The author begins by providing a brief history of the use of the concept of needs in psychoanalysis. Suggesting that a more phenomenological/contextual perspective of motivation would be useful, he conceptualizes a healthy versus unhealthy dichotomization of needs as at least partially fitting this bill, and then develops a platform to view needs from an intrapsychic conflict perspective historically reserved for instinctual conflict theory. Moving away from a biological reductionistic view of needs, he describes a needs health by its relationship to love or, conversely, needs unhealthiness by its relationship to egotism, vanity, and being against others and one's real self. Providing clinical and case examples, the dynamic interplay of needs in conflict, compromise, and harmony in the human personality is elaborated.