The Sense Of Belonging And The Importance Of Our Friends: Friendship As Medicine

To begin, we must understand that the feeling of community is a social and psychosocial phenomenon, where a certain group of people share certain feelings or interests. As human beings, we are social individuals who need a society to survive.

We constantly orient our behavior towards living in community Cultivation and activity in a community is essential for human development. Group life made it possible for man to master, in a kind of division of labor, problems that he could not face.

Sense of community and sense of belonging: what are they?

The feeling of community is not congenital, it is a possibility of being consciously developed. Every person carries within them the disposition for the feeling of community, but later this must be developed through education Maslow has placed belonging on the second step of the pyramid of human needs. He states that when psychological and security needs are met, the need for love, affection and belonging emerges.

Feeling of community and sense of belonging are two similar concepts since they both point to the new social identity that is created in a group from the psychic dispositions of each individual who integrates it. The sense of belonging is important for people’s functioning and psychological well-being. Satisfying this need leads to a variety of positive emotions such as joy, calm, enthusiasm, and happiness.

Besides, Feeling part of a whole, whether of a group, an institution or a geography, is one of the three basic and essential psychological needs for human development, along with autonomy (being able to do) and competence (knowing how to do) The satisfaction of each of these needs influences the development of important psychological processes such as intrinsic motivation, internalization, well-being and health.

The sense of belonging contains cognitive and cognitive elements, so an affective response will result from the personal knowledge that each individual has about their relationship in the group. It is pointed out that a person’s sense of belonging implies a conscious attitude and emotional commitment to the set of meanings of a certain community, within which the person actively participates. Individual and group characteristics shape social identity and influence the construction of a sense of belonging.

How are they generated?

In our first years of life, We generate social contact with peers at school, key years for the formation of the psyche and personality, where from there we will mark the next steps to follow in the next stages of our lives. In childhood, we create bonds with adult relatives, who are in charge of establishing that bond, and at school with peers, with whom we begin to surround ourselves and share our first experiences of friendship.

During adolescence, we choose with more responsibility and awareness who will be our friends at that moment or even for life. With a friend, an intimacy is generated that is difficult to build with another person. One develops as one is and is not afraid of rejection from the other. A friend is “another self”, a true friend inhabits us in ourselves and we in him.

There are people who are part of our lives, being a “medicine”, that with just a caress calms the pain, that calms us with just a few words and generates hope and motivation again, people who give us that “little push” that we need. to carry out some activity that is difficult for us. Also, they give us that perspective of reality that oneself, sometimes, cannot visualize and manages to make us see as we are.

They manage to put us back together after being in our worst moments, perhaps just with a cup of coffee and a listen. Human beings with whom we smile for no reason, who embrace us even if we are distressed or angry, without expecting anything in return, without taking advantage of our vulnerability or trying to change us We have to hug those people and stay in that hug, thank them for being part of our lives and continue fostering that bond. Because, at the end of everything, friends save.