Intrapersonal and interpersonal integrity are basic human needs. There is a need for each person to feel integrated, whole and related, and this is experienced on two levels: FIRST - within the self, psychologically, the individual has a need to "make sense" out of experience and to "fit" this experience together, seeing something of the interrelatedness of what is happening throughout life; and SECOND - between any two individuals and among group members, there is a need for personal relatedness in which persons experience some reciprocal valuing, mutual respect, and shared feelings of commonality. This enables them to more easily and completely examine, tolerate, and appreciate the significance of the individual differences they eventually notice consciously.

Personal relationships and participation in groups can serve to clarify the distinctions between these two levels of integrity, increasing an individual's skills in developing both a sense of "internal fit" and a sense of interdependence with others mutually perceived as important. This set of integrity needs simultaneously involves the intellectual and emotional capacities of the individual.

The degree of congruence between the two levels of integrity might be one important measure of personal and social adjustment. If an individual feels that many discrepancies exist across his or her experiences and relationships, he or she is likely to be experiencing some significant personal conflict.