The need to be needed at all costs comes from one’s earliest experiences. If the child does not feel accepted unconditionally, he learns to work for acceptance and attention. When he is not doing this work, he feels anxious, owing to an unconscious fear of being cut off from the parent. Later—as an adult—when not doing something specific, he has a vague unease, the feeling that he should somehow be working. The adult has no psychological rest because the infant and child had never known psychological rest. He has a dread of rejection and an insatiable need to have his desirability and value
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