AbstractsSocial Work

This study is concerned with certain emotional needs as manifested by a group of men hospitalized at the Allan Memorial Institute of Psychiatry. These needs we have called “Dependency Needs” because their distinguishing characteristic is that their satisfaction must be supplied by someone other than the individual, thus placing him in a dependent situation. [...]In the process of the individual’s growth and development, [...]. Some demands will be discarded, while others will receive satisfaction or suffer disappointment from the environment. Each experience of satisfaction and disappointment will mold these demands so that they tend to form a characteristic pattern in the individual’s emotional life. These demands may be roughly defined as a desire for freely given affection, for tolerant understanding and for protection by someone to whom the person may turn in times of particular emotional need. It will depend on the development of a given individual’s life experience with his environment whether he will have either an exaggerated need which cannot be met in normal adult life, whether he will have ordinary needs which can be met by normal conditions in the environment, or whether he will create elaborate defenses against his needs. If the last alternative develops, the individual’s own defenses will not allow him to seek positive satisfaction for his emotional needs.