Never Alone

"You cannot belong to anyone else, until you belong to yourself."  Pearl Bailey

I have been thinking a lot about identity recently, and about how this not-so-small issue so frequently underlies our distress and may lead to the struggles which result in addictive or compulsive behaviours.  When I first started formally considering social psychology, I remember being asked to consider our need to belong which was familiar to me having spent some time wondering about this from a rather detached philosophical position. 

Fiske (2004) unequivocally emphasised our need to belong, stating that 'Belongingness' is the human emotional need to be an accepted member of a group.  Whether it is family, friends, co-workers, or a sports team, humans have an inherent desire to belong and be an important part of something greater than themselves.  The motive to belong is the need for "strong, stable relationships with other people."  This implies a relationship that is greater than simple acquaintance or familiarity. The need to belong is the need to give and receive affection from others.

"To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment."  Ralph Waldo Emerson

As humans, we are deeply and inherently social creatures.  We desire to live, love and work with others whom we know and who know us. And so did our ancestors, whose membership to small groups helped protect them from the weather and from predators. Belonging to a group gave them- and gives us- a chance to thrive.

Abraham Maslow (1970) suggested that the need to belong was a major source of human motivation.  He thought that it was one of five basic needs, along with physiological, safety, self esteem and self actualisation.  These needs are arranged on a hierarchy and must be satisfied in order. After physiological and safety needs are met an individual can then work on meeting the need to belong and be loved. If the first two needs are not met, then an individual cannot completely love someone else.

Those who struggle to belong, often become casualties of Maslow's hierarchy and of life more generally.  Not-belonging can result in failure to thrive, and prompt withdrawal or rebellion.  For our ancestors, being excluded or becoming an outcast would have been disastrous.  Rejection from the group and lacking the benefits that the group offered would have meant death.  From an evolutionary standpoint, our survival has depended on the ability to prevent rejection, or to reclaim membership to the group once rejected.  This is, in a way, still the case.  Evolution has instilled in us a powerful desire to be part of a group of people we can know and whom can know us, and while our world has changed, and while our social ties to others have become less personal and more complex, social connection (and our fear of losing it) continues to be crucial to the quality (and in some cases, even quantity) of our lives.

"Be who you are and say what you feel because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind."  Dr. Seuss

The 12 Steps were founded upon an implicit understanding of the power of a group and have always welcomed those of us who may have struggled to find or maintain a sense of belonging elsewhere.  We may have searched in the wrong places, or been ousted from those quarters we once felt at home in.  Being 'friends with Bill' means being part of a very big, and growing club whose membership is unconditional and lifelong. 

Fiske, S.T. (2004). Social Beings: A core motives approach to social psychology. United States of America: Wiley.

Maslow, A. (1970). Motivation and personality (2nd ed.). New York: Harper & Row; reprinted by permission of Harper Collins Publishers.