Underlying needs shape how we live, love, and work
I work with individuals, couples, and families to build happier, healthier, and more intimate relationships
Something feels off, and you can't quite name what...
Most relationship problems aren't really about what they look like on the surface.
It's not the dishes. It's not the in-laws. It's not the way they spoke to you at dinner last Tuesday.
Underneath the things you're arguing about is usually a need that isn't being met, or isn't being met in the way one of you actually needs it.
And until you can see that clearly, you will keep working on solving the wrong problem.
That's why the same conversations keep going in circles. You end up arguing about the same stuff.
Why the small things keep landing harder than they should.
Why two people who genuinely love each other can end up feeling lonely in the same house.
It is NOT because you're incompatible.
It's because real psychological drivers are sitting underneath it all, but they're either unnamed or you're unaware of them.
And we need to address that to start fixing things.
A simple way of seeing what's actually going on
I work with a framework I call the Six Needs.
The idea is straightforward.
Every person is shaped by six core needs that drive how we live, how we love, and how we react under pressure.
We all have all six.
But each of us tends to prioritise one or two of them above the rest, and that prioritisation shapes most of what we do.
The six are:
The good news is that when two people start to understand which of these needs are driving them, and which are driving their partner, a lot of what felt confusing starts to make sense.
The arguments make sense.
The distance makes sense.
The friction that wouldn't go away makes sense.
And once it makes sense, you can actually do something about it.
An easy way to see your own profile
To help you, I've built a free online assessment, the Six Needs Lens, that will help you identify your own top need and give you a detailed read on what that means for you and your relationship.
It takes about seven minutes to complete. Just clicking.
Importantly, it is not a psychometric test. We're not trying to diagnose something here.
It's a structured check-in that gives you something usable at the end — not a score, but a portrait.
If you've been carrying a quiet sense that you don't fully understand yourself in your relationship, or you don't fully understand the person you're with (anymore), this is a good place to start.
Click the orange button below to get started (no optin required).
a bit about me
I'm Gideon. I'm a counsellor based in Ceres, in the Western Cape, working with individuals, couples, and families locally and online around the world.
I trained as a theologian in my twenties, then as a counsellor in New Zealand in my thirties, and then went back to formal psychology study at Massey University in my forties. I've spent over two decades thinking about how people work, and how they work together.
Everything on this site is built around one thing: helping you see what's actually driving you, and giving you something practical to do with that insight.
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It takes about seven minutes. It costs nothing. And if you've been confused about why the same things keep happening between you and someone you love, it might be the clearest thing you've done for your relationship in a long time.
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