I recently started listening to a podcast on Non-Violent Communication in the context of romantic relationships, and the guest mentioned the idea of “forbidden needs.”
This was a new term for me, and I became intrigued.
Forbidden needs — as I understand it — essentially means the set of needs we had as children that were implicitly denied to us. Or more specifically, we learned that it was at worst unsafe and at best futile to pursue them.
I’d say some of the most common forbidden needs are authenticity, honesty, and clarity. The group-think of almost all family cultures sadly rejects the individual and his authentic self-expression. Acute traumatic experience (e.g. punishment, fights) are also swept under the rug, not to be acknowledged, thus birthing pretense in the family culture, and sacrificing honesty. Making sense of such a culture becomes the heavy task for the child, thus blurring the need for clarity.
Other forbidden needs that come to mind are nurturing, warmth, self-assertiveness, openness, choice, and autonomy.
So, as we grasp which needs are implicitly forbidden, we learn to suppress and repress our feelings.
But here’s the thing. Those needs never go away.
Our life force is ever-seeking to thrive, flourish, and blossom. Our inner cells constantly seek growth and expansion in needs fulfillment.
If survival mechanisms kick in through traumatic experience to teach the nervous system to repress, that is still a temporarily mechanism. It is the body keeping the score, holding memories and fragmenting the psyche to keep it safe.
But we always have the capacity to integrate and heal, to re-connect to the totality of our needs.
For all of our needs matter, not just some.
