Loneliness

Loneliness is an emotional state in which a person experiences a powerful feeling of emptiness and isolation. Loneliness is more than just the feeling of wanting company or wanting to do something with another person. Loneliness is a feeling of being cut off, disconnected from, and alienated towards, other people. The lonely person may find it difficult or even impossible to have any form of meaningful human contact. Lonely people often experience a subjective sense of inner emptiness or hollowness, with feelings of separation or isolation from the world.

The first recorded use of the word "lonely" was in William Shakespeare's Coriolanus.

Distinction from solitude

Loneliness is not the same as being alone. Everyone has times when they are alone through circumstances or choice. Being alone can be experienced as positive, pleasurable, and emotionally refreshing if it is under the individual's control. Solitude is the state of being alone and secluded from other people, and often implies having made a conscious choice to be alone. Loneliness is therefore unwilling solitude.

In their growth as individuals, humans start a separation process at birth, which continues with growing independence towards adulthood. As such, feeling alone can be a healthy emotion and, indeed, choosing to be alone for a period of solitude can be enriching. To experience loneliness, however, can be to feel overwhelmed by an unbearable feeling of separateness at a profound level. This can manifest in feelings of abandonment, rejection, depression, insecurity, anxiety, hopelessness, unworthiness, meaninglessness, and resentment. If these feelings are prolonged they may become debilitating and prevent the affected individual from developing healthy relationships and lifestyles. If the individual is convinced he or she is unlovable, this will increase the experience of suffering and the likelihood of avoiding social contact. Low self esteem will often trigger the social disconnection which can lead to loneliness.

See also: loner

In some people, temporary or prolonged loneliness can lead to notable artistic and creative expression, for example, as was the case with Emily Dickinson. This is not to imply that loneliness itself ensures this creativity; rather, it may have an influence on the subject matter of the artist.

Common causes

People can experience loneliness for many reasons, and many life events are associated with it. The lack of friendship relations during childhood and adolescence, or the physical absence of meaningful people around a person are causes for loneliness, depression, and "incelism". At the same time loneliness may be symptom of another social or psycological problem which should be analysed.

Many people experience it for the first time when they are left alone as a baby. Loneliness may also be a very common consequence of divorce or the breakup or loss of any important long-term relationship. In these cases, it may stem both from the loss of a specific person and from the withdrawal from social circles caused by the event or the associated sadness.

Loss of a significant person in one's life will typically initiate a grief response; here, one might feel lonely, even in the company of others. Loneliness may also occur after the birth of a child, after marriage or any socially disruptive event, such as moving from one's home town to a university campus. Loneliness can occur within marriages or similar close relationships where there is anger, resentment, or where love cannot be given or received. It may represent a dysfunction of communication. Learning to cope with changes in life patterns is essential in overcoming loneliness.

Typology

Common types

Loneliness can be summarised as falling into these categories:

• Situational – provoked by a change in circumstances, such as moving to a new environment or the loss of a relationship.
• Developmental – our need for intimacy balanced with our need for aloneness is a process that develops throughout the life stages.
• Internal – unrelated to external situation or age-and-stage, often including feelings of low self-esteem and vulnerability, probably stemming from early years.

Common symptoms

• Believing that "everyone else" has friends
• Feeling embarrassed and self-conscious
• Being in a crowd but not feeling part of the crowd
• Feeling shy and scared of others
• Experiencing low self-esteem
• Feeling angry, defensive and critical
• Feeling socially inadequate and socially unskilled
• Being convinced there is something wrong with you
• Feeling disconnected and alienated from your surroundings
• Feeling anxious and sad because you believe that no one knows how miserable and isolated you feel
• Losing your capacity to be assertive; feeling "invisible"
• Feeling reluctant to attempt to change, or try new things
• Feeling "empty", depressed, or even contemplating suicide

In modern society

Paradoxically, loneliness frequently occurs in heavily populated cities; in these cities many people feel utterly alone and cut off, even when surrounded by throngs of other people. They experience a loss of identifiable community in an anonymous crowd. It is unclear whether loneliness is a condition aggravated by high population density itself, or simply part of the human condition brought on by this social milieu. Certainly, loneliness occurs even in societies with much smaller populations, but the sheer number of random people that one comes into contact with daily in a city, even if only briefly, may raise barriers to actually interacting more deeply with them and increase the feeling of being cut off and alone. Quantity of contact does not translate into quality of contact.

Loneliness appears to have become particularly prevalent in modern times. At the beginning of the last century families were typically larger and more stable, divorce was rarer and relatively few people lived alone. Today, the trend has reversed direction: over a quarter of the U.S. population lived alone in 1998. In 1995, 24 million Americans lived in single-person households; by 2010, it is estimated that number will have increased to around 31 million. Physical separation often weakens familial bonds, and nowadays, it is not at all unusual for family members to be separated by hundreds or even thousands of miles.

A 2006 study in the American Sociological Review found that Americans on average had only two close friends to confide to, down from an average of three in 1985. The percentage of people who noted having no such confidant rose from 10 percent to almost 25 percent; and 19 additional percent said they had only a single confidant - often their spouse, raising the risk of serious loneliness in case the relationship ended.

As human condition

Some existentialist philosophy views loneliness as the essence of being human. Each human being comes into the world alone, travels through life as a separate person, and ultimately dies alone. Coping with this, accepting it, and learning how to direct our own lives with some degree of grace and satisfaction is the human condition. However, other existentialist thinkers argue the opposite. Human beings might be said to actively "engage" each other and the universe as they communicate and create, and loneliness is merely the feeling of being cut off from this process.

Buddhist philosophy argues that loneliness may be completely overcome by making authentic connections to other human beings, on an emotional level. According to this viewpoint, loneliness is the opposite of the natural human condition; it then becomes the lack of action against a human system as constant as hunger or thirst.

The American Buddhist monk Ajahn Sumedho however noted that:

"We suffer a lot in our society from loneliness. So much of our life is an attempt to not be lonely: 'Let's talk to each other; let's do things together so we won't be lonely.' And yet inevitably, we are really alone in these human forms. We can pretend; we can entertain each other; but that's about the best we can do. When it comes to the actual experience of life, we're very much alone; and to expect anyone else to take away our loneliness is asking too much."

Effects

Chronic loneliness (as opposed to the normal loneliness everyone feels from time to time), is a serious, life-threatening condition. At least one study has empirically correlated it with an increased risk of cancer, especially for those who hide their loneliness from the outside world. It is associated with increased risk of stroke and cardiovascular disease. People who are socially isolated also report poor sleep quality and thus have diminished restorative processes. Loneliness is also linked with depression, a risk factor for suicide.

Loneliness can play a part in alcoholism, and in children a lack of social connections is directly linked to several forms of antisocial and self-destructive behavior, most notably hostile and delinquent behavior. In both children and adults, loneliness often has a negative impact on learning and memory. Its effect on sleep patterns, as well as the above-mentioned other effects can have a devastating effect on the ability to function in everyday life.

Some other effects may not be symptomatic for years. In 2005, results from the U.S. Framingham Heart Study demonstrated that lonely men had raised levels of IL-6, a blood chemical linked to heart disease. A 2006 study conducted by the Center for Cognitive and Social Neuroscience at the University of Chicago found loneliness can add 30 points to a blood pressure reading for adults over the age of 50. Another remarkable finding, from a survey conducted by John Cacioppo, a psychologist at the University of Chicago, is that doctors say they provide better medical care to patients who have a strong network of family and friends than they do to patients who are alone.

Enforced loneliness (solitary confinement) has been a punishment method throughout history. It is often considered a form of torture.

Treatments

It has been posited that loneliness is "the only disease that can be cured by adding two or more cases together."

Basic methods

The feelings associated with loneliness feed on themselves – the more lonely you feel, the harder it is to take steps to break out of loneliness. However, feeling lonely is a phase and does not have to be a constant way of being. As with changing any patterns of behaviour, it may take effort and commitment to begin to move out of feeling lonely.

Breaking the cycle of loneliness requires finding its cause, then identifying any existing dysfunctional ways of dealing with it (hiding away, drinking alcohol, sleeping). The next recommended steps usually include identifying the settings and conditions under which one feels willing to communicate with others, and finally encouragement to take the 'risk' of contacting new people or former acquaintances.

It should be remembered that feeling lonely is a common human emotion experienced by everyone at times (and therefore is not a defect). Intimate friendships take time to develop, and sometimes it is useful to help deal with the loneliness by sharing your experiences with someone else.

First-hand contact

Often, people mitigate loneliness by interacting with others via the phone or the Internet. However, it is widely believed that purely remote relationships are no substitute for in-person relationships - an opinion based at least partially on the fact that a person's true identity is difficult to determine on the Internet, and also that such relationships are less stable. Commitment to a friend or acquaintance is less strong, partly because the remote situation makes it easier to ignore the demands friends place upon each other, and because it is harder to share emotions in such a way.

Most importantly however, human beings react much more strongly to direct face-to-face interaction (even without physical contact of any sort) than to the abstracted type of communication present in remote relationships. Human beings are naturally gregarious creatures, and social interaction - including subconscious forms like reading another person's body language - has been proven in various studies to be a key element to improve / retain memory and other brain functions.

Medical treatment

To the extent that loneliness is caused by depression (instead of vice versa), it may be helped by similar treatments, such as various forms of psychotherapy, pharmacotherapy (anti-depressant medications), or both.

Animal treatment

Another treatment for both loneliness and depression is pet therapy, or animal-assisted therapy, as it is more formally known. Some studies and surveys, as well as anecdotal evidence provided by volunteer and community organizations, indicate that the presence of animal companions -- dogs, cats, and even rabbits or guinea pigs -- can ease feelings of depression and loneliness among elderly people in nursing homes, for example. According to the Centers for Disease Control, there are a number of health benefits associated with pet ownership: In addition to easing feelings of loneliness (because of the increased opportunities for socializing with other pet owners, in addition to the companionship the animal provides), having a pet is associated with lowered blood pressure and decreased levels of cholesterol and triglycerides.

See also

• Autophobia
• Individualism
• Interpersonal relationship
• Loner
• Pit of despair (animal experiments on isolation)
• Total Perspective Vortex

References

• University of Florida Counseling Center, "How to Deal with Loneliness," based on an audiotape script developed by the University of Texas, Austin. [1]

• Meysa Maleki, "Loneliness," Counselling and Learning Skills Services, University of Toronto. [2]