Beyond the Family Cult

The word “love” is often used in ways that reveal a confusion between neediness and love. A person clinging to an unfulfilling or even abusive romantic relationship might say, “I love my partner so much.” Someone in the grips of an addiction might say they “love” their substance or behavior of choice. Both needing and loving can involve intense feelings of connectedness, which explains some of the confusion.

Needing, which can be thought of as the immature version of love, is a powerful warm feeling of hopeful anticipation that our emotional hunger will be satisfied. It underlies the bonding of children to their parents and to other caregivers. It demands a stable, respectful and continuing relationship until the needs in question are fulfilled, and when adults experience age-inappropriate neediness there is often a desperate hope for being (metaphorically) held by a relationship that never ends. Needing is inherently selfish: as children we express our neediness for the sake of fueling our growth, and for our growth alone. There is nothing pathological about this kind of selfishness unless it has been warped by trauma.

When our childhood neediness is ignored, misunderstood, hated or used to exploit us, we respond by burying the feelings of terror, violation and rage, and we shut down or divert the original feeling of neediness. This inevitably leads to acting out sooner or later when the deeply frustrated need for untainted love comes up in distorted ways such as addictions, depressions or compulsions to use other people.

Loving, or mature love, is giving nurturance: a responsive, creative act of fulfilling someone’s needs. Importantly, this can include nurturing the needy parts of ourselves. Love can be given to people who are dependent on us like our children, to long term companions, or spontaneously to total strangers who are merely crossing paths with us. Ongoing relationship is not necessarily required to love someone. It is inherently selfless—or, more accurately, it embodies an understanding that one’s self is part of a larger whole. The act of loving says, “I see potential for the same fire in you which is already burning steadily in me, and I wish to light your torch with mine.” It is generous not only in the sense of providing from a place of abundance, but also in the sense of generating healthy, fulfilling interactions.

The drive to nurture is about offering to the recipient and not about expecting anything in return. Not even acceptance of the gift. When all of our immature childhood needs are fulfilled we naturally become able and willing to fully love ourselves, and by extension to love others. To the extent that someone has been nurtured properly they will derive a deep sense of satisfaction and meaning by loving others. I believe a significant part of the withering depression that so many adults experience in today’s world is caused by being disconnected from opportunities to nurture people, including opportunities to nurture themselves.

Taking up our responsibility to heal ourselves means recognizing and acting on our ability to nurture the most stunted and still needy parts of ourselves. The more we do this the more clearly we can tell the difference between loving and needing, both in ourselves and in others. This is essential for finding our way in a deeply troubled world.