Supporting Student Success

Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs and it's relation with suicidal thoughts

Welcome to September - A month where we have several well-being awareness events; one of them falls on September 10^th. On that date, we commemorate Suicide prevention day. Feeling love, acceptance and belonging from others helps us to see the value in life and to cope with the day to day challenges that face us all. This article explores how our understanding of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs can help us to support a person who may be experiencing suicidal thoughts.

In order to understand more about how a person can find themselves filled with such despair that suicide seems a viable option, it may be important to consider the hierarchy of needs created by Maslow.

According to Abraham Maslow, being able to actualize ourselves will prevent us from feeling trapped and full of despair. Abraham Maslow was an influential psychologist in the twentieth century; he created a hierarchy of needs. The hierarchy is a motivational theory highlighting that there are five needs that allow humans to actualize themselves. Below are the needs that can be found in the hierarchy:

• Physiological needs. These are biological requirements at the lowest part of the hierarchy, e.g., food, water, sleep, and shelter. Maslow sees these needs as the most important needs among the rest of the levels. He also mentions this need as the baseline of other needs, as people can’t achieve the other needs without meeting the baseline of the hierarchy.

• Safety and security. These needs include financial security, freedom from fear, social stability, property, etc. After physiological needs are satisfied, the need for security and safety become salient. People want to experience predictability and control in their lives. Families and society can play a part in fulfilling these needs, e.g., school and medical care.

• Love and belonging: the third level of human needs is in the social relationship area, the need for humans to feel a sense of belonging. Examples of feeling a sense of belonging include friendship, intimacy, trust, acceptance, receiving and giving attention and love.

• Esteem. The fourth level in this hierarchy requires an ability to feel self-worth and accomplishment and receive respect. Individuals at this level are the people best placed to understand to what extent their self-esteem is fulfilled. Maslow classified esteem into two categories: 1. Esteem for oneself (dignity, achievement, mastery, independence) and 2. The desire for reputation or respect from others (e.g., status, prestige). This level is best filled if positive love and social support are received during childhood and adolescence.

• Self - actualization is the highest level in Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. This is where a person’s potential, self-fulfilment, personal growth and peak experience meet. Maslow (1943) describes this level as the desire to accomplish everything that one can, to become the most that one can be. For example, one individual may have a strong desire to become an ideal parent, which may lead them to model different parenting approaches, including valuing childhood experience and taking inspiration and guidance from how their parents parented them.

Reflecting on the hierarchy of needs, people who feel suicidal often feel this way because they want the situation that they're in or the way they are feeling to stop. This feeling can often occur when the ‘love and belonging’ aspect of Maslow’s hierarchy of need is not fulfilled.

The good news is that the community can play a role in supporting members who may appear to be on the margins of the community and therefore help the person to avoid the appeal of suicide. Here are some ideas for the kinds of support that a community can provide:

• Lend your ear and time to understand and hear what they've been through. You don't need to say anything or react; being fully present and actively listening to the person can make a significant difference.

• Validate their feeling and state how they feel, for example, feeling tired and despair; by validating their feelings, people with suicidal thoughts will understand that they're not alone and feel understood.

• Help them to consider that there are several other options available. Often people who are thinking about suicide have lost the ability to problem solve or to see things objectively. Helping them to see alternative solutions may be the support that they need to help them see an alternative pathway forward.

If you are concerned about the wellbeing of yourself, your child or your sibling, it’s important that you don’t suffer alone and that you reach out and ask for help.

Our school counsellors can be contacted for information, advice or for guidance. Please contact them on:

Ibu Arrunna: arrunna@globaljaya.com

Ibu Joanne: joanne@globaljaya.com

Ibu Ingrid: ingrid@globaljaya.com