relationships, things, experiences, and situations, that weren’t noticeable to us, and may not have been noticeable to anyone else. Although our basic emotional need may have continued to be pleasurably met in many possible ways when we left our infancy behind, it often becomes more consistently, and greater met, though unnoticeably so, in our unconscious from unconsciously perceived parts of things, people, experiences, and situations. As we left infancy and early childhood, we no longer recognizably relied as much on our mothers, or on our mother-equated “blankies,” and those mother-equated stuffed toy animals we once had, to meet our basic emotional need.
As we left early childhood behind, the meeting of our basic emotional need became much less recognizably met, when it was being more done so on a “part”-oriented basis, by our involvement with many things, people, experiences, and situations. Our basic emotional need becomes more unrecognizably met from the parts of those entities that our unconscious perceives as bringing a degree of pleasure or comfort to us. Other parts of those entities might not meet any of our basic emotional need. Some of those other parts might frustrate that need, and if they do so, those frustrations, in being “part”-oriented, won’t be consciously recognized by us, or by anyone else, including a mental health professional. But we can unconsciously perceive those frustrations. Though some people might pleasurably meet more of our basic emotional need than other people, and we may have a very special thing, person, experience, or situation, that might particularly meet well our basic emotional need, no one thing, person, experience, or situation, will pleasurably meet our basic emotional need as fully as the mothering person of our infancy first did, when we occluded so much of reality with our sleeping most of the time.
The pleasurable meeting of our basic emotional need becomes more disseminated from initially being predominantly met in a very noticeable way as an infant, to a much more unrecognized “part”-oriented way, as an adult. As a newborn, we were obviously dependent on one person, in one experience, and in one situation. That’s the ultimate state of emotional immaturity. As we moved toward emotional maturity, we unconsciously perceived more parts of people, things, experiences, and situations as helping to adequately meet our basic emotional need. The mass of these parts became larger as we continued to spread out the meeting of our basic emotional need, while most of the individual parts of that enlarging mass became smaller. We first began to pleasurably meet our basic emotional need in reality, on a very noticeable “whole”-oriented basis, in an overly dependent relationship with our mothers. As we approach emotional maturity, we meet more of our basic emotional need in our unconscious, on an unnoticeable “part”-oriented basis, though we might still have very special people, things, experiences, and situations that are recognizably enjoyable to us. But these entities may not be meeting the majority of our basic emotional need, as that need might be more predominantly met in our unconscious, on an unrecognized “part”-oriented basis. Similarly, the majority of the frustrating of our basic emotional need may, at times, be more predominately occurring in our unconscious, on an unrecognized “part”-oriented basis, which might greatly increase our unmet basic emotional need.
Some people don’t get far from emotional immaturity in life, or they do, but then regress back toward it, because of developing a much larger unmet basic emotional need from a more adverse reality. The more our unmet basic emotional need increases, from more recognizable and unrecognizable frustrations of our basic emotional need, the more we’ll tend to regress toward being overly dependent where it becomes more noticeable how we are attempting to meet our basic emotional need. For instance, a woman recently told me that her daughter, now a third-year college student, refers to her as “Mom” and gets her attention by calling, “Hey Mom!” But when the daughter becomes sick for one reason or another, which increases what is unmet of her basic emotional need, she plaintively addresses her mother like she did much earlier in life, as “Mommy,” while complaining of her discomforts and seeking emotional comfort from her relationship with her mother, as she did when she was much younger. “Mommy, I don’t feel well,” causes her mother to respond with how she emotionally comforted her daughter when the daughter was much younger.
How we are attempting to meet our basic emotional need becomes more easily discernible as our basic emotional need becomes more unmet. With a sustained increasingly unmet basic emotional need, we can become more vulnerable to becoming overly dependent. The more we become overly dependent, the more emotionally immature we become. In contrast, as our basic emotional need is increasingly met in a disseminated manner, we become more emotionally mature. It then becomes more difficult to recognize how our basic emotional need is being predominately met even if we do have a very special person, or a religious belief, that can meet well our basic emotional need. We can define “emotional maturity” as an emotional independence, and “emotional immaturity” as being overly dependent. Emotional maturity is the state we reach when we have greatly extended the meeting of our basic emotional need, not only amongst a multiplicity of things, people, experiences and situations, in a “whole”-oriented recognizable way, but also from a multiplicity of unconsciously perceived parts of things, people, experiences, and situations, in an unrecognizable way. If we, for any reason, were to develop more of an unmet basic emotional need, as we might from any major recognizable frustration of our basic emotional need, or from an uncomfortable accumulation of unrecognized “part”-oriented frustrations, we would tend to move closer to emotional immaturity, trying to pleasurably meet that need from bigger more noticeable parts. We might eventually seek to meet our increased unmet basic emotional need predominately in a single relationship, on a recognizable “whole”-oriented basis, rather than on a predominately “part”-oriented way, as we would when we’re emotionally mature. The more our basic emotional need is unmet, the more noticeable it might then become that we are attempting to pleasurably meet that need in too much of a “whole”-oriented, “Mommy”-like way, like we did as infants. If we’re not an infant, our trying to meet entirely our basic emotional need from a single human being is invariably fraught with major difficulties, as we shall soon see in a later chapter.
Chapter Two
The Illogical Way Our Unconscious Thinks
Our basic emotional need is essentially a need to engender within us pleasurable or “good” feelings, and no unpleasant or “bad” feelings. Our talking to a perceived listener can engender “good” feelings. It’s our talking that most often initiates, and then maintains, our becoming emotionally attached to others in our interpersonal relationship sphere on an unrecognized “part”-oriented basis. Our talking is the adhesive of our relationships. When friends “stick together,” it’s their pleasurable talking that does the “sticking.” Without that pleasurable “sticking,” we’d be going from one overly dependent relationship to another overly dependent relationship. Our pleasurably talking with others allows us to spread out the meeting of our basic emotional need on a “part”-oriented basis so that we’re not exclusively attached to one person to meet a predominance of our basic emotional need the way we once were when we first started out in life. When our basic emotional need is being more diffusely met from the pleasure of our talking with our friends, and from whatever else we take pleasure in doing, we can avoid becoming overly dependent on another person like we were as infants. Being overly dependent on another person is only advantageous if we are spending most of our time asleep, confined to one place, and having a very limited knowledge of reality. Outside the nursery and the nursing home, our being overly dependent isn’t emotionally advantageous to us.
Because our basic emotional need can be pleasurably met on an unconscious basis, we won’t always recognize a part of a relationship, experience, or situation that might be “just a little bit” pleasurable to us. Yet that unconsciously perceived “just a little bit” of pleasure can meet “just a little bit” of what might be unmet of our basic emotional need, making us “just a little bit” more emotionally comfortable. These small unconscious gratifications of our basic emotional need that aren’t recognized by us, can be continually occurring, and meeting our basic emotional need sufficiently enough for us to be emotionally comfortable. With a better met basic emotional need, we are better able to maintain a very special “whole”-oriented
