Maslow Heirachy of Human Needs

 

This model is called the Maslow Heirarchy of needs and we are interested in this in Counselling because it can indicate the significance of a particular issue and the impact it might be having on us, based on where it sits on the triangle.

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For example.  You can see that Physiological needs are most important, they are at the bottom as they form a foundation or base for the rest to be built upon. As you can see, breathing is at the bottom meaning that if you suddenly couldn't breath, this issue would be the most important need to address before anything else that might be mentioned. 

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If you suddenly lost your home which is your shelter from the elements, then it would probably not be most sensible to concentrate on your self esteem issues. 

 

So it is clear from these examples how the bottom level needs are likely the most important to focus on compared to anything else and these would be the first issues to focus on.

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If all of the needs on the bottom level are met then we will automatically start to need to get the needs met that are on the next level up and so on moving upwards.  ​

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This is not an exact science as life is complex but to know that we are most likely driven to get our needs met in an order close to this model can be useful to aid our self understanding.

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https://www.simplypsychology.org/maslow.html