ABSTRACT
The idea that animals and humans have certain needs, and that a failure to secure these needs results in difficulties, has a long history in psychology. It is evident in Murray’s work of the thirties, Maslow’s concept of a hierarchy of needs and many psychoanalytic therapies (see Liebert & Spiegler, 1990, for a comprehensive overview). Cognitive, behavioural, existential, gestalt, psychoanalytic drive reduction, and various other theories do not articulate a theory of basic needs. Yet over the past thirty years the role of interpersonal needs, to facilitate the process of human development has been well researched.
