从出生那一刻起，我们就寻求与人类同伴联系，因为如果没有这种联系，我们将死去。想象一个婴儿在没有帮助的情况下独自生存。这是不可能的。当我们照顾别人时，无论是家人，朋友还是医疗专业人员，我们通过疾病或虚弱而生存的机会也会大大增加。那时似乎很明显，当我们年轻和/或脆弱时，与他人的联系是基本的情感和生理需求，但是我们似乎没有意识到与他人的联系有助于我们在各个方面蓬勃发展的事实，在生活的各个阶段。

与我们许多基本的情感需求一样，我们的联系需求植根于那些漫长的日子，我们不得不寻找食物并捍卫自己免受掠食者和敌对部落的侵害。独自一人，我们将无法生存。在一起，我们有了更好的机会-事实上，历史证明，由于我们的野兽心态，我们确实确实生存，survive壮成长并成为一个物种的主宰者。我们固执己见-我们的大脑有固定的电路-要以社区为中心，合群和合作。

我们从过去的历史中以无数种方式发生了变化和发展，但是我们的大脑为生存而连结的方式却保持不变。今天，我们需要社区，我们需要联系，我们需要人与人之间的互动才能繁荣发展。

我们中那些幸运地拥有了稳定的家庭成长经历的人，将受益于与直系亲属的紧密联系，而不论周围环境如何，并将潜意识中吸收与我们社区的联系的需要和好处：

“当我出生时，第二次世界大战在进行。我特别记得的是，我与家人中所认识的人之间的联系：母亲，祖父母（每天照顾我），阿姨，叔叔和堂兄弟姐妹。我知道我与这个家庭有“联系”，我是其中的一员。如此“连接”的感觉对我（婴儿）而言是一种情感关怀，使我感到被照顾，安全和受到保护，而在这个世界上并不孤单。除此之外，我还开始了解自己。”（迈克尔·万豪）

我们天生就知道要生存就需要联系，然而，随着我们从游牧狩猎到更定居的农业社会以及从生存，集体生活到最近的一种更加消费主义和个人主义的思维方式，我们以某种方式忘记了这一需求。

约翰·哈里（Johann Hari）在他的《失落的联系》一书中刻苦地描述了他是如何在一个邻居礼貌而又不团结的社区长大的。感到鼓舞的是能够独自应对而不是依靠别人（与我们祖先的看法相反）感到自豪，失去了联系的重要性，断开联系的孤独感上升了。

我们的数字革命使这一步更进一步：现在，同一家庭中的每个人很可能彼此孤立地生活–家庭团结被社交媒体与地理上不同的群体所取代。在我们的数字连接上，心理治疗师，互联网和游戏成瘾者康复中心reSTART Life的联合创始人希拉雷·卡什（Hilare Cash）博士说：

“我们需要的联系是面对面的，我们能够看到，触摸，嗅到，彼此听见……。我们是社交动物。我们本该以一种安全，关怀的方式相互联系，并且当它由屏幕调节时（如在社交媒体中）绝对不存在。” [引自“失去的联系”]

但是我们真的如此脱节吗？

在我自己的治疗实践中，我总是要求客户填写ENA（情绪需求审核）表格，并且对连接问题获得两极分化结果的频率感到震惊：最高得分或为零。然而，在询问这个问题时，似乎很多人认为与他人的联系如果获得伴侣或亲密关系会获得最高分，如果单身则为零。换句话说，我们已经开始依靠一种亲密关系或至多一个核心家庭来满足我们所有的联系需求，而不是寻求我们更广泛的社区。

HG毕业生Ezra Hewing与Suffolk Mind的工作（他是心理健康教育负责人）对此表示赞同：

“我们目前对居住在英国萨福克郡的3000多人的情感需求审计结果一致表明，对情感联系的需求是最能满足需求的。似乎大多数人在不太满足其他需求时都依靠最亲密的关系来应付。”

比利时心理学家Esther Perel 在公开赛中接受Piya Chattopadhyay的采访时，简而言之：

“我们曾经从村子里得到的东西，现在许多人期望一个单身的人为他们提供食物”

经常引用埃丝特（Esther）的话说：“我们的关系质量决定了我们的生活质量”，尽管这种想法使我有些之以鼻（我懒于培养友谊），但我确定她是对的。

在我的HG Journal文章中，有关偏远的岛屿生活可以告诉我们有关需求和资源的文章，我研究了小型孤立社区如何保持联系的价值。留给自己的设备，几乎没有哪个保姆国家基础设施可用来解决日常挑战，我发现，偏远的岛屿社区彼此之间互为依托，这些岛屿人口数百而不是数千或数百万。不要开着门，“开水壶”，在“街道”（农田，海滩，山丘）上聊天，要知道并关心邻居的生活，不要开门帮助，并有意识地为社区增加自己的能量。

但是，这并不是远程社区独有的。它可能发生在任何地方，并且通常会在遇到逆境或暴行时发生（正如我们最近在新西兰克赖斯特彻奇，曼彻斯特，巴黎，波士顿所看到的那样）。闭门造车的生活很乐意出现，并迫切需要建立联系。内在的一切，辛苦的需求和需要。

作为社会认知神经科学教授Matthew Lieberman在他的《社会》一书中说，“我们的大脑被连接起来，可以与他人互动”，并且“社交和身体疼痛之间的神经联系……确保保持社交联系将是一生的需要，例如食物和温暖。”利伯曼（Lieberman）断言，所爱的人会造成与肢体丧失一样多的身体疼痛。

在此必须注意，与我们所有基本需求一样，可以通过不健康或消极的方式实现联系。俗话说：“瓶底找不到爱”，令人上瘾的物质就是那些弊大于利的虚假朋友。被引诱加入犯罪团伙，邪教或恐怖组织的人们总是在原本孤立的生活中寻求有意义的联系。

虐待关系中的人际关系可能会造成深深的心理困扰-正如约翰·哈里（Johann Hari）如此勇敢地承认自己的生活中发生了事。以不健康的方式满足的需求会导致与完全没有充分满足的需求相同的疾病：焦虑，沮丧，成瘾，愤怒，痛苦和随之而来的各种身体疾病。

我们需要以健康，积极的方式满足我们的所有需求，并且联系也不例外。

人们可能会以为，与社区建立联系比安全性要重要，但它可以说是我们需求中最重要的需求，因为它源于生活的淡水，即注意力交换，亲密关系，一种社交意识。含义，地位以及安全本身。我们的需求是相互联系的，如果不能平衡地满足他们的要求，我们就会步履蹒跚，感到痛苦和患病，无法，壮成长。满足了我们的需求，我们得以蓬勃发展并蓬勃发展，与同胞的联系是这种幸福状态的源泉。

“我们没有一个词可以表达孤独的反面，但是如果我们做到了，我可以说这就是我生活中想要的。这不是完全的爱，不是完全的社区。就是这样的感觉，有很多人在一起。谁在您的团队中？”

Marina Keegan（1989-2012）作者，美国马萨诸塞州

©朱莉娅·韦尔斯特德，2019年3月

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原文——

We seek to connect with our fellow humans from the moment we are born because we would die without that connection. Imagine a human baby surviving alone, without help. It’s not possible. Our chances of survival through illness or infirmity are also much enhanced when we are looked after by others, be they family, friends or health professionals. It seems obvious then, that connection to others is an essential emotional and physical need when we are young and/or vulnerable, and yet we seem to have lost sight of the fact that connection with others helps us to thrive and flourish in all aspects, and at all stages, of life.

As with so many of our essential emotional needs, our need for connection is rooted in those long gone days when we had to hunt for food and defend ourselves against predators and rival tribes. Alone, we would not have survived. Together, we had a much better chance – and in fact history proves that because of our pack animal mentality we did indeed survive, thrive and dominate as a species. We are hardwired – we have fixed circuits in our brains – to be community minded, gregarious and cooperative.

In myriad ways we have changed and developed from those historical times, and yet the way our brains are wired for survival remains constant. It’s as true today as it was then that we need community, we need connection, we need human interaction, in order to thrive.

Those of us lucky enough to have had a stable family upbringing will have benefited from close connection with immediate relatives, whatever the surrounding situation, and will have subconsciously absorbed the need for, and benefits of, connection to our community:

“When I was born, the Second World War was raging. What I remember particularly is the connection between myself and the people I knew as members of my family: my mother, my maternal grandparents (who looked after me on a daily basis), aunts, uncles and cousins. I knew that I was 'connected' to the family, that I was part of it. Feeling thus 'connected' was an emotional means for me, as an infant, to feel cared for, safe and protected, and not alone in this world. And out of that I also began to understand who I was.” (Michael Marriott)

We knew, innately, that we needed to connect in order to survive and yet, as we moved through the centuries from nomadic hunting to more settled, agrarian societies and from subsistence, collective living to, most recently, a more consumerist and individualistic mindset, we have somehow lost sight of that need.

In his book Lost Connections Johann Hari poignantly describes how he was brought up in an area where neighbours were polite, but neighbourhoods weren’t united as a community, and everyone’s life happened behind closed doors. Encouraged to feel proud of being able to cope alone and not rely on others (the opposite of what our ancestors would have believed), the importance of connection was lost and the loneliness of disconnect rose.

Our digital revolution has taken this further: now individuals within the same home are quite likely to be living in isolation from each other – the family togetherness replaced by social media “connections” with geographically disparate groups. On our digital connection, Dr Hilare Cash, a psychotherapist and co-founder of reSTART Life, rehabilitation centre for internet and gaming addicts, has this to say:

“The kind of connection we need is face-to-face, where we are able to see, and touch, and smell, and hear each other….We’re social creatures. We’re meant to be in connection with one another in a safe, caring way, and when it’s mediated by a screen [as in social media] that’s absolutely not there.”  [quote taken from 'Lost Connections']

But are we really so disconnected?

In my own therapeutic practice I always ask clients to fill out an ENA (Emotional Needs Audit) form and am struck by how often the connection question gets polarised results: either top marks or zero. On asking about this however, it seems that many people consider their connection to other humans gets top marks if they have a partner, or close family, and zero if they are single. In other words, we have begun to rely on one close relationship, or at most a nuclear family, to serve all our connection needs, rather than looking to our wider community.

HG graduate Ezra Hewing’s work with Suffolk Mind, where he is Head of Mental Health Education, concurs:

“Our current emotional needs audit results for over 3000 people living in the county of Suffolk, UK, consistently shows that the need for emotional connection is the best met need. It does seem like most people rely on their closest relationship to cope when other needs are less well met.”

Belgian psychologist Esther Perel put this into a neat nutshell in her interview with Piya Chattopadhyay on Out in the Open:

“What we once got from the village, many people are now expecting one singular human being to provide for them”

Esther is also often quoted as saying that “the quality of our relationships determines the quality of our lives” and although that thought causes me to yelp slightly (I am lazy in my nurturing of friendships), I’m sure she is right.

In my HG Journal article about what remote island life can tell us about needs and resources I looked at how small isolated communities do retain the value of connection. Left to their own devices, with less of a nanny state infrastructure to rely upon to resolve day-to-day challenges, I have found that remote island communities, with populations in the hundreds rather than thousands or millions, do turn to each other, do leave their doors open and “have the kettle on”, do chat out on the “street” (farm track, beach, hill), do know and care about what’s going on in their neighbours lives, do go out of their way to help, and do consciously add their own energy their community.

This is not unique to remote communities though. It can happen anywhere, and often does when, through adversity or atrocity (as we have so recently seen in Christchurch, New Zealand, but also in Manchester, Paris, Boston...the list goes on) neighbourhoods who have been going about their lives, behind closed doors, emerge willingly and with an urgent need to connect. It’s all still there within us, the hardwiring, the need.

As Professor of social cognitive neuroscience Matthew Lieberman says in his book Social, “our brains are wired to reach out and interact with others” and “the neural link between social and physical pain...ensures that staying socially connected will be a lifelong need like food and warmth.” Losing a loved one, Lieberman asserts, can cause as much physical pain as losing a limb.

It’s important to note here that, as with all our essential needs, connection can be attained through unhealthy or negative ways. The old saying that, “you won’t find love at the bottom of the bottle” springs to mind, addictive substances being those false friends who do more harm than good. People lured into joining criminal gangs, cults or terrorist groups are invariably seeking meaningful connection in their otherwise isolated lives.

The connection involved in an abusive relationship can cause deep mental distress – as Johann Hari so bravely admits happened in his own life. Needs met in unhealthy ways will cause the same litany of ill health as needs not met adequately at all: anxiety, depression, addiction, anger, pain and a wide range of physical illnesses ensue.

All our needs need to be met in healthy, positive ways, and connection is no exception to this.

It may be tempting to think that community connection is a less essential need than, say, security, but it is arguably the most vital of our needs, as from it springs the freshwater of life that is attention exchange, intimate relationships, a sense of meaning, status and of course security itself. Our needs are all interlinked, and when they are not met in balance we begin to falter, to feel distressed and to suffer illness, a failure to thrive. With our needs met, we thrive and flourish, and connection to our fellow humans is the wellspring of that happy state.

“We don’t have a word for the opposite of loneliness, but if we did, I could say that’s what I want in life. It’s not quite love and it’s not quite community; it’s just this feeling that there are people, an abundance of people, who are in this together. Who are on your team.”

Marina Keegan (1989-2012) author, Massachusetts USA

© Julia Welstead, March 2019