On Human Needs

 On Human Needs

We are needy, and that isn't a defect! I've had several conversations in recent weeks regarding the legitimacy of human needs. Unfortunately, some have taken on messages that their neediness is a problem, whether directly spoken or interpreted from situations and responses. Many would simplify by categorizing human needs into lists: physical, mental and emotional, relational, and often spiritual. Of course, we all need air, water, food, and shelter — the necessities of safety in the physical realm. Most societies have laws making the deprivation of these needs, especially for the young and innocent, illegal. We also need attachment to others, to be loved and to love, to be accepted and belong somewhere, to have worth and the dignity of individuality, and to have agency — the right to choose and act, given appropriate age and development.

When I was a child, I needed care and protection, both from the world and from myself, as my skills and capacities weren't yet sufficient to meet my own needs. My parents and caregivers were responsible for meeting them until I came of age to take over that responsibility myself. This first school of life — our homes and families as the teachers — provided for us and gave us the tools to launch into fuller adulthood, with full responsibility for our own needs. This is often where we counselors get accused of, and are sometimes guilty of, pinning incomplete development on parents or caregivers. But we should always consider that the lack of attainment of some lessons might be on the teacher or the student. Not all responsible parties in the first school were well prepared to impart the knowledge and cultivate the best learning environment.

One example is the "talk." You know — the birds and the bees. When I was 22, engaged and finishing my senior year of college, I was watching The Cosby Show with my father, who was 68 at the time. The dad and son on screen were having the talk. During a commercial, my father turned to me and said, "I always thought that my boys would learn about sex like I did. On the street."
I guess that was my talk. And true enough, there was learning available — in the community, at school, at church, peer to peer, and plenty of models on television. There were lessons to be learned inside that first school too, just not directly spoken about. Saying things is one mode of learning. Modeling and instructing are others. No one used the word "need" in that conversation with my father, but a need was being addressed anyway — imperfectly, unevenly, the way needs so often are. They don't go away simply because no one names them.

That's the nature of the first school, and it points to something deeper than psychology. Human needs aren't a problem or evidence of one — we have them by design. The Catechism of the Catholic Church puts it this way: "With creation, God does not abandon his creatures to themselves. He not only gives them being and existence, but also, at every moment, upholds and sustains them in being, enables them to act, and brings them to their final end" (CCC 301). We are needy because we were made dependent — on God, and on each other. That dependence isn't a flaw to outgrow. It's the shape we were given.