In this article, four basic psychological needs, derived from psychological basic research, are presented. These are the needs for orientation and control, pleasure gain/distress avoidance, self esteem protection, and attachment. It is argued, that the satisfaction or violation of these needs has a main impact on the development of children and adolescents. To take these needs into account in various areas of pedagogical and psychosocial work gives good opportunities to help children and adolescents developing in a desired direction. The use of this concept is helpful in western societies as well as in developing countries.
Keywords: basic psychological needs, child development, adolescence, attachment
Basic Psychological NeedsThere is a long tradition of thinking about basic psychological needs in psychology, starting with Freud (1905) and Adler (1917). The most well-known concept of basic needs may be that of Maslow (1954). It was a hierarchic model: only in case the physical needs of someone are satisfied, he or she begins to care about psychological needs and only in case these are satisfied humans start caring about spiritual needs. These older concepts of basic needs were not really empirically grounded. The American psychologist Epstein (1990) then developed a concept of basic psychological needs, which was founded on the empirical findings of psychological research. Grawe (2006) elaborated this concept in a much extended way and published path-breaking works about the importance of this concept for understanding human behavior and even more to help patients with severe psychological problems. In their publications, Grawe and his team always strengthened the point that their work is all about adult persons (patients). Regarding this, we started some research and work on transmitting this concept for the psychosocial work with children and adolescents Borg-Laufs, 2012).In this model, there are four psychological needs highlighted. These are the needs for -orientationen/control, -self esteem protection, -pleasure gain/distress avoidance, -attachment.