Social welfare is a primary need
As humans, we are hardwired for social connection. We can not survive without it. The quality of our relationships has a profound impact on our health and happiness. Our close relationships (family and friends) help us to endure the tough stuff and also cheer us on through the wins.
But feeling a sense of belonging is about more than just our relationships with others. It’s about our very own connection with ourselves. This is, perhaps, the most significant relationship we will ever have in our entire life. Freely expressing who we are, the essence of our being, allows for a deepening of our social bonds and gives rise to genuine intimacy.
Connection creates a feeling of belonging. And belonging is a fundamental part of psychological safety. Healthy social connections create positive reinforcing loops. They reduce the risk of anxiety and depression, improve self-esteem and facilitate stronger gene expression. So much so, that meaningful relationships can help you live longer.
And on the flip side, researchers have found that a lack of belonging has a bigger impact on our health than smoking, obesity and high blood pressure (though, I’m not suggesting they’re not important too).
From birth, we map our identity through familial ties — our roots. And along with those connections comes inherited beliefs and behaviours, subconscious fears and unhealed traumas. Thankfully, the wisdom of our ancestors is also passed down, too (one of my grandmother’s pearls is that “there’s no such thing as can’t” — it has put me in good stead).
These all inform how we fit into and navigate the world around us. For those carrying the weight of intergenerational trauma, their roots may not be so well established. And, therefore, their tree of life may not have been given the right ingredients to fully blossom.
As a gardener (no pun intended), I know that the soil can be regenerated. New roots can shoot down, even deeper than before. Healing is possible. But we have to stop the cycle in its tracks. We must weave new patterns of nourishment and thriving into the core of our being. To do so requires individual will and collective determination.
It also requires access to the right knowledge and services. The mental models and cultural paradigms that inform the make-up of our society, as well as the architecture of our social systems really matter.
In 1943, American psychologist Abraham Maslow published A Theory of Human Motivation. He outlined five needs that all humans must experience to achieve a sense of wholeness — Maslow’s “hierarchy of needs”. In that he argued that our basic physiological needs must be met before belonging, self-esteem or fulfilment can follow. While the model still has merit, I would argue that social connection is the cornerstone of health.
We have to stop denying the psychosocial aspects of health and start factoring them into conventional healthcare. We are innately social beings (I’m having flashbacks to uni — this is anthropology 101).
As babies we rely on our caregivers to feed, clothe and nurture us, to keep us safe (physically and psychologically). We can only exist through connections with other people. This doesn’t change across the lifespan. Animals that get separated from their herd are at greater risk than those who remain with their community.
Together we create a social tapestry — a patchwork of personalities — stitched together through time and across places (you can tell I’m still an archaeologist at heart). If we keep placing social welfare as a secondary need to physical health, we’re all going to be sick, traumatised and psychologically maladjusted.
This article was first published in The West Australian in Renée Gardiner’s weekly column in Agenda, 10 July 2021.