Erskine's 8 relational needs (Subscriber bonus)

And how they can show up in our lives

From the moment we are born, until the moment we die, we are biologically driven to be in relationship with others. These connections can help us to survive and thrive, but when these basic needs aren’t reliably met in our early years, we can often struggle to know how to safely relate to others as we grow into adulthood.

Whilst conducting research at the Institute for Integrative Psychotherapy in 1998, Richard Erskine and his team began to consider what might have been missing from Psychotherapy and what was missing in their client’s lives. As a result of this extensive interview process, they identified 8 relational needs that people were longing for, these were the needs that were most likely to come up in therapy sessions during the research.

Relational-needs relate specifically to the relationships we have with others, on an inter-personal level and to the universal human desire for healthy intimate relationships and secure attachments with others.