In your area of nursing practice, which need (of either Erikson or Maslow) do you think is the least met?
When evaluating Maslow’s (1943) pyramid relating his interpretation of basic human needs, it has always been my concern that after moving away from the low level needs pertaining to air, water, food clothing, shelter there is very little scope for health care professionals to address the higher level needs beyond love and affection. After this level there is sexuality and self-actualization; problem solving spontaneity, creativity and confidence. As such, in my opinion the higher level needs are least met, especially, those which lead to self-actualization. Precisely, they encompass creativity. Importantly, when applying the nursing process how can the nurse even make a diagnosis related to these need since they are abstract concepts for which accurate measurements have not been devised. Ultimately, they are often not addressed during normal nursing interventions (Maslow, 1943).
When applying Erickson’s psychosocial development theories aligning them to Maslow basic human needs it would appear that after age 6-12 stages nurses are lost with regards to interventions of fidelity, wisdom which can be related to those higher level basic humans needs as espoused by Maslow (1943). In reality it can be argued that nursing process applications did not take into account methods form addressing these needs accurately during illness neither wellness stages. It is true that when individual health assessments are conducted they are measured, but interventions after diagnoses have been made are not often followed through.
The client may then be referred to a specialist and nurses no longer have a strategy to meet these unmet desires or underdevelopments. It can therefore be concluded that while nursing assessment takes into account Maslow’s (1943) hierarchy of basic human needs in evaluating the client/patient from an holistic perspective when a higher need is identified the nurse is limited in the intervention strategies which can be applied to resolving the dysfunction. Therefore, it cannot be addressed based on a scientific basis.
References
Maslow, A.H. (1943). A theory of human motivation. Psychological Review, 50(4), 370–
