Maslow was Wrong
Most of us learned about Maslow's hierarchy of needs at school. Maslow theorized that we must meet our basic survival needs first, and only then can we focus on "higher order" priorities like love, belonging, and self-esteem.
The early 20th century psychologist placed physiological needs like food and water at the foundation of the pyramid, followed by safety, love and belonging, self-esteem, and self-actualization.
But Maslow was wrong.
While no one would argue that we require a minimum of food and water to survive, Maslow missed how essential our human need for love and belonging is.
As social mammals, our need for love and belonging is as important to us as our requirements for food, water, and shelter. Love and belonging, which can also be seen as attachment needs, are also necessary sustenance.
Especially as infants, we require some level of love and belonging to stay alive. Any kind of attachment is enough, even if it's imperfect.
In 1915, an American pediatrician reported that almost 90% of children under two years-old in orphanages did not survive. Those that did survive were regularly removed from the institution by caregivers of some kind.
The children’s needs for food, water, and shelter were accounted for, but not their attachment needs. The babies were as hungry for touch and attachment as they were for food. Both are essential forms of physical nourishment required to develop and grow.
The prevailing child-rearing wisdom of the time ignored infants' needs for a caregiver's touch and saw tenderness and care as “unscientific” and likely to “spoil” the child. Yet touch, at its most basic, communicates connection and creates attachment. We need attachment, and the love and belonging it communicates, to survive.
A 1970’s experiment called Rat Park, which has been replicated numerous times, indicated how unmet attachment needs can impact addiction, later in life.
Two groups of rats were kept in cages and given access to unlimited amounts of cocaine. One group lived in isolated containers in a barren environment, with nothing and no one to engage with them. The others lived in a highly interactive environment with plenty of rat companions. One group of rats became addicted to cocaine, and one did not.
Can you guess which group it was?
Love and belonging are the gravity that tethers us to life. Without it, we give up.
Attachment doesn't need to be perfect. Good-enough attachment looks like being present, available, and attuned to emotional needs of the people we care about, most of the time. And whenever there’s an inevitable rupture, good-enough attachment can be repaired.
Even in households where caregivers are anxiously or avoidantly attached (more on attachment styles here), we can always learn how to become securely attached. Healing attachment wounds is always possible, at any stage of life. Attachment researchers are adamant that the wiring for secure attachment is something we all carry and that we can activate when we do the work to heal.
Attachment Needs and Developmental Trauma
Understanding the importance of attachment needs has massive implications for people with developmental trauma, a type of complex trauma (CTPSD) that I work with a lot in my private practice.
Those of us with developmental trauma are often accustomed to dismissing our need for love and belonging. It doesn’t mean we don’t suffer or want them; we’re just used to going without and minimizing the pain.
We might belittle ourselves when we notice a longing for love or belonging, and try to "toughen up" or stop being so "sensitive." I hope the research I shared above shows you that these needs are hard-wired into our biology and can't be avoided, even if we try.
We might think, "My childhood wasn't that bad. It could have been worse." And we might be right. But attachment needs don't work that way. Comparing our level of lack to others doesn't lessen the impact it had on us.
It's also easy to dismiss attachment wounds because they don't leave marks. We can't point to bruises, or rumbling stomachs, or worn-out clothes.
Attachment wounds are largely invisible, until we enter the domain of relationships. That's when their legacy of anxiety, avoidance, and confusion rears its head and demands that we learn how to heal or risk losing the ones we love.
The tragedy is, as long as we continue to minimize our need for love and belonging, we never see the places where we need to heal. In relationships, we may see others as “needy,” “too soft,” or “emotional,” when they are expressing the normal needs of securely attached people. It’s easy to dismiss relational needs and wear a mask that hides deep attachment wounding.
If we decide to confront our parents or caregivers about the attachment wounding that happened in our childhoods, we’re likely met with disbelief and deflection. “I put a roof over your head, food on the table, and clothes on your back. What else could you ask for?” is a common, yet often devastating, reply.
When this happens, it’s helpful to see attachment wounds as a pattern of intergenerational trauma that reflect our parents’ own lack of childhood nourishment and care. Our parents likely experienced the same treatment from their parents — or worse. But that isn't an excuse to maintain these patterns. We have the power to change this.
Attachment wounds leave developmental gaps that can impact us for life, until we heal. It’s hard for us to see them because we don’t know what’s missing. But we’re less able to tolerate healthy conflicts, to advocate for our needs, to set appropriate boundaries, or to engage in relationship repair.
When our attachment needs haven't been met, we might take on beliefs like "No one will ever love me," "No one cares," or "There's something wrong with me.”
We heal when we start to see our attachment needs as essential to our survival and set up our lives and relationships accordingly. We learn to respect and honor our basic needs for love and belonging.
Here are some ways to start.
How to Stop Minimizing Attachment Needs
1. Notice when you're feeling avoidant.
Avoidance is understandable when we're used to having our needs for love and belonging go unmet. When we pay attention to how we're avoiding our needs and the needs of others in relationships, we can start to map out where we need to heal.
2. Notice when you're feeling anxious.
Anxiety often hides a deep fear of abandonment. Rather than judging ourselves for this, we can see this type of anxiety as attachment wounding. We can accept where we’re at and, at the same time, encourage ourselves to shift direction.
3. Titrate your experience of pain and longing, without running away.
Underneath the attachment wounding is pain that needs to be felt to heal. As soon as we get near the wound, it may try to pull us into its gravity. Go slow. It's enough to notice and feel it, from a safe internal distance, as we give it time to heal.
4. Be with the intensity using tools like mindfulness, breath, and movement.
As we sit with the pain of our attachment wounds, we can allow them expression through somatic tools like mindfulness, breath, and movement. Our feelings can take up space and be seen, felt, and loved back to health and wholeness.
5. Self-soothe and self-care, so you can make relationship decisions from a regulated and connected nervous system.
When we learn how to down-regulate our nervous systems out of a state of anxious or avoidant attachment, we give ourselves the space to decide what we want for ourselves. We show up for our relationships ready to receive and offer the love and belonging we all need to thrive.
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Healing our attachment wounds creates the foundation of love and belonging that we always longed for but many thought would never be possible. It’s hard to overstate the sense of safety and relief that floods our systems when we finally feel securely attached to others, in our friendships, romantic relationships, and communities.
Until we learn to honor our needs for love and belonging, we suffer. We cut off the most receptive and adaptive parts of ourselves, the parts that are wired to be connected to others who we feel safe with.
When we shift this, we heal our family lineages and create a new legacy of connection and care.
I want this for all of us.
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