The Six Yearnings: What We’re All Really After

At the heart of every behavior, beneath every struggle and every success, are core human yearnings—deep motivations that shape how we move through the world. If you’ve practiced Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), you’re likely familiar with the six core processes of psychological flexibility. But underneath those six processes lies something more essential, something profoundly human.

Yearning to be seen, known, and accepted by others.

These are the six yearnings:

• Belonging

• Coherence

• Orientation

• Feeling

• Self-Directed Meaning

• Competence

These aren’t diagnoses or labels. They aren’t techniques or interventions. They’re longings—fundamental desires that show up in every person you meet in the therapy room (and in yourself, if you’re willing to look).

Let’s walk through them—not to label or reduce human complexity, but to open a doorway to deeper understanding.

1. Belonging

Yearning to be seen, known, and accepted by others.

We are relational creatures. The need to belong is older than language, encoded into our nervous systems. This yearning shows up when clients describe loneliness, fear of rejection, or people-pleasing behaviors. But it also emerges in the joy of being truly known—being met, not fixed.

When this yearning goes unmet, you’ll often see strategies of social withdrawal, excessive compliance, or performance-driven connection. Working from a functional lens, we ask: What is this behavior doing in the service of connection?

2. Coherence

Yearning to make sense of experience and maintain a stable sense of identity.

We all need our world to make sense—especially our inner world. Coherence is about understanding who we are and how we fit into the larger story. It shows up in existential questioning, rumination, or a drive to resolve cognitive dissonance.

When coherence becomes rigid—clinging to fixed stories about the self (“I’m broken,” “I’ve always been this way”)—psychological inflexibility takes hold. But the yearning underneath is noble: the desire to make meaning out of chaos.

3. Orientation

Yearning to know where you are, where you're going, and how to respond.

Orientation is about psychological location. Think of it as the internal compass: Where am I? What matters here? What do I do next?

In session, this might sound like confusion, overwhelm, or hopelessness. On a functional level, behaviors driven by orientation-seeking might look like overplanning, perfectionism, or even shutdown.

Helping clients slow down and contact the present moment allows orientation to emerge naturally. We don’t need to hand them a map—we help them rediscover their own.

4. Feeling

Yearning to fully experience life emotionally and sensorially.

The yearning to feel—to really feel—is often buried beneath a history of pain. Clients say things like “I don’t want to feel this anymore,” but the paradox is that they do want to feel—just not this. This yearning isn’t about pleasure, it’s about aliveness.

When suppressed, it can lead to numbing, addictive behaviors, or emotional detachment. But behind those strategies is the desire to reconnect. To feel pain means you’re alive. And aliveness is sacred.

5. Self-Directed Meaning

Yearning to choose a life that matters—to you.

This is the heartbeat of values-based work. Self-directed meaning is the drive to create a life that is chosen, not dictated. You’ll hear it when clients say, “I just want to live for myself,” or “I need to get back to who I was.”

It’s easy to confuse this yearning with achievement or success. But at its core, it’s about authorship—being the one who chooses what matters, even in the face of adversity.

6. Competence

Yearning to feel capable and effective in navigating life’s challenges.

Competence is more than skill; it’s the sense that “I can.” We all want to feel like we’re capable of managing what life throws our way.

When this yearning is frustrated, clients often describe failure, helplessness, or imposter syndrome. But look closer, and you’ll find attempts to grow, learn, and try again.

As clinicians, we don’t just teach skills—we help clients trust themselves in the process of learning.

A Functional Comparison: Yearnings vs. Values

To understand the difference between yearnings and values, it helps to think in terms of basic survival and well-being.

• Yearnings are like eating, sleeping, or breathing—essential, ongoing needs that must be tended to regularly. If neglected, they don’t go away. They intensify. Hunger becomes starvation. Disconnection becomes despair. A lack of orientation becomes paralyzing. When yearnings are unmet, they will shape behavior, often in rigid, avoidant, or reactive ways. That’s not pathology—it’s persistence in the face of deprivation.

  
  

• Values, on the other hand, are more like special experiences—a vacation, a personal ritual, or a creative project. They bring richness and vitality. They give direction and depth. You can delay a vacation and still function. But go too long without honoring your values, and the ache of disconnection grows.

  
  

Both matter deeply. But yearnings demand more consistent tending. They are the foundational nutrients of psychological flexibility, and values are the compass that help guide how we move through the world once those foundations are in place.

Why the Yearnings Matter

When we work with behavior in the therapy room, it's tempting to focus on what’s going wrong. But if we look deeper—through the lens of Functional Contextualism—we begin to see these yearnings as the natural drivers of human behavior.

Clients don’t need us to “fix” them. They need space to recognize what they’ve always been reaching for—and permission to pursue those yearnings in ways that are workable, flexible, and aligned with who they want to be.

A Question to End With

Next time you’re in session—pause. Listen not just to the content, but to the yearning underneath.

What does this person truly long for?

Sometimes, asking that question out loud is the intervention itself.