So, the two main human needs are:

1. The need for connectedness in relationships

2. The need for wholeness

Being connected in relationships seems to be our primary need. Humans want to be emotionally connected with people that are closest to them. The need for connectedness is so strong that the most of us are going to connect to others in the worst possible ways, only to satisfy this need. The paradoxical thing here is that even so called "toxic bond" is better than none. Some forms of popular psychotherapy that are only directed towards "cutting the ties that bind" are not complete and cannot give us the desired results. Toxic bonds definitely need to be dissolved, but then we have to re-create the healthy connections, not only with abstractions such as the "higher self", but also with the actual people with whom we were toxically bonded. It is actually the connectedness that sets us free, not the disconnectedness.

Together with connectedness, everybody has the need to be who and what they truly are and to be accepted from others for who they are. We have the need to express ourselves freely and openly and be loved unconditionally. Our deepest inner need is to be allowed by others to be who we are, not to be forced to give up some of the aspects of our being. If this, for some reason, is not possible there will be a stop in our development. People become obsessed with things that they are not allowed to do or be, and they cannot continue their development until their need to be who they are and to express a certain aspect of themselves is not finally satisfied.

How do we lose parts of ourselves and why do we create toxic bonds? Human need to relate and be loved is so strong that it tries to realize itself by all means. We want the people that are the closest to us – our parents, partners, children, friends – to love us and emotionally support us. This need was especially strong when we were small children. It seems that even unborn babies, living in the mother’s womb, have this emotional need, although most people are not aware of this and think that prenatal phase serves only physiological development. If our parents are able to love us unconditionally, to accept us as we are and enthusiastically support us in our efforts, then our relationships are going to be harmonious and our emotional connections healthy. On the other hand, if parents put conditions to their love and accept a child only if those conditions are respected (and reject or tyrannize a child because of that), then the connections become unhealthy, toxic and burdening, creating blocks to success and inability to realize goals, both during childhood and later on as a grown up.

Together with unhealthy connectedness a child faces some kind of identity loss, because it rejects a part of itself that is not acceptable to its parents. For example, if there is a rule in our family that says that free thinking is not acceptable, than we shall reject, cut off or forget about the part of ourselves that wants to be an independent thinker. If the rule says that expressing our emotions openly and freely is not desirable, than we shall sometimes suppress our emotions and forget about the part of ourselves that is able to feel. If creativity is not acceptable ("only hard work in order to survive"), than we shall see creativity as dangerous and eventually forget about it. So, if parents do not accept a child as a conscious being and see it as tabula rasa, empty board that can be programmed according to their ideas, than a child can make a conclusion that being who you are is not good. However, our primary need is to be loved and emotionally connected – therefore, in an attempt to deserve parental love and acceptance, we shall reject, suppress or forget about parts of ourselves that are not acceptable. Our connections with parents then become a kind of sale contract based on strict rules – we know exactly what is allowed and what isn’t, what part of ourselves we need to keep hidden and what mask we have to  wear for the outer world.

However, in the same way as conditional love doesn’t diminish our need for bonding, cutting off some aspect of our self does not diminish our need for it. Desire for the lost part is still here, but since it cannot be expressed directly, it finds other ways of express ion, and these ways can sometimes be pretty destructive. If we have learned to feel that a part of ourselves is not desirable and acceptable, we may try to suppress it. This could work for some time, but slowly we become consciously or unconsciously obsessed with it and may try to satisfy this obsession by creating some vice. And then we become addicted to that vice. For example, in some families it is not acceptable to be a strong person, to defend our integrity by confronting others in a way that we even express anger or healthy aggression if our integrity becomes endangered. This usually is a case in families of victim identified persons who see healthy integrity as undesirable, even as tyranny.  So, our reaction can be cutting off our integrity, or a part of ourselves that has the need to defend itself by confronting those who do not respect our integrity. But, with doing this our need for that part will not disappear. We are only not allowed to express this need when appropriate – therefore, we shall express it in some other situations, mostly when it is absolutely inappropriate. We can start drinking and become violent when drunk. Some people take drugs in order to establish contact with "forbidden" parts of themselves. Some became TV or movie addicts, emotionally identifying themselves with roles actors play, having no idea that by doing this they actually search for the lost parts of their Souls.

All primary aspects of bonding become our role models for secondary aspects. Primary aspects would be all types of bonding with parents that are established in pre-natal phase of development and earliest childhood. Secondary aspects of bonding would be those that we create through relationships we consciously choose – bonding with friends, partners and our children. For example, a child may have a parent of the opposite sex who emotionally tyrannizes it. Although parents have duty to create rules and obligations for children, parent-tyrant does not allow for the child even the minimum of free will – he or she makes every important decision and determines which school will the child go to, what would it do during free time or what kind of friends will it have. This kind of child may have younger brother or sister and constantly tyrannize it, both in obvious and also in more sophisticated ways. It can behave the same way with its friends and, later on, partners. Sometimes this person finds partners who are able to love them unconditionally, but they are not satisfied with that kind of people. For them, an unconditional love is not love. For them, love equals tyranny. Therefore, these persons need others to tyrannize them so they can feel loved. And they eventually find tyrants for their partners and become dependent on them. And although constantly complaining, they do not end that kind of relationship.

On the other hand, psychological profile of this person may show a potential leader, but the influence of authoritative parent may completely block them. Together with chaotic partnership, they cannot realize themselves professionally. So, when they finally come for a treatment, they may say that “something blocks them” professionally, but all they can say about the causes of that block are the feelings of uncertainty and insecurity that come from an unknown source. They try to satisfy themselves by accepting jobs that push them in the second row, but those jobs always lack something – they may be paid well but cannot be creative, or they can be creative but cannot get paid adequately. Most often they are neither paid well nor creative – they work for the authoritative boss who  usually misuses them in some way.

Should we think of this person as unhealthy? I think not. This person does the best he or she can under the given circumstances. Losing a part of identity that would otherwise confront the parent-tyrant was probably the only possible way to stay mentally stabile in crazy environment. Being connected with parents is the primary issue for a child. Also, having a perception of parents as sane and "good" is extremely important for children. The worst thing the parents can do to a child is to make it see them as evil or insane. A child will fight its perception and do anything it can to interpret parents behavior as good and positive, as being motivated by love. So, our toxic bonding is still a healthy reaction to unhealthy, even crazy family influences.

Good news here is that this kind of bonding can be transformed into a positive and healthy one, if someone is ready to accept responsibility for their behavior and introduce some additional discipline into their lifestyle later on. Contemporary systems of personal development enable transformation of unhealthy connections into a healthy one, together with returning of the lost part, its emotional maturing and integration into everyday living. This way we also have an opportunity to solve our problems permanently, because we take a role of an active subject of our change, which finally enables us to learn on our own experiences.