Warped lower needs warp the higher ones too

Continuing this post, I have a correction to what I said in that "all higher needs are put on hold." Given our cultural environment we continue to develop these higher needs up to the general level of that culture. But if/when a lower need like safety is warped, not balanced and healthy, when we are always on guard because we do not feel safe, it warps the other higher needs as well.

This apparently goes all the way up to self-actualization, where we are still interpreting those characteristics via a warped sense of entitlement and superiority, as well as denigrating those apparently stuck on lower needs. One way AQAL addresses this phenomenon, at least in theory, is via dissociated (dis-integrated) selves in the shadow. The practice and results of shadow work are another matter, for these dissociated selves are devious and can fool us that we've integrated them. Hence the need for qualified, outside psychoanalytic experts in this process who are not within the AQAL bubble of self-reinforcement.