life.

We are talking about self-esteem, that is, the ability to evaluate oneself and draw positive or negative conclusions about who one is.

This ability arises from the bonds we form because our patterns are formed, at least initially, by the views of the people who constitute our reference group.

We are not born with a prior programming that allows us to evaluate something as good or bad. We extract our criteria from the context that forms us.

7 - Self-realization

Finally, we highlight as an emotional need the ability to reflect on what your abilities or skills are.

It is not hard to imagine that in an abusive and dysfunctional environment, knowing what we are capable of becomes a much harder task.

It is worth pointing out that this is not a deterministic idea, according to which dysfunctional environments necessarily generate problematic people.

The point here is that such contexts favor a distorted perception about the people who belong to it especially since childhood.

Final considerations about the basic emotional needs of the human being

In the above article, you learned about the basic emotional needs that every human being needs to have good mental health.

In addition, we introduce you to Young's Schema Therapy and, from there, comment on how the lack of each need can create problems for adult life.

If this theme of emotional needs Also, check out our 100% online Clinical Psychoanalysis course to learn more about human behavior!