Claim 1: The reasoning that proclaims a given emotional/social need is not legitimate is normally flawed.
Claim 2: Ignored emotional/social needs will not “re-normalize” and will be a recurring source of pain, suffering, and problems.
I can pretty much agree with these claims.
I think it’s worth breaking down emotional/social needs into lower-level entities than people usually do, e.g:
“I need to be in a sexual relationship with {X} even though they hate me”—is an emotional need that’s probably flawed
“I need to be in a sexual relationship”—is an emotional need that’s probably correct
***
“I need to be friends with {Y} even though they told me they don’t enjoy my company”—again, probably flawed
“I need to be friends with some of the people that I like”—most likely correct
But then you reach the problem of where exactly you should stop the breakdown, as in, if your need is “too” generic once you reach its core it might make it rather hard to act upon. If you don’t break them down at all you end up acting like a sitcom character without the laugh-track, wit and happy coincidences.
Also, whilst I disagree with your initial formulation:
All your needs are legitimate
I don’t particularly see anything against:
There is no such thing as unacceptable feelings
But it seems from your reply that you hold them to be one and the same ?
In both of those examples you give I agree with you judgment of the needs.
If you switch “All your needs are legit” to “All your social/emotional needs are legit”, then yeah, I was thinking of that and “There is no such things as unacceptable feelings” as the same thing. Though I can now see two distinct ideas that they could point to.
“All your S/E needs are legit” seems to say not only that it’s okay to have the need, it’s okay to do something to meet it. That’s a bit harder to handle than just “It’s okay to feel something.” And yeah, there probably is some scenario where you could have a need that there’s no way you could ethically meet, and that you can’t breakdown into a need that can be met.
Another thing that I noticed informed my initial phrasing is I think that there is a strong sour grapes pressure to go from “I have this need, and I don’t see anyway to get it met that I’m okay with” to “Well then this is a silly need and I don’t even really care about it.”
You’ve sparked many more thoughts from me on this, and I think those will come in a post sometime later. Thanks for prodding!
I can pretty much agree with these claims.
I think it’s worth breaking down emotional/social needs into lower-level entities than people usually do, e.g:
“I need to be in a sexual relationship with {X} even though they hate me”—is an emotional need that’s probably flawed
“I need to be in a sexual relationship”—is an emotional need that’s probably correct
***
“I need to be friends with {Y} even though they told me they don’t enjoy my company”—again, probably flawed
“I need to be friends with some of the people that I like”—most likely correct
But then you reach the problem of where exactly you should stop the breakdown, as in, if your need is “too” generic once you reach its core it might make it rather hard to act upon. If you don’t break them down at all you end up acting like a sitcom character without the laugh-track, wit and happy coincidences.
Also, whilst I disagree with your initial formulation:
I don’t particularly see anything against:
But it seems from your reply that you hold them to be one and the same ?
In both of those examples you give I agree with you judgment of the needs.
If you switch “All your needs are legit” to “All your social/emotional needs are legit”, then yeah, I was thinking of that and “There is no such things as unacceptable feelings” as the same thing. Though I can now see two distinct ideas that they could point to.
“All your S/E needs are legit” seems to say not only that it’s okay to have the need, it’s okay to do something to meet it. That’s a bit harder to handle than just “It’s okay to feel something.” And yeah, there probably is some scenario where you could have a need that there’s no way you could ethically meet, and that you can’t breakdown into a need that can be met.
Another thing that I noticed informed my initial phrasing is I think that there is a strong sour grapes pressure to go from “I have this need, and I don’t see anyway to get it met that I’m okay with” to “Well then this is a silly need and I don’t even really care about it.”
You’ve sparked many more thoughts from me on this, and I think those will come in a post sometime later. Thanks for prodding!