Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs

In this week’s post, I wanted to highlight Abraham Maslow’s conception of human motivation. In a classic paper he wrote in 1943, Maslow suggested that there are certain needs that urge us to do what we do. Unlike many other theories on human needs, he thought about these needs to fall in a hierarchy. That is to say that one needs to fulfill a more basic need, at least to some extent, before moving on to the next higher need.

This hierarchy of needs can be summarized using the above pyramid, as taken from the following source <http://dinamehta.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2007/10/800px-maslows_hierarchy_of_needssvg.png>

What this theory suggests is that we all have the potential to work towards self-actualization, that state of being when we are able to maximize our potentials and become the persons we have always wanted to become. Such people are often able to accept themselves for who they are. Similarly, they are also able to accept others in equal measure. They face reality squarely and are able to adapt themselves in ways that accommodate the situation they face.

According to this hierarchy of needs, a person is only able to achieve one’s desire to self-actualize when one has already met lower needs, at least to some extent. So what are these other needs?

The most basic set of needs are physiological needs. Simply put, this includes survival needs, like, food, water, shelter, exercise, and enough rest.

Next are safety needs. Going beyond mere survival, the next set of needs include health and a sense of wellbeing. There is a sense of security of one’s person and within one’s environment.

A step further is the love and belonging needs. When we have basics met and we feel secure enough, we often strive towards identifying ourselves with a group of people. This group could be a family or a group of friends with whom we can identify ourselves. This is also the time we seek out intimate relationships.

According to Maslow, only when we are secure about our belongingness to a group of people can we begin to work towards the esteem of others. This is a good time for us to make our mark and to achieve something significant.

These are all the necessary steps that we need to take before we can effectively work towards self-actualization.

Oftentimes, what happens with many of us is we attempt the achievement of higher needs in the hierarchy while forgetting to meet more basic needs first. How many people have we seen working very hard to gain the esteem of others while omitting to take care of themselves? They might not eat well or sleep very little just to fulfill higher needs. This can be problematic.

Of course, there are some exceptions to this rule. Some self-actualizing people actually sacrifice lower needs in order to fulfill much higher needs, oftentimes beyond their own personal gain. For instance, when a martyr suffers for the sake of other people, that person is likely to be self-actualizing.

We all desire to fulfill higher needs. In fact, many religions espouse sacrificing lower needs for the sake of higher needs. And yet, what I am saying here is the importance of fulfilling lower needs first before meeting higher needs. I guess the paradox to all this is that only when we are able to fulfill lower needs knowingly can we later on give them up in place of fulfilling higher needs.

Parent-less Families

Joy just had her 18th birthday party. It was a lavish celebration by the standards of her peers, where she hosted a guest list of over 200 persons. She even had a gown designed and made by a distant relative. Conspicuously absent though were her parents, the very people who financed her grand debut. Standing in for them were her grandparents, the people who had raised her from the time she was six years old. Her parents have been working abroad, and she and her younger brother were left to the care of these older folks. She did not seem to mind her parents’ absence. After all, she knows that she can only afford this bit of luxury because they are working overseas.


How many Filipinos share this same story with Joy? There are reportedly around 2 million Overseas Filipino Workers (OFW’s), according to the latest census data of 2008. Many among these people have left behind their children. When they do, many families effectively become single-parent families. In cases when both parents work abroad, the families are virtually parent-less.

Most of the time, of course, there are extended family members who stand in as primary caregivers. My concerns stem from the multiple roles that these family members play in raising these children. Perhaps, for these children, their extended family members play the role of their parents. They do not know anything else, as they grew up only knowing their specific arrangement. They have never really fully experienced in their growing up years how it is like to have their parents to go home to after school, and still have the supporting role of other extended family members. This is what they are missing.

Can a grandparent play the role of the parent to their grandchildren? Similarly, can aunts and uncles really care for their nephews and nieces in the same way they would treat their own children? What are these ever-increasing children who are growing up in virtually parent-less homes really missing?

When we think of the repercussions of having many of our countrymen work overseas, we cannot deny the effects that this has on the basic unit of our society, the family. These children often have access to the financial resources of their parents. After all, it is for their betterment that their parents left in the first place. They are able to go to better schools and access generally better services. The opportunities open to them probably exceed the ones that their parents had in their own youth. The economic benefits are obvious. And yet, how are they growing up?

One possible effect might be that these children start to think of their parents as mere material providers and nothing more. They might call and talk to their parents when they need some cash or when they want to buy something they want. Otherwise, they are emotionally detached from these people who are not present in both the important occasions and the mundane day-to-day goings on of their lives.

Having said this, I must highlight the importance of having emotional connections with children despite one’s absence. Parents need to take extra effort in reaching out to their children even from a distance. Fortunately with the internet, getting in touch does not have to be expensive and inconvenient. Needless to say, it is important to get involved in each other’s day-to-day lives in order to maintain an emotional connection.

If Joy had such an emotional connection with her parents, she would have enjoyed her party except for one major detail—her parents were not there to share it with her.

Parenting in the 21st Century

There is no perfect parent. The fact is that all parents make mistakes, and that children are often resilient enough to deal with these parenting mistakes. With the exception of extreme circumstances, such as, violent and abusive homes, most homes do provide the nurturing and protective environment that children need. Ideally, homes provide beyond survival needs and also cater to the psychological needs I discussed in a previous post.


As we struggle towards being a better parent, it is often important to begin with an understanding of oneself. That’s right. We need to know ourselves fairly well in order to be a good parent. That’s where it all begins. What such things do you need to know about yourself? For starters, you might want to answer the following questions:

• How was I parented by my own parents/caregivers? In what ways do I want to do things similarly and in what ways do I want to do things differently with my own children? 
• What is important to me? What are the most important things I want my children to learn from me?
• What are my strengths as a person and how am I able to use these with my children?
• What are my areas of weakness and how do they compromise my good parenting strategies?
• Given the areas of my history, my values, my strength and weaknesses, how do I see myself as a parent? In what ways can I further improve?

The next element in becoming a good parent is in knowing your child well. As each child is different and reacts to you differently, so your strategies may also vary from one child to another. On one hand, we need to be nurturing towards each of our children. We need to accept them and affirm their reactions and ideas. On the other hand, we also need to exercise some level of control in setting clear and predictable limits. Similarly, we need be able to challenge our children enough so that they exert themselves and strive for something better for themselves. We need to do this in a way that is not too taxing and frustrating, given their personalities and talents.

In accomplishing these, you might want to ask yourself the following questions for each of your children:

• How does this particular child respond to me? What dynamics do I see between this child and myself?
• In what ways do I show and express my acknowledgment of this child’s talents, reactions, and ideas? Does this child know that I am acknowledging him/her?
• What are the strengths and areas of weakness of this child, given what is important to me as a parent?
• How responsive is my child in the ways that I challenge him/her in prompting him/her to improve him/herself?
• What changes do I need to make in order to balance the roles of being more accepting and responsive of this child while exerting some level of control and demand on this child’s abilities?

This process that I am proposing is not easy. It demands much introspection into oneself, which also often leads to a better understanding of others. Only when we are armed with such insights are we able to tweak our parenting strategies and become relevant to the children that we parent today.

The Stigma of Mental Illness

Every time there is an election in the Philippines, at least one of the viable candidates running for an important position is accused of having or has had a mental illness by his or her opponent. The election that just passed was no exception. In fact, this recent event prompted the Ateneo de Manila’s Department of Psychology to issue an official statement denying the veracity of these reports. Subsequently, the Psychological Association of the Philippines, the largest organization of psychologists in the Philippines, also issued a statement strongly condemning the use of such foul tactics.

This misuse of the diagnosis of a mental illness, whether true or fabricated, to detract would-be supporters of certain candidates shows how politicians and their cronies take advantage of the grave misunderstanding of the public with regards the nature of mental illness. At the same time, such ill-advised strategies perpetuate the stigma associated with mental illnesses and people who may have them.

Much of the stigma surrounding mental illness stems from a lack of understanding of the facts. Stereotypes of people out of control and possessing unbridled violent tendencies often pervade in many people’s minds when they think of mental illness. The vernacular is rich with colorful words to describe such people, which include, but are certainly not limited to, the following: “sira ang ulo” (literally, “damaged head”); “abnoy” (abnormal); “may diperensya sa utak” (literally, “malfunctioning brain”); and so forth. The existence of these words in everyday language evidences this misunderstanding.

Some misconceptions about mental illness are as follows:

• Mental illness is very rare;
• Mental illness is permanent;
• Mental illness is incurable;
• Mentally ill people are potentially dangerous to the public, as they can be unreasonably violent; and
• Seeking the help of a psychologist or psychiatrist is bad and can cause one to be labeled as being mentally ill.

Current scientific understanding suggests the following:

• Mental illness is far more common than what many think. Some reasonable estimates even show that up to 20% of people can be diagnosed with a kind of mental illness at one point or another in their lives.
• Similar to diabetes, some lifelong mental illnesses do require long-term treatment. These people who have such disabilities often need to live with their situation and cope with it. Many of them are able to live relatively normal lives with little special assistance from others. Nevertheless, a bigger number of people actually suffer from transient mental illnesses, such as, clinical depression.
• Although there is no known treatment for a few mental illnesses listed in the diagnostic manuals, more than 90% of these illnesses are either curable or have some sort of treatment that manage the major symptoms. 
• Unknown to many, research has shown that people who suffer mental illnesses are more likely to hurt themselves or be hurt by others. The ones we often hear of and see in the news are exceptional cases, and that’s probably why they are in the news.
• If you suspect that you might be ill, isn’t it but natural to consult a doctor to see if you have an ailment so that you can get prompt and relevant treatment? This is precisely the case with mental illnesses. Seeking treatment does not make one mentally ill. It merely provides the help that one needs.