Information sheet: Loneliness
Loneliness
Loneliness is a scourge of modern civilisation
Our early ancestors lived in tribal societies where each individual was known and acknowledged as an important member. While our societies have expanded enormously over the millennia, our individual needs for human warmth and connectedness have not changed. Millions live solitary lives in vast, impersonal societies that intensify the pain of loneliness. It seems that the more of us there are and the closer we are packed together, the greater becomes the distance that separates us. When more people surround us than we can meaning-fully relate to, we feel forced to establish boundaries and guard our territories. A recent survey has found that one-third of all house-holds in the U.K. are inhabited by lone occupants.
Loneliness is not only suffered by the disadvantaged: the better-off can be segregated by status and life-style, insulated in ideal homes and incarcerated inside top-range cars. Human warmth and vital contact become increasingly redundant in a mass-culture built around commodities, retail parks, megastores, media saturation and the psuedo-intimacy of chat-room "word friendships" where it is all-too easy for participants to project unreal versions of themselves. Companies such as Second Life invite participants to "interact" with computerised replicas of one another in cyberspace environments.
Loneliness can have a number of causes
Divorce, failed relationships and lost jobs can create sadness and guilt and drive many into isolated corners. Bereavement can bring abiding feelings of loss and loneliness to those left behind. The old, the infirm and the disabled are too often rejected by those who don't want to slow down to keep them company; thus they are so often segregated in institutionalising systems of care. An artificial separa-tion of age-groups divides the young from the old, depriving both groups of cross-generation companionship, learning and stimula-tion. The homeless and the needy are often neglected in the climate of mistrust that prevails in our crime-ridden society. The eccentric can become figures of ridicule and fear. The gifted tend to be viewed with awe, suspicion or envy and as celebrities they are often section-ed-off by public adulation and prevented from living openly contactful lives. Poverty, race, religion and sexual orientation often divide people one from another.
If we have families, professions, status, colleagues and acquaintances we might seem outwardly to "belong". Inwardly, however, we may feel a need for warmth and intimacy that is not being met.
Aloneness and loneliness are not the same
Some of us have a sense of inner security and contentment that enables us to accept and enjoy periods of solitude. But if we fear alone-ness we might make great efforts to avoid it and, when this isn't possible, may feel destroyed by it. Yet it can persist even in the company of family and friends. We may feel a dogged sense of unworthiness. A snub may present sure "proof" that we are not worth knowing.
Attempts to resolve this kind of inner loneliness may draw some of us into desperate and hurtful relationships; into the company offered by religious or political belief-systems that are adhered to by many other lonely people; or into some organised comradeship-structure such as military service, criminal fraternities or prison. Still others, resigned to being loners and misfits, may feel driven into begging, prostitution, alcoholism, drug addiction, "mental" illness. A sense of inner abandonment might make us not care what befalls us. (But who knows? maybe someone will eventually care for us.)
When loneliness is inexplicable in terms of the present, its origin is likely to be found in the past
Somebody may in fact be neglecting me, but if my agony of forsakenness seems disproportionate it is likely that my current isolation is triggering an emotional charge from some painful experi-ence of abandonment in the past.
When we were babies and infants, our need for the supporting presence of a parent or caregiver was linked with our instinct for survival. If our source of nourishment and wellbeing withdrew for longer than was bearable we will have experienced not just alone-ness but fear of annihilation. This terror has been called separation anxiety and it lies at the root of the acute anxiety and panic some of us experience when separated from a loved one or simply left alone. Until he or she turns up, we must desperately hold onto ourselves.
Early experiences of solitude may have disheartened us. We may have been forced to learn that showing our feelings or "carrying-on" only kept the provider at a distance. Living in hope of her return will have required a suspenseful holding of breath and tensing of muscles to stifle unwelcome feelings. Present rejections and desertions now summon up the old pain along with the associated respiratory and muscular tensions. These tensions deplete energy and create a feeling of lifelessness and unworthiness. "Nobody wants to know me".
However, if you are content when alone you are likely to have gained this capacity early in life through being contentedly alone with your provider not only while needs were being met but at more leisurely times. Being alone in infancy with someone who delighted in you will have made it possible for you to enjoy being alone with yourself. You will have learned self-delight.
How can counselling and therapy help with loneliness?
The anxiety and depression associated with loneliness tend to be "treated" in the medical model with medication and/or cognitive-behavioural therapy. This seeks to re-train a person's responses so they can more confidently go through the motions of making contact. But such programmes neglect the underlying causes that lie in each individual's early experiences. At StressAid, however, we take a holistic view of a person past and present, body and mind and aim to reduce isolation through self-understanding and release of the past pains that have cut one off from ones own energy and that of others.
A lonely person can talk with a sensitive, non-judgmental listener and get their sadness off their chest. In counselling they can explore with full confidentiality painful past experiences of unmet needs and come to understand how these have burdened them with an endur-ing sense of worthlessness. In therapy they may at their own pace release the held emotional charges from those hurts and unravel long-established physiological and emotional patterns that have trapped them in loneliness.
Relationships cannot be conjured up out of the air, but release of blocked energy can help a person move towards others with an increased vibrancy that is more likely to excite a positive response.