Without motivation all organisms fall away from effort .
Essentially psychology has grouped the set of possible motivations into two broad categories: Approach vectors and Avoidance vectors. Approach vectors can range from pleasurable sensation to satisfaction experiences such as a hard earned achievment. Avoidance vectors can range from unpleasurable sensation to some noxious experience such as humiliation. Rarely is experience propelled by a single motivation, rather experience and behavior are resultants of a profound blending of motives. Early psychologists such as Henry Murray put forward categories of motives such as "need for achievement" and "harm avoidance". The individual was said to have a high or strong motive (a kind of loading or weight concept). At times this categorization works but many times the notion of motive (s) is more usefully understood in terms of dynamic scenes very much like a Shakespearian scene. In these scenes motives take on meaning, are born in the relationships and what is happening between the persons.
Often the task of therapy is to work towards discovering the most salient of these motives and the role of these scenes in their life.
