Pathwork Lecture #92: Repressed Needs — Relinquishing Blind Needs — Primary and Secondary Reactions

Summary of Pathwork Lecture #92:
Repressed Needs — Relinquishing Blind Needs– Primary and Secondary Reactions

For a deeper, more rewarding experience of these teachings, consult the Lecture itself, available free of charge at: http://www.pathwork.org/lectures/unedited/P092.PDF

All the distortions in our life are connected to our repressed needs and to our unawareness of them.

Instinctual needs are derived from the instincts of procreation and self-preservation. They may be healthy and normal, but they become destructive when repressed. The needs of the idealized self-image (ISI) are based on vanity and pride. Often, normal instinctual needs and unhealthy ISI needs intertwine, causing us to feel guilty about normal needs — a guilt which is supported by distorted mass images. This guilt causes us to starve such needs, which in turn causes them to be displaced, and when we answer the urgency with which they are expressed in displaced form, we create experiences which further starve our needs. This fuels a vicious cycle of defense, psychic starvation, and ineffectual, pain-inducing action.

It is not only sexual needs which we inappropriately repress, but also other needs of which we are not even aware.

In order to satisfy a need, it is often necessary to relinquish something else and to tolerate temporary frustration for the sake of eventual gratification. We are unable to make this kind of choice intelligently when we are not even aware of the true nature of our displaced need, and when the urgency of the need and the illusion that immediate fulfillment is possible drive us to hang on to what we can get. The lack of satisfaction reinforces our false belief that our instinctual needs are wrong, and this induces us to push the whole vicious cycle further out of awareness. We would do well to GET IN TOUCH with our instinctual needs and their validity, and OBSERVE how we have sabotaged their satisfaction. This process will lead us to an perceive an inner energetic focal point where we are unwilling to let go in favor of actual gratification — an unwillingness which causes helplessness, dependency and the illusion of being caught between two unsatisfactory choices. In this condition, we are in fact caught between the part of us which denies the validity of our real needs and the part which rebels against the denial. We are caught as well between the part of us which gives in to the compulsive energy of our false needs, and the part which rebels against this submission. The way out is to BECOME AWARE of our real needs and to LEARN how to fulfill them responsibly and effectively. This will lead to the gradual disappearance of our false needs. It will also lead us to understand that our self-contempt, which we attribute to the existence of our real needs, is in fact based on our unwillingness to relinquish. Becoming able to relinquish is a tremendous source of self-respect, which enables us to let go of false needs and take the necessary steps to satisfy our real needs.

It is important not to jump to conclusions regarding the focal point where relinquishment is required. When we have done the work to find it, we will not experience the letting go as a sacrifice which makes us virtuous, but will rather understand how the letting go serves our interests.

Repressed needs cause us to have secondary, rather than primary, reactions to situations. We react to our images rather than being intuitively connected to what is actually happening. We see things in black and white terms, are preoccupied with and dependent upon the reactions of others towards us, misjudge situations, and react only with conditioned responses. This is because the repression of our needs causes us to cling to illusion rather than experience reality.

Questions and Answers:

Needs such as vanity and domination over others are not real needs. When we discover them, we would do well to OBSERVE them without moralizing, and DISCOVER the underlying healthy needs which have been repressed.

We can tell that a need is false by considering the nature of its fulfillment. If the satisfaction is shallow and fleeting, often to the detriment of another person or another legitimate personal need, then the need is false. The satisfaction of a real need, on the other hand, is constructive for ourselves and for others.

A need for harmony is valid, but is distorted if it leads one to forfeit other important needs.

Having a severe reaction to discovering inner distortions is a sign that we cling to a belief that the distortion is beneficial, and are seeking to escape the confrontation with our self. We would do well to UNCOVER this belief rather than trying to force the distortion away. To the extent that we are impatient because we falsely believe that we must be perfect, we impede this process of understanding.

As we progress on the spiral of development, the interval between our escape and resistance mechanisms and our awareness of them gets shorter and shorter, until they synchronize. Then, gradually, the distortion itself will begin to arise less frequently until it is eventually replaced with a spontaneous new reaction.

Prayer is helpful, but only if we are willing to do the work of self-purification. If we pray with an expectation that God will do the work for us, then we have a distorted attitude about life and our prayer will be unavailing. We would do well to DETECT this faulty approach to prayer in ourselves. Spirituality without a willingness to do the emotional work of self-confrontation is false religion.

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