Identifying your needs in a relationship worksheet

Understanding each other's needs is a core part of healthy relationship functioning. 

This guide to the identifying your needs in a relationship worksheet gives mental health therapists a brief overview of a relationship hierarchy of needs with examples. 

We’ve also included a free downloadable relationship needs pyramid worksheet to save to your electronic health record (EHR) and use in your practice. 

What is the relationship hierarchy of needs?

While there isn’t a formal relationship hierarchy of needs, the concept relates to the work of Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. 

Maslow, a psychologist, developed the pyramid of needs to describe human motivation. As a humanist, he believed humans desire to become fulfilled and self-actualized. 

Each stage of Maslow’s hierarchy describes levels of human needs that need to be fulfilled to progress to the next stage—starting at the bottom of the pyramid and progressing upward toward the ultimate goal of self-actualization. 

These stages, which we also describe in the identifying your needs in a relationship worksheet, include:

Physiological needs 

Maslow described human physiological needs to fulfill hunger, thirst, breathing, and homeostasis. Relationship foundational needs include sex, health, food, rest, and care.

Security and safety

This part of the relationship hierarchy of needs includes the need to feel safe and secure. This might mean physical and emotional safety, the ability to express oneself safely, trust and honesty, and feeling safe and secure in a relationship. 

Love and belonging

This stage describes basic social needs to be loved and have a sense of belonging. In a relationship, this stage could be adapted to describe the social and romantic need for love, affection, intimacy, quality time, and a partner or spouse, which provides family, attachment, and a sense of belonging. 

Esteem needs 

Esteem needs include self-esteem through achievement, appreciation, respect for others, and a sense of personal worth. 

In a relationship, these translate to respecting one another, feeling valued and appreciated, acknowledging each other's achievements, and supporting one another's goals. 

The identifying your needs in a relationship worksheet can help individuals surface these needs.

Self-actualization 

This stage of the relationship hierarchy of needs is the full use of talents, capabilities, and potential. This may involve encouraging one another to pursue and actualize their goals and dreams, fostering individual and collective growth, and feeling a deeper connection and shared purpose as a family or relationship unit. 

While a relationship hierarchy of needs can be a helpful framework to view relationships and human development, Maslow’s pyramid has been criticized. 

Namely, since Maslow developed the hierarchy of needs in 1943, theoretical developments (evolutionary, biological, anthropological, and psychological) have advanced. 

Critics argue that the foundational structure of Maslow’s hierarchy—physicological safety and esteem—should be preserved, and the remaining stages should be amended to encompass fundamental motives, situational threats, and opportunities. Researchers argue that sometimes needs do not follow a hierarchy, and self-actualization is not a functionally distinct human need.

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Examples of communicating relationship needs

Whether you utilize Maslow’s hierarchy of needs or not, couples have innate needs within their relationships. Once you determine those needs through the use of the identifying your needs in a relationship worksheet, it’s essential to discuss them.

Communicating those needs, however, can be challenging. Below, we’ve listed some examples of how couples can clarify and communicate their needs.

Getting clarity

It may be helpful to ask couples to consider the basic needs of the relationship individually and collectively. This includes reviewing their needs to feel safe and secure, loved, and have a sense of belonging, their esteem needs, and their motives. 

You may use our identifying your needs in a relationship worksheet or suggest prompts to achieve this clarity, like:

• Physiological/foundational needs: How are you meeting each other's needs for shelter and other basic needs? Are you experiencing unmet needs in these areas? If so, what are these unmet needs?

• Safety and security needs: Describe how you show each other you are safe and secure in this relationship. How do you ensure you feel financially secure? How do you assure your partner that it is safe to communicate their feelings openly? What do you think about mutual trust and respect in your relationship? How open and truthful are you with each other?

• Love and belonging: How do you show and receive love and intimacy? How are you aligned, and in what areas is there room for growth?

• Self-esteem: How do you celebrate each other, acknowledge accomplishments, and support one another's goals?

Examples of communicating these needs

You may use the examples in the identifying your needs in a relationship worksheet or review the below examples of communication with clients:

• Emotional/love and belonging needs: Feeling loved, valued, and supported. For example, “I feel close to you when we spend quality time together without interruptions, like when we have a date night. How do you feel about scheduling a regular date night?”

• Safety and trust needs: Reliability, openness, honesty, and feeling secure. For example: “It can feel frustrating when I’m excluded from plan changes. I’d appreciate it if you could involve me in your thought process or when you change your mind about something. It would help to deepen my trust in the relationship.”

• Self-esteem/appreciation needs: The need to feel valued and appreciated. For example, “I feel unappreciated when you don’t acknowledge my efforts to run the house, like managing the bills, cleaning, and getting the kids to school. It would mean a lot to me if you would take a few minutes to acknowledge my efforts.”

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How to use the identifying your needs in a relationship worksheet 

You can download and use the identifying your needs in a relationship in several ways.

For example, you can use the identifying your needs in a relationship worksheet in session to illustrate the different types of relationship needs.

Looking at the relationship hierarchy of needs, work with clients to identify their relationship needs and explore possible areas they are not meeting each other's needs. 

Couples may complete the “How healthy is my relationship?” worksheet as a homework activity between sessions and then debrief at their next therapy appointment. 

Sources

• Kenrick, D. T., Griskevicius, V., Neuberg, S. L., & Schaller, M. (2010). Renovating the Pyramid of Needs: Contemporary Extensions Built Upon Ancient Foundations. Perspectives on psychological science: a Journal of the Association for Psychological Science. 

• Montag, C., Sindermann, C., Lester, D., & Davis, K. L. (2020). Linking individual differences in satisfaction with each of Maslow's needs to the Big Five personality traits and Panksepp's primary emotional systems. Heliyon. 

• University of Colorado Boulder. (2023). 5 essentials for a healthy relationship. 

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