Abraham Maslow was an American psychologist who was born in 1908 and died in 1970. He was mentored by Alfred Alder, one of Sigmund Frued's friends and colleagues. Arguably his best work, was his theory of the "Hierarchy of Needs" published in 1943. Maslow thought of human behavior as a collection of needs, beginning with the basics of what we need for survival and ending with what we need to feel happy and "whole." He described each of these as being fluid, meaning that people may feel the need to address one or more of these factors at the same time.

With the mental health epidemic going on the world today, it's comforting to know that the reoccurring problems we can't seem to pinpoint may be identified on a simple, easy-to-read pyramid. By no means are anybody's stories the same or simple, but Maslow's theory takes a potentially convoluted problem and breaks it down into something a little less overwhelming.