2. What Are Needs in Nonviolent Communication (NVC)?

Short answer

In Nonviolent Communication (NVC), Needs are the universal qualities of life that all human beings long to experience and try to care for. They are the deepest motivations behind everything we do.

Examples include love, connection, safety, freedom, honesty, rest, understanding, belonging, meaning, play, support, autonomy, trust, and contribution.

Behind every human action, there is a beautiful Need the person is trying to care for.

This does not mean that every action is beautiful. Many actions deeply concern me.
It means that the Need—the motivation, the intention behind the action—is always beautiful.

For me, this is a radical shift in the way I see the world, human beings, and life itself. It has transformed my relationships with people and my relationship with life itself.

More Personal Answer

Needs Changed the Way I See Human Beings

Before I encountered Nonviolent Communication, when people behaved in ways I did not like, I would judge their behavior and analyze their motives:

He is selfish. She is controlling. They are aggressive. I am lazy. You are manipulative. He doesn’t care. She is oversensitive.

Then I heard Marshall Rosenberg say that behind our judgments and actions, there are Needs trying to be cared for.

Something in me opened. It felt a bit like stepping out of the Matrix.

Instead of asking, “What is wrong with this person?” or “What is wrong with me?”
I began asking, “What is this person trying to care for?” and “What Needs am I trying to care for through this action?”

– A person may shout because they are longing to be heard or understood.
– A person may stay silent because they are trying to care for safety or inner peace.
– A person may work fourteen hours a day because they are longing for security, recognition, contribution, or meaning.
– A person may lie because they are trying to care for acceptance, belonging, or safety.

For example, when someone didn’t ask me how I was, I would judge them as uncaring.
After encountering NVC, a different kind of curiosity emerged in me:

– Why might this person not be asking me how I am?
– Maybe they don’t know it is important to me?
– Maybe they feel shy, or in their culture such a question seems intrusive?
– Maybe they themselves have rarely been truly listened to?
– Maybe they are stressed and believe that connection happens more through speaking than through listening?

Slowly, my attention shifted—from judgment to curiosity, from blame to understanding.

– Underneath anger, there may be a longing for care.
– Underneath withdrawal, there may be a Need for protection.
– Underneath criticism, there may be a wish for shared understanding.
– Underneath jealousy, there may be a longing for love.

Slowly, I began to see human beings differently.
Not as selfish, difficult, manipulative, crazy, or wrong, but as vulnerable creatures, continuously trying—in the best ways we currently know—to care for life inside us and around us.

The moment I stop believing that people are trying to hurt me, and instead see that they are trying—however tragically—to care for life, my whole emotional landscape changes.

The Plant Moving Towards the Sun

The only thing a plant knows how to do is its best to move towards the sun. It is programmed this way.

I increasingly experience human beings in the same way: the only thing we know how to do is move towards Needs—towards caring for beautiful qualities of life. Every action we take is an attempt to care for Needs. We are programmed this way. We cannot do anything unless we are trying to care for Needs.

Action ≠ Intention

A Need is the motivation or intention behind an action.

For example, the action I take is to call my mother. But what is my motivation behind it?
It could be different Needs: perhaps a Need for sharing and being listened to. Perhaps a Need to care for her. Perhaps a Need for reassurance that she is okay.

While all our actions are attempts to meet Needs, some of the strategies we use may look twisted, painful, or even destructive. But somewhere underneath, there is still a movement towards life—an attempt to care for a Need.

I might find myself screaming at my child: “How many times do I have to tell you? Stop hitting your sister! You are a bad boy! Go to your room!”

Later, I might deeply regret the way I screamed at him. I deeply regret my strategy. And still, I can see that my intention behind the screaming was beautiful: I so want everyone to feel safe at home—his sister and him.

The direction is always towards the sun.

The paths we take to get there may be tragic.

And this is the distinction I want to make:

Action ≠ Intention.
Strategy ≠ Need.

A person may lie because they are trying to belong.
A person may scream because they desperately long to be understood.

For clarity: I do not like lying or screaming. Seeing the Need behind an action does not mean I have to accept the behaviour. Sometimes I want to stand very firmly against a strategy while still caring deeply about the Need behind it.

What Exactly Is a Need?

I see a Need as a beautiful quality of life. Something we long to experience:
Love. Freedom. Connection. Rest. Belonging. Safety. Meaning. Choice. Understanding. Intimacy. Play. Contribution.

What Needs Are Not

– A Need is not an object. I do not see this as a Need: “I need a new car.”
– A Need is not a person. I do not see this as a Need: “I need you.”
– A Need is not an action. I do not see this as a Need: “I need to drink coffee.”
– A Need is not something someone has to do for me. I do not see this as a Need: “I need you to help me.”

Needs are abstract and universal.
This distinction—Need ≠ Strategy—is, for me, perhaps the most important distinction in NVC. For me, this is where the hidden magic of NVC lives:

Need ≠ Strategy

Needs, the way I define them, are:

• Universal (≠ personal): All human beings have the same Needs. All human beings need nourishment. Some prefer to eat meat; others prefer to be vegetarian.
• Abstract (≠ concrete): I need connection is abstract. I want to go out with you is a concrete strategy.
• Inside me (≠ outside of me): A Need is a longing living within me: I long to experience care. The strategy is outside of me: I call my best friend.
• The WHY (≠ the HOW or WHAT): A Need is at the core of my authenticity—the WHY behind what I do. The strategy is the HOW or WHAT: I brush my teeth. The WHY—the Needs—may be health, closeness, or being appreciated by my fellow human beings.

Imagine I say: “I need ice-cream.”
Is ice cream a Need?
In my definition of Needs, it is not. Ice cream is concrete. It is an object outside of me. Not every human being on this planet needs ice-cream. We all need nourishment, but we don’t necessarily need ice-cream.

So I become curious: Why do I want ice-cream?
At different moments, there may be different motivations behind it:
Perhaps I feel stressed and long for comfort or fun.
Maybe I am feeling hot and need refreshment.
Maybe I long for company and enjoy eating ice cream together with a friend.
Or perhaps I am hungry and need nourishment.

These are much closer to the Need. Ice cream is one possible strategy for caring for these Needs.

For example, if I feel stressed and my Need is for comfort, there may be many different strategies to care for it:
I can ask my partner for a hug.
I can take a nap.
I can decide to work fewer hours that day and go for a swim in the lake.

Or, if I am hot and need refreshment:
I can take a cold shower.
I can turn on the AC or a fan.
I can go for a swim.
Ice cream is only one strategy for caring for the Need. There are millions of possible strategies for caring for our Needs.

Or imagine I say: “I need you to listen to me.”
Again, I am mixing a Need and a strategy.
Perhaps my Need is to be heard. To matter. To experience presence. To feel precious.

And my favourite strategy right now is: YOU listening to me.

There is nothing wrong with preferring this strategy. I love having favourite strategies!
The difficulty begins when, deep inside me, I start believing: This is the only way my Need can be met—if YOU listen to me.
Then, if you don’t want to listen to me, something in me may freak out.

It is as though my little baby Need is screaming: I WILL NEVER BE HEARD! I DON’T MATTER!

This is where a request can quickly become a demand.

I may say very politely, “Would you be willing to listen to me?”
But inside me, I may be holding a gun. You better say yes, or else I freak out.

The distinction between Need and strategy is therefore not only about vocabulary. It is about the consciousness behind my words.

Grey Territory: Is Sex a Need?

I love this question because it shows how delicate the distinction can be.
My answer is: It depends on what you mean by sex:

If by sex I mean the action of making love with another person, then I see this as a strategy.

Through making love, I might care for Needs such as intimacy, connection, love, pleasure, tenderness, or sexual expression.

And if, by “sex,” I mean the abstract sexual longing itself that is happening within me—an inner movement, an energy, a life force—then I see this as a human Need.

And if it is a Need, there may be millions of ways it can be met:
Making love. Masturbating. Dancing. Painting. Writing. Creating.

This is what happens when I take the Need out of one specific strategy. Suddenly, there are 360 degrees of possibilities.

From Scarcity to Abundance

The distinction between Needs and strategies is so revolutionary—it moves me from scarcity to abundance:

If I believe: I need YOU to love me.
I have one strategy: YOU.
If you don’t love me, it seems I will never be loved. Scarcity. My world collapses.

If I connect instead to: I need love.
Suddenly, the world opens.
Love can come through a friend. My brothers. A community. A child. An animal. Nature. Touch. Music. My own relationship with myself. A new relationship I cannot yet imagine.

Abundance is the knowing that there are millions of strategies for meeting Needs. There are 360 degrees of possibilities.

This does not mean people are replaceable. If my mother dies, I don’t say: No problem! I need love and there are eight billion other humans.
My mother is unique. My relationship with her is unique. I mourn her.

And at the same time, part of my suffering may come from a deeper fear: The Needs I met through her will never be met again.
Scarcity.

Our brains often learn to associate a particular Need with one familiar strategy.
I like to imagine Needs as babies living inside me. Like babies, Needs can either cry or feel deeply cared for.
When I am in a state of scarcity—which, for me, means being attached to a specific strategy, such as “I need you to love me”—and you are not available to show me love in that moment, my baby Need for love panics.
It believes that if you don’t love me, it will never receive love. It will die.

Slowly, it can begin to feel safe in the knowledge that love is available from unlimited sources.
Life is abundant.
And this, in turn, liberates YOU:When I am not dependent on you to give me love, you can feel free.
And when a human being feels free, love tends to flow from them naturally.

Do Needs Conflict?

This is one of the most radical understandings NVC brought into my life: There are no conflicting Needs.

People often tell me, “But Yoram, sometimes Needs do conflict. For example, I need connection and she needs space.”

When I hear this, I become curious: What do “connection” and “space” actually mean in your imagination?

Perhaps “connection” means spending the weekend together, while “space” means being alone. Now we have a conflict—but not between Needs. The conflict is between two strategies: spending the weekend together and spending the weekend alone.

Perhaps behind one is a need for closeness and intimacy, and behind the other a need for rest and recovery.

At the level of Needs, I don’t see a conflict. I want both. I want closeness and intimacy, and I want rest and recovery.

The only thing is that I don’t know—yet—how to meet them both at the same time.

Needs are abstract. Two abstract things cannot clash. I sometimes imagine Needs as clouds. Try to make two clouds crash into each other. They simply move through one another.

Safety does not fight freedom.
Rest does not fight play.
Togetherness does not fight autonomy.

The collision happens when we become attached to specific ways of caring for them.

A Simple Example: The Sea or Staying Home

Imagine I want to go to the sea with my partner. And my partner wants to stay home.

At the level of strategies—the sea versus home—we may argue, negotiate, or try to convince one another that our preferred strategy is the right one.

Or we can become curious:
Why do I want to go to the sea?
Perhaps I long for connection, sharing, intimate time together.

Why do you want to stay home?
Perhaps you long for rest, quiet, recovery after a stressful day.

Once I see your Needs, something changes in me. I don’t want to drag you to the sea anymore.
I want you to rest!
Why?
Because I can compassionately resonate with how it feels to drag myself somewhere when I am tired. Not fun.

And because, at the level of Needs, your well-being is part of my well-being.
I know that if you need rest and I drag you to the sea, you will hate it—and you will hate me the whole way through. And I will surely not get the quality of connection I was longing for.

Your well-being is part of my well-being.

I want you to meet your Needs because I want to meet my Needs. Needs cannot be met at the expense of another person’s Needs. It is not sustainable.

And from this place of mutually seeing each other’s Needs with compassion, creativity may begin to flow naturally:
Perhaps, to meet my Need for connection, I call a friend and go to the sea with them.
You stay home and rest.
Later, I come back. Perhaps we make love.
Perhaps we lie quietly together.
Perhaps something entirely different happens.

The point is not to find the “correct solution”. The point is that when Needs become visible, creativity often begins to emerge naturally.

Needs and Compassion

I used to think that I should be more compassionate.
Today, I no longer see compassion as a moral obligation. Instead, I experience it as a pleasurable side effect.

Compassion happens to me when I connect to life—when I connect to reality, to the deeper layer of what is happening inside a human being. Their vulnerability. Their actual Needs.

Imagine my partner lies to me.
I profoundly dislike lying, as I value honesty and transparency.
At the level of strategy—the lying—I may experience it as a danger, as something completely unacceptable to me.

But if I suddenly hear the human being behind the lie, for example: “Yoram, I was scared to tell you because the last time I tried, you got angry with me. And I am really scared of anger.”

I still don’t like that they lied. And when I understand what is behind the lying, my body may respond differently. I immediately want to cooperate—to find a way for them to feel safe enough to tell me the truth.

I am no longer necessarily fighting a monster. I am meeting a human being.

For me, this is one of the most profound gifts of Needs consciousness: How quickly an enemy can become a partner.

Needs and Creativity

We grew up in a culture that teaches us: If you have a problem → look for a solution.
I call it “the culture of: What to do? What should I do??”

– I have a headache: What should I do to get rid of the pain? Let’s take a painkiller.
– My son won’t do his homework. How do I make him do it? Let’s reward him.
– My daughter hits her sister. How do I teach her that this is not allowed? Let’s punish her.
– I am gaining weight. What is wrong with me? What should I do? I should go on a diet. (And why do I fail to stick to it again and again???)

When I encounter a challenge, I have learned to go up into my head and search for strategies.

The risk of asking “What should I do?” too early is that I skip a very important question: What is actually going on?

My girlfriend went to the dentist because she had pain in her tooth.
The dentist fixed it.
The next day, she had pain in her tooth again, so she went back to the dentist.
He fixed it.
The next day, she had pain in her tooth again and decided to go to another dentist. This second dentist took the time to figure out the real cause of the pain. He discovered that, deep inside, there was a small broken piece of metal left behind by a previous dentist…
I was so glad that he took the time to first discover the real cause. The WHY.

I wish all doctors would take the time to do this. And I wish that in every dialogue and every relationship, we would first take the time to discover the WHY—the actual Needs.

Conflicts are not about what they seem to be about. If we have a conflict about leaving dirty underwear in the bathroom, I know that the conflict is not really about the underwear. It might be, for example, about consideration—about wanting to know that my needs also matter here in the house. It is about the pain of having told you already three times, and not understanding why you continue doing something you know is painful for me.
And when you touch that deeper layer, you can suddenly start seeing hundreds of other conflicts that are actually about this very same thing—today it is about the underwear, tomorrow it is about giving our child candy, and next week it is about you saying you would help me in the garden and then not doing it.

If we don’t take the time to connect with the very WHY—the Needs behind the conflict—any solution is like putting a Band-Aid on a broken leg.

NVC invited me to check the WHY before asking HOW to solve it.

Before asking, “What should I do?” I want to ask: What is actually going on? What is the feeling pointing to? What matters? What is alive here?
And most importantly: What are the actual Needs at stake?

And sometimes, I want to stay there for a while. Without solving. Without deciding. Without knowing.
I call it “the muscle of sitting in the not-knowing-yet-how,” which is really not easy… It is a muscle that needs training, as it was not trained much in the society I grew up in.

And the miracle is that once I know the very WHY—the actual Needs alive in each person, the core of our authenticity—creativity often comes to us naturally and effortlessly.

As Marshall used to say: “Once we hear each other’s Needs, it will not take more than 20 minutes to solve any conflict on the planet.”

Needs Are the Guidance Within My Body for How to Care for Life

Until now, I have mostly explored what happens when we connect with Needs—how it changes the way we see people, navigate conflict, and find creative ways forward.

And one layer deeper: What actually are these Needs? Why are they there? And where do they come from? 

Needs are the guidance planted within us for how to care for life.

It is very clear to me that I did not choose to have Needs. They are simply there. Planted within me.

Who planted them?

You can call it God, Nature, the intelligence of the body… However you choose to call it, based on your belief system, for me one thing is simply clear:
Needs are an intelligence planted within me, guiding me in how to care for life.

For example:

• If I am hungry, I am pushed from the inside to search for food.
• If I see a cat alone in the street, I am pushed by compassion from the inside to want them to be cared for.
• If my partner leaves underwear in the bathroom, I am pushed from the inside to want everyone’s needs to matter.
• If I cook and clean for my partner and children, I am pushed from within to want appreciation. Appreciation is the feedback that tells me that what I did has indeed contributed. It completes the movement of contributing to life. Without appreciation, I am missing an important feedback loop—and therefore the boost that encourages me to continue giving in the future.
  No matter how much I judge it as, “It is just my ego wanting to be appreciated,” if I am honest, this Need is still alive in me. It was planted in me, probably for good reasons.
  

The Role of Feelings

Feelings are how my body communicates my Needs to me.

– If I feel hungry, this is how my body tells me: I need nourishment.
– If I am choking, this is how my body tells me: I need air.
– If I am thirsty, this is how my body tells me: I need liquids.

And it is the same with all other emotions:

If a friend of mine cuts off contact with me, I feel sad. Sadness is how my body tells me: Mmm… there is a certain Need, a quality of life, that I am missing right now: I do need friendship and closeness.
The sadness brings me closer to seeing my need, so that I can care for it—either by creating other friendships or by gently exploring whether I can repair this one.

The same is true for anger, shame, guilt, and all other emotions.

Pleasant feelings such as joy, happiness, warmth, and so on are how my body tells me: Oh, a certain Need has just been met and fulfilled.

For example, if I managed to express a difficult message to my partner and it brought more understanding and connection, I might feel relieved, joyful, and empowered, as my Needs for expression, understanding, and confidence in my own capacity to navigate relationships have been met.
Pleasant feelings are how my body lets me know that I am caring well for life in this moment.

So pleasant and unpleasant feelings are the constant guidance coming from within, helping me stay on track with how to care for life.
It is as if I am walking on a tightrope, constantly receiving nudges from both sides—from the left and the right, from the pleasant and the unpleasant—helping me keep my balance and continue walking the tightrope of life.

Following Needs: My Doorway to Spirituality

I grew up thinking that having Needs was selfish.
I see it very differently now.

As Marshall used to say: It is not selfish. It is self-full.

I am amazed: the more I listen to my Needs and stand for them, the more caring I actually become towards others.

Following Needs is following a greater intelligence planted within me.
If I did not choose my Needs, then who planted them in me? Call it Nature, evolution, the body, or God.

For me, following Needs is my doorway to spirituality—to discovering an intelligence greater than my own brain, an intelligence that seems to know how to care for and sustain life, and how to live together on this planet.

Related articles

• What is Nonviolent Communication (NVC)?
• Why Do Conflicts Escalate?
• What is Empathy in NVC?
• How Do Judgment and Blame Disconnect Us?
• What Is the Difference Between a Request and a Demand?