The brief relief from depression turns these strategies into
needs. Everything we use to increase our Ego, when it provides a brief relief
from depression, becomes vital and we reiterate it. If we receive value through
money, we want more money, if we receive it through beauty, we want more
beauty, if through power, we will seek more power.
Power, wealth, popularity and beauty are based on the
equivalence: “I am what I have”.
Erich Fromm in the book “To Have or to Be?” writes:
“So,
if I am what I have, and what I have is lost, who am I? Nothing but a pathetic
witness to a wrong lifestyle. Because I can lose what I have I live constantly
in the fear of being deprived of what I own. I am afraid of thieves, of
economic crises, I fear revolutions, diseases, death, love, freedom, changes
and the unknown.”[1]
The Vital Needs Theory - page 15