This blog comes from Ajit Karve, a Transformational TA Coach
+919822024037; ajitpkarve@gmail.com
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Psychological Hungers
+919822024037; ajitpkarve@gmail.com
See the other blogs here : Table of Contents
Psychological hungers are like biological hungers. They drive persons to obtain their fulfilment. In that sense they are motivators. Six psychological hungers are listed.
They are:
1. Stimulus hunger
2. Recognition hunger
3. Position hunger
4. Structure hunger
5. Incidence hunger
6. Aspirational hunger
Stimulus Hunger: Physical, emotional, neurological and psychological health is dependent on stimuli since birth. Studies have shown that insufficient stimulating care affects the neurological and psychological development of children. Extreme deprivation of touch and care results in a condition called hospitalism or anaclytic depression. Another name is Marasmus. It results in impaired growth. Strokes satisfy the need for satiating stimulus hunger. Stroke represents an infant's need for touch. In growing years it moves from purely physical, to visual, auditory and verbal forms. TA affirms that people seek strokes because they have a survival value. Bad or unhealthy strokes; verbal, physical and implied strokes like insult; psychological or emotional hurt and pain; is better than no stroke at all. Stroke is defined as a unit of recognition. We all seek recognition for the right reason or wrong reason. We commit mistakes, slip of tongue occurs, naughty behaviour like spilling tea, hurting ourselves physically, and such like other behaviours and activities get rewarded by stroking and recognition. It contributes to social action.
Recognition Hungers: Recognition occurs when we are noticed, recognised, accepted, praised, admired, adored, heard, looked at, held, touched, or criticised, ridiculed, punished or damned. It contributes to social action. Recognition Hunger is fulfilled through the agency of transactions. A transaction comprises a transactional stimulus and a related transactional response. A transaction is defined as a unit of social intercourse. We greet, say a few words, carry on with some give-takes and in the process fulfil our need for satiating recognition hunger. Recognition is viewed in TA as a sublimated form of stroke. It may be proper to say that recognition and stroke are bipolar entities for one cannot exist without the other.
Position Hunger: Position Hunger shows up in persons to maintain life positions. Life position is also called existential position or basic life position. There are four principal life positions. They are healthy, depressive, paranoid and futility positions. These reflect our view of ourselves, of others and the world at large. They also reflect our orientation toward situations, problems, difficulties and challenges. By maintaining our preferred life position, position hunger need is fulfilled. We think, feel, act, do, express, interact, perform, in a particular way. The method reinforces our life position and as a result helps to maintain inertia and homeostasis of the psychic organisation. Any effort to change the inertia or homeostasis is staunchly opposed.
Structure Hunger: We make every effort to live our day time by structuring time. In TA it is called time structuring. Structuring time helps in avoiding boredom, monotony and stereotypy. Structuring time also helps in obtaining strokes. It is done in six ways. They are withdrawal, rituals, activity, pastimes, games and intimacy. Practice of TA helps in gaining the ability to interact in intimacy. Intimacy is the ability to express our thoughts, feelings, emotions, opinions, views, ideas to others candidly, honestly, openly and safely without posing threat or aggression or appeasement or for sake of nicety.
Incidence Hunger: Incidence is an occurrence. Incidents that cause hurt and pain are best avoided. In the extreme such occurrences are in the nature of physical injuries, material or financial loss, spilling things on clothes, exposure to unprotected sex, among others. All these and similar types of events, incidents, occurrences, help to make up the shortfall in stroke content through a process called stroke bank.
Aspirational Hunger: Aspirational Hunger is a manifestation of human desire to grow, to develop and achieve wholeness. It is represented in TA by an arrow that runs through the three ego states. It appears as is shown in figure 21. It is a drive which becomes operative by integrating the positive aspects of the three ego states. It is a drive which is capped by script and games. Man is caught in fulfilling the demands of the script so much, that he forgets this basic gift. People who live their lives independent of their scripts, pursue their aspirations.
Figure 21
Aspiration constitutes one of four forces of human destiny the other three being fate, script and constructive Parent programming aided by physis. This last one happens when people day-dream as 'visual pictures of what they would do if they could do as they pleased.'
Of the six hungers at the core is position hunger. It determines the orientation of a person toward himself, toward others and toward situations, problems, difficulties, conditions and challenges. It also builds one's self concept. The other five are the means that go to build the inertial frame. A person desiring to live a better life needs to simultaneously tackle all the six psychological hungers in a healthy and balanced way. If this is not done, what change is achieved in one area gets compensated in another or some of the other areas to maintain balance. The final breakthrough comes when the attributes describing one's life position have undergone a change for the better to achieve freedom from script.
Having esteem for responsibility, being able to separate person from behaviour, accepting self and others despite all their flaws, installing a positive stroking pattern is the best practice to be better persons on the journey to achieve autonomy.
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