Human Givens: our universal needs
Photo: Alexis Fauvet @ Unsplash
We all have needs. Some are small and manageable. Some get less attention than desirable. Some get entirely drowned out in the throng of everyday life. But we all have needs.
According to Joe Griffen and Ivan Tyrrell, there are a set of universal needs, which they call the Human Givens. They have compiled all the most established theories of what is means to live a fulfilling and meaningful life - and have concluded that this set of universal ‘givens’ provide lenses so that we can recognise, then meet, our needs in manageable and sustainable ways.
This is an extract from their book: Human Givens - the new approach to emotional health and clear thinking.
“The law of all living organisms is that, to survive, they must take nourishment from the environment so that they can continually maintain and rebuild themselves. Like all animals, we need air to breathe, water to drink, nutritious food and sufficient amounts of the right quality of sleep. These physical needs are easily apparent because, if they are not met, we quickly die - as many people sadly do in those parts of the world where clean water is scarce and food in short supply. We also need the freedom to stimulate our senses and exercise our muscles. In addition, we instinctively seek sufficient and secure shelter where we can grow and, as our sex drive rises, reproduce ourselves and bring up our young in safety.
Everyone can accept that these basic physical needs should be met and that they are ‘givens’. But psychologists throughout the ages have also determined that there are other nutritional needs, emotional rather than physical, which are equally crucial for our wellbeing - and sometimes, even for survival too. These include the needs for:
Security - safe territory: an environment which enables us to lead our lives without exerperiencing excessive or undue fear and allows us to develop fully
Autonomy - control over what happens around and to us. Exercising volition gives us a form of feedback from the universe that we exist
Attention - receiving it from others, but also giving it: a form of essential nutrition that fuels the development of each individual, family and culture
Emotional connection to other people - friendship, loving relationshuips, intimacy
Connection to the wider community (we are a group animal) - being part of social groupings beyond our immediate family
Status - a sense that we are accepted by, and valued in, the various social groups we belong to
Privacy - time and space enough to reflect on and consolidate our experiences
A sense of our own competence and achievements - which ensure we don’t feel we are inadequate (and develop low self-esteem)
Meaning - which comes from being stretched in what we do and how we think. Meaning makes suffering tolerable. It is through ‘stretching’ ourselves mentally and physically - by service to others, learning new skills or being connected to ideas of philosophies bigger than ourselves - that our lives feel purposeful and full of meaning
We come into the world with these innate but as yet unmet needs. How well they are fulfilled in the world determines many aspects of our personality, our character, how well we develop physically and emotionally, how we interact with other people and what we achieve in life.”
The Human Givens: How well are your needs being met?
Below is an activity you can use to check in with how well each of these needs is being met, for you, right now. It provides a snapshot of today, and it might change over time - so this is a tool you can keep returning to.
There are also some additional questions on the right that can help you explore your scores a little more clearly. You might like to explore what needs your attention first, and what you could do to change your score - even by one point - to meet that need.
You might also like to consider ways you have not thought about or used before - to become imaginative and creative about how you meet your needs, once you recognise what they are.
Enjoy x
