How to Avoid Pain According to Maslow

According to Abraham Maslow, people are motivated to act by two basic desires: experiencing pleasure and avoiding pain. Maslow further breaks down human needs into five areas, which he arranges hierarchically. As people find their basic needs fulfilled, they move on to fulfill higher needs. If a basic need is not met, that becomes a source of pain for the individual until it is met.

Instructions

• 1

  Meet your basic physiological needs, which include air, water, food and sleep. Most of these needs are essential for survival. Humans without those particular needs met would indeed experience a great deal of physical pain and would do everything in their power to find solutions. According to Maslow, as these needs are all fulfilled, another level of needs becomes apparent.

• 2

  Meet needs surrounding feelings of safety. Individuals who do not feel safe will experience pain until they do feel safe. Safety for a child may involve having a stable home environment and caregivers. Safety for an adult may include health, stable employment and a place to live. In his paper, "A Theory of Human Motivation," Maslow points out that some adults develop neuroses and compulsions in an attempt to create order and a feeling of safety in a world where they do not feel safe.

• 3

  Meet needs of love and belonging. Maslow's theory explains that when people feel safe in their environments, they next turn their attention to their need to feel loved and accepted. Those who do not feel a sense of love and belonging in their own environment will fixate on attaining that in order to end the pain that they feel that results from its absence.

• 4

  Meet esteem needs. Individuals generally desire to esteem themselves and others highly, and they desire for others to esteem them highly based on their achievement and other positive qualities. They want first to be independent and confident in their own abilities, and secondly to gain respect and even recognition from others. Those whose esteem needs are met emerge as confident, capable performers. Those who do not have those needs met suffer from poor self esteem and feelings of helplessness.

• 5

  Meet the need for self-actualization. Maslow describes self-actualization as the meeting of those needs that make individuals uniquely who they are. Even self-confident individuals who do not address their unique desires and talents will feel discomfort and dissatisfaction. Some level of acceptance of things as they are may be needed in order to completely address this need, but individuals can also approach self-actualization by pursuing their own gifts and talents.