emotional need, a psychological or mental requirement of intrapsychic origin that usually centers on such basic feelings as love, fear, anger, sorrow, anxiety, frustration, and depression and involves the understanding, empathy, and support of one person for another. Such needs normally occur in everyone but usually increase during periods of excessive stress or physical and mental illness and during various stages of life, such as infancy, early childhood, and old age. If these needs are not routinely met by appropriate, socially accepted means, they can precipitate psychopathological conditions. Appropriate measures common in health care for anticipating and satisfying the emotional needs of patients in stress include physical closeness, especially remaining with the person during periods when the feeling is acute; empathetic listening as the patient discusses the feeling; encouragement to verbalize feelings; and planning activities that provide a constructive outlet for the feeling or the situation causing it. Compare dependency needs. See also emotion.
