Psychogenic needs deal with emotional and mental satisfaction once primary needs are met. Emotions drive our every move and thought by pushing an individual to a specific end result. This can be both good and bad. First thought that came to my mind is the ambition to lose weight. Losing weight can be one of the most difficult and addicting needs in someone's life. The actual issue at hand involves multiple emotional states such as excitement, depression, happiness, fulfillment, aggravation, and disappointment. The emotions are based off of your end result as to whether you have achieved your mental satisfaction or not.
I feel as though more than half of our society struggles with the way they look and I, myself, am guilty too. The media plays a huge role in this need for perfection. Constant commercials of weight loss pills and programs are being aired (QuikTrim). Infomercials play daily about different work out equipment that will make you look like the models that are being viewed (Ab Circle, Iron Gym). New reality shows are constantly dealing with overweight people losing weight (The Biggest Loser). And honestly, perception is how society views things, and society perceives beauty as being skinny. Not so often are there "average" models posing in bikinis.
The book, Motivation, even describes these needs as environmental demands which will persist as an electrical chemical process in the brain, then correlating with feelings of desire. Many females desire to look like what they see on tv, but how could you blame them? For me, being a dancer, there is a lot of pressure that comes along with the image. Ok, I'll admit, I have put on some weight since high school, but even in my skinner days, my dance teacher constantly was putting me on diets...salads, salads and more salads with the occasional apple. I felt like I had no other choice but to abide by this unhealthy regulation because I wanted to lose weight, which would in return help my dancing and my self esteem. Well, it helped my dancing, not so much my self esteem. Now that I have gained weight over the past few years, I am constantly over analyzing what I eat, how much I eat and then get upset when I eat too much. I think there is too much pressure on everyone striving for perfection. This constant need for mental and emotional satisfaction in losing weight is very difficult to deal with, but is a battle and persistent need I will struggle with forever.
It's a shame how thinness and beauty have become one in the same in our society nowadays. Especially as a girl, it's so hard to not be so self-conscious all the time about how you look because there's so much social pressure to be so thin. I feel like it affects certain people more than others, but I'm with you on this 100%. My whole family is really weight conscious; we are all thin and everyone is constantly working out and trying to stay fit. But it's exhausting. There's just some days I wish I could just forget about it and be happy and eat what I wanted and not have to worry. However the way I grew up, I've had such bad anxiety about my weight that if I gain even a few pounds I do what I have to to lose the weight again. It's a constant battle, every single day, and it does not end. There hasn't been a day go by in years where I haven't had to struggle with it. For people like us, we're just going to have to figure out a way to healthily deal with it and not let it ruin us, as hard as that can be sometimes.
ReplyDeletei agree with the post titled Psycogenic Needs. the media does have a negative affect on us today. the way women are portayed it makes us very self conscious so we go out and buy all the new weight lost products, but every time were are disappointed. i believe everyone is pefect in their own way
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