What internal thoughts reflect unbearable loneliness? We are conducting a line of investigation centered on the premise that loneliness is accompanied by distress due to the tendency to experience frequent automatic thoughts about being and feeling lonely. That is, extreme loneliness can reflect an internal world reflecting Sadler’s (1978) contention that loneliness is an intensely…
Category: Health and Mental Health
All posts are about health and health care.
Unbearable Loneliness
Our focus in the current chapter on unbearable loneliness stems from the realization that there is an extreme form of loneliness, which is felt as truly unbearable and is the type of loneliness that is not receiving sufficient attention in terms of research, practice, and prevention. We propose that it is essential that we begin…
Factors Contributing to Loneliness
When a construct is linked broadly with various mental health problems and associ-ated interpersonal problems, as is the case with loneliness, it is safe to assume a role for the self, in terms of its content, structure, and cognitive processing. We maintain that focus on the self and identity should be the starting point when…
Defining and Describing Loneliness and Its Clinical Significance
Loneliness is a negative emotional experience resulting from a discrepancy between “one’s desired and achieved levels of social relations” (Perlman & Peplau, 1981, p. 32). Loneliness is tied more closely to the quality of social interaction and exchanges rather than the frequency or amount of social interaction (Cacioppo & Hawkley, 2009). One does not have…
The Pervasiveness and Public Mental Health Significance of Loneliness
Do you suffer from loneliness? If so, the good news is you are far from alone. It is generally recognized that there is a global epidemic of loneliness (see Killeen, 1998; Murthy, 2020), and the main contentious issue here is whether loneliness is an epidemic or a pandemic. Estimates vary considerably as a function of…