CONTACT WITH YOURSELF 1.3 Studying needs In the context of the topic of contact with yourself, an important aspect of understanding yourself is the topic of needs. If you look carefully, the word need is formed from the root “-required,” which can be understood as what a person needs, what he needs for life. It can be quite difficult to understand which needs are relevant and most accurate for us at a given time. What need motivates us to this or that behavior? Is our way of interacting with the world adequate to our needs? Quite interesting and important questions. If we do not consciously direct attention to needs, their state is determined by unconscious processes occurring in the psyche. The ways of satisfying needs that we have been taught since childhood can become ineffective and sometimes even destructive for the individual. The intensity of states of dissatisfaction and tension increases. Therefore, it is important to be able to observe, identify and differentiate your own needs. There are various theories of needs. The most famous of them are A. Maslow’s theory of needs (the famous “A. Maslow’s pyramid”), Virginia Henderson’s theory of needs, K. Alderfer’s ERG theory, etc. This article covers the topic of needs from the point of view of positive psychotherapy (N. Pezeshkian ) and the domestic theory of activity (in particular, A.N. Leontiev). Our needs tend to be actualized and embodied in a certain object, behavior, activity, relationship, which is concretized and determined as a result of search activity. ".....at the behavioral (psychological) level, specific objects of needs are not “recorded” in heredity, but are discovered as a result of the activation of complex search mechanisms (which can have different - explicit and more hidden - forms), emergency imprinting mechanisms and, finally , mechanisms for the gradual development of conditional connections and differentiations." - wrote A.N. Leontyev. In other words, the need that exists in us gives an impulse, some tension energy, which activates search behavior. We are looking for some embodied form of our need, determined by the socio-cultural and historical environment. Methods for satisfying needs are formed in the process of education and social adaptation. A.N. Leontiev identifies the following characteristics of needs: objectivity and dynamism.1. Objectivity. The object of need is something that lies outside the human body, for which the need is felt. The nature of the object of need depends not only on the biological needs of a person, but also on the socio-cultural structure of the environment in which a person lives. Since the human world is the world of social relationships, the world of material and spiritual culture, there is a corresponding development and change in the subject of human needs, which contributes to the emergence of functional needs of a new type.2. Dynamics The ability of needs to become actualized and change their intensity, the ability to fade away and be reproduced again. This dynamism of needs is expressed in a change in the degree of reactivity of the body in relation to external influences. The subject’s reflection of the dynamics of his needs has, of course, a different character and a different function than the reflection of external reality: it is not an objective reflection, not an image, and its main function is consists of a signal, “anticipatory” (P.K. Anokhin) internal regulation - turning on or off the activation mechanisms of corresponding behaviors. It occurs in conditions when the object of need is absent or not highlighted in the external field: this is search behavior. We learn the model of meeting needs and the skill of identifying them from our parents. The quality of object relations directly influences the development of the child’s innate qualities (needs and abilities). The theory of positive psychotherapy indicates that a person, from the beginning of life, has basic abilities - love (emotional) andcognition (cognitive). “In this sense, we understand the abilities of knowledge and love as a special predisposition inherent in each person, requiring its actualization and differentiation. All other abilities can be developed from these two basic ones or considered as manifestations of their various combinations and applied to diverse life situations. Both basic abilities are in a functional relationship: the appropriate development of one of them supports and facilitates the development of the other. Each person has basic abilities that. open up enormous opportunities for him. Depending on the physical condition, environment and time in which a person lives, these abilities are differentiated and form an unchangeable structure of essential traits (uniqueness)." - wrote N. Pezeshkian in his book "Psychosomatics and Positive Psychotherapy." Actualization of basic abilities for love and cognition contributes to the saturation of our needs. The presence of abilities of different nature and degree of development in the process of ontogenesis contributes to the satisfaction of needs through the manifestation of these abilities. In N. Pezeshkian’s balance model, we can clearly consider our needs and, at the same time, reflect on what abilities we can make these needs accessible. for us. 1. Sphere of the Body In the sphere of the body we can see our basic, vital needs. They provide us with the maintenance of the physical and physiological processes of our body. These are the needs for nutrition, breathing, physical safety, activity, physical contact, pleasure. wrote that the biological needs of animals and humans are not identical. Basic biological needs of a person find their satisfaction in the conditions of the socio-cultural environment, which presupposes indirect ways of satisfying them. (the need for food of a lion and a person is satisfied differently, although the essence of the need is the same). hierarchical relationships with each other, which are by no means determined by their biological meanings. Although the satisfaction of elementary, vital needs is the “first thing” for a person and an inescapable condition of his existence, it does not at all follow that these needs occupy a dominant place. - wrote A.N. Leontiev. In addition, the very method of satisfaction - the absorption of food - may have nothing to do with the body’s vital need for nutrition (for example, food can be a way to satisfy the need for love, the need for pleasure, the need for communication) We can determine the needs of the body sphere by the sensations and emotions that arise. Anger - often arises when an obstacle arises on the way to satisfying a need; Envy indicates that the object of envy is valuable to us, but not brought to life for some reason; Joy ​​reports the satisfaction of our need; Fear and disgust can be connected with the need for security; Contempt may reflect the need for privacy or the need to be significant. Sadness reflects the need for acceptance and appropriation of experience. 2. Scope of Activity Here the so-called social needs can be traced. The need for achievement, acquisition of skills and abilities, development of abilities necessary for activity efficiency. Since a person has such a phenomenon as consciousness, he develops higher human needs - not related to the objective needs of the body. A.N. Leontyev wrote - The higher needs that form in a person are not superimposed on the elementary ones, forming only superficial layers that are not capable of dominating. On the contrary, when in a person’s life the most fundamental of his vital needs fall on one side of the scale, and his highest needs fall on the other, thenit is the latter that can outweigh....""If it were necessary to express in the most general terms the path that the development of human needs takes, then we could say that it begins with the fact that a person acts to satisfy his elementary, vital needs, and then this attitude changes: a person satisfies his vital needs in order to act in order to achieve goals that meet his highest needs. It is this path that is characteristic of the development of a person as an individual." The famous aphorism of the ancient Greek philosopher Socrates is in tune with these thoughts - "You need to eat, for in order to live, and not to live, in order to eat." The needs of the sphere of activity are reflected in our goals and aspirations. 3. Sphere of ContactNeeds that reflect a person’s desire for affection, communication with himself and others, the need to be recognized in a social group , the need for significance. The need for support, care, attention, love, contact, trust. The needs of the contact sphere can be reflected in a certain form of social interaction, style of communication. 4. Sphere of Meaning The need for meaning, self-expression, spiritual needs, aesthetic needs. It is interesting to note that a person is capable of realizing his needs abstracted from a specific object. The needs in the sphere of meanings are satisfied through dreams, desires, and finding meanings. The needs in the sphere of meanings are manifested in our desires, fantasies, dreams. Our actual (currently available) abilities are psychodynamically active and are associated with the structure of the Superego. Needs are recognized and embodied by us under the influence, among other things, of the structure of the Superego, formed in the process of upbringing and social adaptation. The problem arises if a person has a rigid structure of the Superego and experiences difficulties in flexible and variable perception of what is happening both inside him and and outside. In this case, behavioral strategies for satisfying needs, learned from childhood, are not questioned and transformed in adulthood. Experiencing ignorance of some needs in childhood, a ban on their satisfaction without explanation of what is happening to him; without a vision of alternatives; when replacing some needs with others, and most importantly, without full feedback from the parent, an adult becomes deaf and blind to some of his needs. It does not differentiate their character, which determines the choice of how to satisfy a certain need. This process may resemble a fairy-tale saying - “Go there, I don’t know where, find something, I don’t know what..” The state of dissatisfaction, with frustration of needs, gives rise to internal conflicts in which a person, in a habitual but ineffective way, strives to fill his unrecognized need . For example, with a certain pattern of behavior, a person seeks to fill the need for love through achievements (often in childhood we receive love and approval provided we complete certain tasks - get good grades, be neat, demonstrate emotional restraint, etc.). However, the need in love is saturated in relationships - through the ability to give and receive love, to experience affection. It is often the needs and abilities associated with activities that are most valuable to our culture. This greatly contributes to the child’s social integration. However, if the basic needs associated with the need for love are satisfied conditionally, we will strive in adulthood to fill these needs through development, improvement, diligence, and increasing abilities in activities. Expecting to receive love, showing, for example, the ability to be diligent and obedient, we may encounter the fact that the need for love remains unfulfilled. Such a mistaken desire to receive love through achievements, which in fact remains scarce, causes intrapsychic tension and causes a lot of pain..