Core Needs

Core Needs are the things every person needs to grow well. Our model names six of them, and they're the starting point for everything else in this library.

Safety is feeling secure, with care you can predict. Connection is being seen, accepted and belonging. Autonomy is directing your own life. Capability is feeling able to handle things and grow. Expression is the freedom to show feelings, needs and play. Limits is structure, boundaries and self-control.

Nobody earns these. Every person is born with them, and they're one of the three parts of your Core Self.

Limits can look like the odd one out. It's there because a person who was never contained adapts too, just as a person who was over-controlled does. It's also where accountability lives in our model.

When a need isn't met reliably, you learn a way to manage without it, and that way can outlast the situation that taught it. How adaptation works explains how.

Each page below covers one need: what it feels like when it's met, how it can go unmet, and how people tend to adapt around it. Start with whichever name made you pause.