Whoop whoop I love it when the internet provides you with great visuals. That match your colour scheme. Thank you Good Therapy. I’m not usually and advocate for hierarchies being a socialist. However Maslow Heirarchy of Needs certainly provides us with a pathway back to wholeness. This is probably a good time to admit that I’d prefer that this was drawn as a circle with psychological needs at the center rather than a pyramid just so we all get the point. There are many ways to wellness. You’ve only got to do a google search to figure that out. There are millions of people advocating in millions of ways for our pathways to wellness. Yet with one look at the chart above it’s farely obvious that out root needs are physiological and without those being met. There is not much that can be done to deepen the human journey.
When I look at this chart I have to admit that I still struggle with the lowere segements of the chart. It’s hard to believe that at the age of forty. However that is trauma for you. Trauma depending on how it manifest can make you feel inherently unsafe. So even though everything looks good on the outside the internal landscape can feel very diiferent. This is one of the main issue surrounding trauma. That often it is and invisible illness. That scars and indeed wounds can not be immediately seen and even felt. This can be especailly tricky when we have have unmet needs. Especailly when we have repressed, supressed and denied our needs. Often we don’t even know what we need or how to meet them.
So yes Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs may give us a straight forward understanding of human needs it doesn’t give us a road map as to how to meet them. That meeting the needs in this chart can be complicated, testing and difficult depending on the environment that you live in. Many of us live without the resources we need to thrive. This is not our fault. It’s systemic.
This is article was written by a dyslexic with a punk attitude and accompanies the Trauma Wise Circle that happens every Tuesday evening.
