Institutionally based, restrictive relationships, such as those
among family members or professional colleagues, must thus
be contrasted with instrumentally based, nonrestrictive rela-
tionships serving the aims of practical pursuits, such as those
between freely practicing experts and their clients or between
sellers and buyers. In instrumentally structured situations it is
not necessary for the participants to curb their needs, because
the mere expression of needs in no way compels others to
gratify them, as it tends to do in the family.¹⁹ Indeed, not
only is the frank expression of needs not inhibited, but it is
often encouraged, since it helps to identify a problem or need
for which someone might have a solution or satisfaction.

They will argue that the end being essentially beneficial, the means become instrumentally so

Instrumentally

Meaning

Adv

Origin

Related