Loneliness

♣ Loneliness One-O-One ♣

♠ Seeks me, moves me♠

Part 1

At times like these, people gather around and think : " WHAT IS LONELINESS ? "

Loneliness is easily described as :

♠ It can be the lack of effective
communication skills that provide meaningful interaction with others or
otherwise people who find it difficult to feel connected to another person..

♠ A definition of loneliness from this perspective is
likely to include a central concern with feeling alone, rejected, or alienated
as a function of an inability to establish, maintain, and terminate
relationships appropriately.

or it can be..

♠ A multidimensional problem, involving not merely social skills deficits and dysfunctional attachment histories but also cognitive styles, attributional patterns, situational problems, unrealistic expectancies, and other factors.

Any acceptable definition of loneliness would have to account for this multifactorial situation in a logically meaningful way. Even though it is now possible to construct a prototype or a "general case" of a lonely person, if there is no universally agreed-upon definition of loneliness, it is imperative that within-group variance be kept constantly in mind, particularly when attempting to identify loneliness accurately within a clinical setting. The literature suggests that, while general patterns may exist in lonely people, such people are far from identical; differential levels and varying types of loneliness must be considered when dealing with lonely people.

♣ Fundamentally, loneliness can be conceptualized as an aversive
affective condition, accompanied by any number of possible problematic
cognitions, life circumstances, problem-solving strategies, interactive
patterns, and various other factors, depending on the individual. The subjective
experience of loneliness, however, is at the heart of the matter, and is
sometimes so intense that lonely people can think about little else. In
addition, lonely people possess a deep sense of emptiness that they frequently
describe quite accurately as loneliness.

At present, while a number of definitions for loneliness do exist, they are not necessarily consistent with one another.