Maslow’s hierachy of neeeds is a model that explains people’s needs and motivations and places them on 5 levels.

For those who haven’t come across the model, it is usually drawn as a triangle with physiological needs at the base, and then, as we move up the triangle, we have levels that relate first to safety, then love and belonging, self esteem and finally self-actualization, which Maslow defined as become everything that one is capable of becoming.

And this is where I have a problem with the model. If we are to become everything that we are capable of becoming, surely this includes the motives expressed in the previous levels, or at least where they are relevant to each of us. (A hermit living in a cave in the Hymalayas will not have the same ‘lower level’ needs as someone living in the West, with a family to feed and working in the corporate world.)

For most of us, if our aim is become everything that we are capable of becoming, we need to include all aspects of our lives in an integrated whole and that is what Transpersonal Dynamics is about.