Emotions and Loneliness
Dealing with loneliness is first and foremost an emotional problem, and hence, must be dealt with using emotions management skills. The first skill we must learn is to recognize the eight primary emotions that humans experience and to define the “agenda” that each has to guide our lives. These are briefly summarized in the table below.
Summary of Eight Primary Human Emotions Negative Emotions: Triggered By: 1. Anger Unfairness/Mistreatment 2. Fear Perceived Threat or Danger 3. Shame Perceived Self-Inadequacy 4. Sadness Perceived Personal Loss Positive Emotions: Triggered By: 1. Love Perceived Bonding/Affirmation 2. Joy Perceived Mastery 3. Lust Perceived Sexual Bonding 4. Hope Perceived Potential for Mastery We have labeled anger, fear, shame, and sadness as negative emotions, not because they are bad, but because we do not like to experience them—they make us feel uncomfortable and we would like to avoid them, if possible. We call love, joy, lust, and hope the positive emotions because they are all pleasurable to us, and we generally like to repeat and prolong them as much as possible.
However, all of our emotions are equally beneficial to us in that they help us to become aware of unmet needs that we may or may not otherwise recognize. Emotions are merely automatic signals arising from our subconscious—somewhat like a telephone that rings to tell us when we have a call waiting for our attention. If we can learn to be as attentive to our emotional signals as we generally are to our telephone signals, we can become much more sensitive to our needs.
As we mentioned earlier, we experience our emotions on a continuum from “mild” to “massive” depending on the intensity of the unmet needs that trigger them. Thus, we might experience anger as a state of minor irritation in some situations, but in others, find ourselves seething with rage. Likewise, sadness can range from a mild state of wistfulness to a desperate sense of longing or remorse. On some occasions, we may be surprised at the intensity of emotions that arise within us. This is most likely to occur when we are not fully conscious of our unmet needs, and are struggling with repressed emotions.
Emotions are extremely complex, and we will make no attempt to discuss them fully here. Our task is limited to describing how the eight primary ones relate to loneliness. As indicated in the chart above, each of our major emotions has its own special agenda or message. When any part of our consciousness perceives that we are being threatened, the emotion of fear will rise automatically. Likewise, when we become aware, consciously or subconsciously, that we have not behaved at a level consistent with our personal standards or the standards of others, we automatically experience an emotional state called shame. Anger arises whenever we perceive that we have been treated unfairly, and so on. Love, on the other hand, arises whenever we perceive that someone or something is affirming our life.
Our point here is that we can train ourselves to “read” the patterns and messages of our emotional responses. We can learn to observe the types and intensity of our emotions as they arise, and to relate them to the types and importance of the unmet needs we are experiencing. This kind of self-awareness can be a powerful guide to us in making choices about how to allocate our precious time, energy, and resources.
Indeed, this is the purpose of human emotions. Humans don’t make life choices on the basis of instincts as lower species do. Rather, we must reason our way through the hundreds of choices we make everyday. In order to do this efficiently, we must learn to recognize and trust our emotions that flow from the acquired “wisdom” of both our conscious and subconscious consciousnesses. In much the same way that a computer can be programmed to search its databases, the human mind can learn to scan its store of knowledge and experience to promote better decision-making.
To resolve loneliness, we must use this same process. At the first tinge of lonely feelings, we must pause to scan our emotional state. We must seek to identify the particular emotion (or emotions) that is associated with this episode. Also, it is useful to see if we can pinpoint the exact event (or events) that triggered the lonely feelings.
For example, certain pictures in my home always generate a sense of sadness for me. They remind me of lost opportunities I had to enrich certain relationships. I keep these pictures prominently displayed so they continuously remind me to embrace all my current relationships more fully now. Thus, I resolve the past losses by choosing to commit more time, energy, and resources to my present relationships. Of course, I have also apologized to the individuals I slighted, but my “lonely pictures” keep me focused on preventing future losses. They remind me that all relationships are temporary and that I must enrich the ones I cherish while I still have time, energy, and resources to do so.
Therein lies the gift of loneliness. Had I ignored the pangs of sadness when I looked at those pictures, I would have remained stuck in my isolation from my loved ones. By feeling the pain and asking myself why it was there, I became aware that I had lost opportunities to share greater intimacy and support with those I cared about. I, then, vowed to find ways to make amends and to assure that I stayed more connected in the future. I realized I needed these relationships for my happiness and they needed me for theirs. Now I get to experience the richness of our mutual love and admiration every day.
Another example is the loneliness I felt as a teenager. I knew what caused my loneliness. I was not only being abused physically and emotionally by one foster parent, but I was being sexually abused by the other. I had no resource but myself. I tried confiding in a social worker on one of her visits to my high school, but she told my foster parents what I told her in confidence. Not the sexual abuse, but the way I was being treated on a daily basis. That just made things worse and let me know I had no one to depend on, no one at all. The abuse, all of it, became a big secret I had to keep. Enduring the abuse, especially the sexual abuse, along with sexual abuse I was victim to outside the home, and having to keep the secret, created huge sadness to think I was garbage to be used that no one cared about, and the loneliness was so deep there were nights I prayed not to wake up in the morning.
So, how does a teenage girl or a woman in a domestic violence relationship deal with loneliness if the three ways to resolve loneliness are time, energy and resources, if there are no resources available?
A little known fact about human emotions is that when we intentionally shut down our awareness of our negative emotions, we also shut down our capacity to experience our positive emotions as well. It is like choosing to live our lives in black and white instead of living in the multi-colors of a rainbow. As I speak about in the article Self-Esteem Matters, no one can live on both side of scale. (See Self-Esteem Scale)
Emotions add the color and excitement that makes life really worth living! They tell us what matters to us and alert us to all of the richest opportunities that are available in life. The emotions of loneliness are often difficult to read, especially if we have several emotions associated with a single person or event. When we first attempt to “soul search” our loneliness, it may feel overwhelming and hopeless. However, if we are patient and allow ourselves some occasions to “sit quietly” with our feelings, we will soon begin to experience moments of clarity about our loneliness patterns. We will be able to observe the rise and fall of our moods swings, and we will be able to identify what events trigger them. Perhaps, we have seen a particular movie or heard a certain piece of music that causes loneliness to sweep over us. Those are the moments that invite us to explore our emotions to find their source.
Of the four negative emotions, we are most likely to be aware of our loneliness when it is triggered by anger. That is, when we feel unsupported by the individuals and social groups in which we want to be part. More people are willing and able to recognize their anger emotions than their fear, shame, and sadness. This is because it is more culturally acceptable (especially, for men) to have anger than the others.
There is such a wide range of circumstances that may trigger lonely feelings in us that we cannot hope to list them all. Rather, we shall list four very common patterns of loneliness that we have observed in others and ourselves, and we shall describe briefly how they can be managed constructively. Our examples of these patterns will also show the emotions they typically engender and the unmet needs they reflect. As we said earlier, there are three primary types of unmet needs associated with loneliness: a) the need to belong to some social group(s), b) the need to find help with problems, and c) the need to be needed personally.
Example #1 – Alone and Lonely
This pattern of loneliness is the most recognized one in our society because many people have experienced it through the death of a loved one, the “empty nest” syndrome, the loss of a job, divorce, or having to move to a new location. This pattern is associated with persons making major transitions in their relationships. Anytime we shift our relationships in a significant way, we experience some loneliness because we are deprived of the support and control we once had—we are no longer sure where we belong or we may not be needed in the manner we used to be. Even if the relationships that changed were bad ones, we still have lost some predictability in our lives. These kinds of separations are inevitable in everyone’s life, sooner or later, and may cause us enormous grief.
All four negative emotions may be associated with such losses; 1) fear of being unable to meet one’s future needs; 2) anger at the unfairness of one’s loss; 3) shame over the failures within the relationship; and 4) sadness that one must accept changes one doesn’t want. The sadness is usually the hardest emotion to resolve in this pattern. Indeed, many people dwell on expressing the first three emotions because they don’t know how or won’t let themselves face their underlying painful grief.
Resolution of this pattern of loneliness usually takes four kinds of support: 1) support to facilitate the expression of emotions; 2) support to analyze the causes and conflicts associated with the lost relationship(s); 3) support to find new alternative relationships to replace the lost one(s); and 4) support to build a new creative identity. Groups like Hospice, Compassionate Friends, religious organizations, various support groups, and mental health therapists can all provide the skills training and safe environment to facilitate the expression of emotions. Individual family members, counselors, and even legal advocates may help to support analyzing the conflicts of the lost relationships. Family and friends are the usual source of support to find new alternative relationships to fill the social and personal void of lost relationships.
The fourth type of support is probably the hardest one to find in our modern society. Yet it is of great importance for anyone who is attempting to recoup from lost relationships. Once persons have acquired emotion-management skills, their next task is to redefine their identity to function without the lost relationship and with new sources of support and fulfillment. Whatever transition they are making—loss of spouse, job, health, etc.—they may have to modify many aspects of their identity all at once to restore control over their lives. To do this most effectively, people may need to acquire identity-building skills, which will help them to map their creative abilities. All humans are endowed with special talents that equip them to learn and express themselves in unique ways. Whenever we must make changes in our lives or when we are facing serious challenges of any kind, we need to set goals and make plans that fully utilize these natural creative talents. In this manner, we can focus our strongest personal resources upon our problems and assure the highest likelihood of success.
Unfortunately, training in identity-building skills is not a regular part of our school curricula at any level. In fact, no segment of our society—families, schools, religious institutions, government, etc.—is systematically organized to dispense this valuable training which would equip people to adapt more effectively to the challenges of life. Identity-building technology includes, at a minimum, skills training in managing emotions, mapping creativity, managing grief, promoting healthy love and sexual relationships, making decisions, setting goals, and disciplining oneself and others. These are the basic coping skills that everyone needs to function as a mature adult. In the absence of such organized identity-building training program in our communities, therefore, we all must take responsibility for conducting our own search for a functional identity. If we begin that search now, before our great losses occur, we will have some of these basic skills when our crises arise. The “wave of the future” in the education and mental health fields will be to unify this type of skills training into organized curricula.
Example #2 – Lonely in a Crowd
Ironically, some of the loneliest people in the world are not alone, but rather, are surrounded by other people. So, how can they be lonely? Loneliness is not a matter of how many people are around you, but rather, how many actively support your life in terms of guiding you to fit in, helping you meet your needs, and needing you in their lives. Inmates in prison have extreme physical closeness but live without any of these three types of personal support. Inside the barren prison walls dwells the most lonely and hopeless human population on earth, and their loneliness is expressed most often in rage and betrayal towards each other and the staff.
We see this type of loneliness in many families where one or more of the children are a victim of abuse, scapegoating, or emotional abandonment by the adults around them. We see this type of loneliness in classrooms where one or more children can’t, for whatever reason, compete with the demands of that environment. We see this loneliness in many community settings such as nursing homes, where individuals aren’t getting the physical and emotional connectedness they need and deserve.
Resolution of this pattern of loneliness is often difficult for a variety of reasons. In the prisons, the environment is deliberately oriented towards isolation and punishment, not support or guidance. Thus, we cannot expect persons there to acquire coping skills and emotional growth.
In dysfunctional families, the adults are generally socially isolated and emotionally dependent themselves, and hence, can’t provide the three types of support their children need. In the schools and other institutional settings, lack of support for high-risk children and adults is attributed to the lack of community resources. We are constantly reminded by our political and business leaders that our society cannot afford to provide all the medical, welfare, and social services needed in our schools and institutions for dependent individuals—children, the elderly, the handicapped, etc.
And yet, these same business and political leaders can find the resources to build huge stadiums and sports arenas and to create all manner of corporate subsidies to benefit a minority of our citizens. It is not that the resources are not available to meet the physical and emotional needs of all of our citizens. It is, rather, that it is not the priority of our business and political leaders to use those resources to support the needs of dependent people to the degree that would reduce their isolation and dependence. There is no more appropriate goal for a democratic society than to support the growth and fulfillment of all citizens. Such an agenda provides the greatest long-term stability for the entire society.
Example # 3 – Loneliness from Being Needed Too Much
Another large group of lonely people are those who are needed too much by others, and who are receiving too little support for their own needs. Some examples of these individuals are: a) working women who find themselves caring for most of the physical and emotional needs of their husband and children as well as those of elderly parents; b) workers whose jobs require intensive emotional or physical involvement with their clients but offer little emotional support for themselves—nurses, teachers, counselors, police, etc; c) people who are providing long-term care for handicapped or infirm family members; and d) people in co-dependent relationships.
These individuals often experience all of the negative emotions in their loneliness—anger, because they feel “trapped” and/or unappreciated in their care-giving roles; fear, because they believe bad things will happen to themselves or to their loved ones if they ask for their own needs to be met; shame, because they can’t exert more control over their own needs; and sadness, because no one seems willing or able to help them resolve their situation.
These lonely people all have a certain vulnerability about them. They are often more generous and empathetic than others, or they are less able to ask for help or to set boundaries on those who make excessive demands upon them. In any case, they tend to experience chronic loneliness because they lack all three types of support in their lives. They face so many demands upon their time, energy, and resources that they cannot cultivate fulfilling social or creative outlets. They either don’t know where or how to ask for help, or they have a belief system that won’t allow them to ask for help—e.g., police officers or health care workers who can’t admit their emotional “burn out” on their job. And finally, they have a predisposition to “need to be needed” more than ordinary people.
This predisposition is especially apparent in persons who were abused or exploited as children. It is also characteristic of individuals who establish co-dependent relationships as most substance abusers and their partners do. Co-dependency is an unhealthy relationship in which the partners engage in self-destructive behaviors in an effort get the other to meet their needs rather than taking responsibility for their own needs. The individuals who establish co-dependent relationships usually operate out of higher levels of fear and non-truth (denial) and lower levels of adult coping skills than non-co-dependent relationships.
Resolution of loneliness for most people who are needed too much is mostly “retraining” to set healthier boundaries around meeting their own needs and those of others. For example, the overburdened working mother can learn to discipline her husband, children, and elderly relatives to share more of the daily chores and emotional care-taking tasks of the family. Too many workingwomen are still trying to live up to the myth of the “super mom” while allowing their men and children to entertain themselves with TV or computer games. The net effect of this pattern is that no one is sharing either chores or intimacy with other family members. Indeed, it is the families that work together and play together that stay bonded for life!
Why is this true? It is because there is a special set of dynamics within families that negotiate for the allocation of household chores based on the age, abilities, and skills of each family member. It means the issues of fairness, respect, and responsibility are all discussed, and that the family is viewed as a mutually supportive group. It also emphasizes that every family member is expected to grow in competence and commitment over time. What a powerful message to give to both children and adults! Loneliness is at a minimum in this type of environment because everyone knows they are needed.
What resolution is there for people who are lonely because they are isolated and confined in their care-taking role with an invalid or handicapped parent or child? Such situations can last for years and may be exacerbated by the poverty, age, or infirmity of the caretaker as well. There are public and private agencies that support the needs of these dependent populations, but too often they are understaffed and under funded. Many of these agency personnel themselves are demoralized and lonely because they, too, feel overwhelmed by the depth of the human misery they must deal with, and unsupported by the organizations for which they work.
This mindset is especially prevalent now since the terrorists’ attack on New York and Washington. These events cast an unprecedented sense of vulnerability over our nation, and our people now want more support than ever before from their national and local protection agencies. However, the Homeland Security efforts remain grossly under-funded, and despite much rhetoric, our national leaders stay more focused on creating new international conflicts than reinforcing protective resources here at home.
Our public schools are now meeting the needs of handicapped children far better through outreach and special education services than in the past. Their model needs to be expanded to the health care and welfare fields so that the infirm and elderly can receive similar levels of support. Just as families must do more to divide the household chores among their members, so must society take more responsibility for providing the physical and emotional care its dependent populations need. In addition, society must allocate more resources for the workers who serve dependent people and their families. After all, most people will find themselves either in a dependent role or in a caretaker role sometime in their lives—especially with our large, aging “boomer” population here.
Many people, both men and women, don’t recognize that our workers who do intense physical and emotional care taking also require additional rest and recovery time to maintain their own health. These workers—teachers, nurses, police, protective service personnel, etc—are far more important to our society than the highly paid and over-publicized athletes in our sports arenas. Why is it that our society values “entertainers” so much more than the real heroes who serve, protect, and comfort us on a daily basis and in crisis situations?
Certainly, the mass media and business sectors are largely responsible for these warped social perspectives. They make money off of the artificially contrived celebrities and promotions they produce. They create a world of unreal values that distract us from the true meaning and purpose of our lives. They promote unattainable and unworthy goals for young people to aspire to—few people can become a Michael Jordan type basketball player, but why would we want a lot more of those? Jordan was able to make amazing movements on the basketball court that had short-term entertainment value, but his most lasting contributions are little more than a few record book statistics and some videotape footage for the media to rerun. Yet, he was paid enough each year to buy a year’s supply of immunization shots for all of Chicago’s poor children. Chicago’s citizens were willing to “tax” themselves to pay his outrageous salary, but would balk at paying that much to assure that children had healthier lives.
Our remarks are not intended to disparage either Michael Jordan or the fine city of Chicago. Indeed, Jordan has always been a wonderful role model for his moral character and civic mindedness. Rather, we merely wish to call attention to the extreme imbalance and wastefulness of our current public priorities. Also, our national leaders are willing to give billions to foreign countries to foster questionable war efforts, but can’t afford to finance health care adequately for millions of our own citizens.
From infancy on, we humans need to be needed. Since the 1930’s, it has been documented that infants may exhibit “failure to thrive” syndrome if they are emotionally neglected in their homes or in institutional settings. In this condition, a child shows progressive decline in mental alertness and loss of body weight due to inadequate release of growth hormone. However, the child usually reverts to normal responsiveness and hormone secretion levels if transferred soon enough to a more supportive environment.
My co-owner of The Center for Human Development, Alberta Anderson, is well acquainted with this type of loneliness, having lived in a tiny, impoverished, church-supported orphanage for the first six years of her life. "The conditions in that institution were very bad because the economic chaos of the “great depression” meant parishioners from those churches had little money to share. By the time I was adopted, she had lost 50% of my eyesight from malnutrition and had numerous health problems. My greatest deficiency, however, was that I had almost no language skills because no one spent enough time with me to teach me to speak. Fortunately, my adoptive parents saved my eyesight with medical care and much good food from their country store. The friendly customers in the store and my classmates in school taught me speech as well as how to bond with other people."
Our society has lots of “throw-away” people in it—that is, people that nobody wants or needs. The bulk of these individuals are in three groups—children (0 – 15), the disabled (at any age) and the elderly. They are generally unwanted because they have higher dependency needs and lower productive capacity than other members of society. This is especially true for the very youngest, the very oldest, and the most handicapped individuals within these three groups. Yet, society has both a moral and economic obligation to the commit time, energy, and resources to support their needs.
It is always morally and economically wise for our society to invest in the healthy development of children—morally because they are not responsible for their birth or their dependency, and economically because, given adequate social support they will develop productive capacity as they mature. When caretakers abandon infants, it is not because the children lack potential; it is because their caretakers have not fulfilled their potential, and hence, lack the skills and maturity to be responsible for the children they bear.
Likewise, many disabled and elderly persons could make greater contributions to society if society were willing to support them adequately. We have a moral obligation to promote their physical and mental development because they are human beings with creative potential and the desire to be productive—just as you and I would want to, if we were in their situation. Economically, it makes sense to utilize the full potential of every person because our world is so problem-filled that we can’t afford to waste anyone’s skills or genius.
If society made the same commitment to develop non-athletes as it does to develop athletes, or if we devoted as much resources to the habilitation of underdeveloped and/or disabled persons as we do to building prisons, we could greatly improve the cost-effectiveness and cohesiveness of our whole society. Also, if the mass media promoted information on adult coping skills to the same degree that it fosters dysfunctional attitudes and behaviors, there would be far fewer lonely people in our society.
As we said in the beginning of this article, humans get lonely when they don’t know where they can fit into society; when they don’t know where or how to ask for help; and when they don’t have anyone who really needs them. By these standards, a large segment of our youth population, ages 10-20, experiences all of these deficits. This age group that is making the transition from childhood to adulthood—yet, they fit in neither category. They do not have legal rights to make ordinary adult decisions, but they can enter military service and be trained to kill. What a dreadful double message this is for society to give to its young people—they are old enough to kill, but not old enough to own property and enter contracts in their own name until they are twenty-one.
Add to this picture the fact that this age group has the highest energy level they will ever have in their entire lives. Also, they have great eagerness to “test” themselves in the adult world, and yet, our society offers few “real world” skill-building opportunities, except sports, until their late teen years. When our idle young people get restless and begin seeking challenges and human connectedness through drugs, sex, gang activities, however, our society responds only by building them more playgrounds, or even worse, more juvenile detention centers. Adults have the warped mindset that children and adolescents only want to play sports, be entertained, or be destructive.
Society fails to realize that our young people have a powerful need to be needed. They want to learn how to function like adults and how to find their own special creative niche so they can become productive citizens. When we adults only build playgrounds and jails, or let them flip hamburgers at fast food outlets, we are saying that they are not really needed or able to make genuine contributions to our society. Sometimes we treat our young people as if they were nuisances or even enemies, rather then embracing them as the future leaders of our nation.
To add to their misery, we expect these young people to suddenly emerge as highly skilled workers and responsible citizens at the age of twenty-one. We adults, however, are often reluctant to hire them because they have no “experience” or skills. Indeed, we have given them few opportunities to discover and test their creative abilities and to acquire responsible work habits. Then we wonder why so many young people rebel, engage in destructive/risky behaviors, or commit suicide. Many of them feel rejected, ashamed, and useless in adult society, and hence, they isolate themselves in the fantasy of the mass media, or cluster together in desperate loneliness, or escape into drugs, meaningless fads, and consumerism.
Is there a solution for the loneliness of these young people? Of course, there is! All we have to do is show them how and where they can fit-in in our society; how and where to ask for help when they need it; and how much we really need their energy, vitality, and creativity. Primitive societies have always known how to provide this type of guidance to their youth, and our nation did a much better job of it fifty years ago when we had more cohesive communities.
The solution is to build an “apprenticeship” system into every neighborhood which functions to integrate young people into the full range of creative opportunities that exist there. Through our neighborhood and school sports programs, we already do this for youngsters who have athletic abilities. Now, we need to expand this concept for children who have other areas of creative abilities, since most children are never likely to become professional athletes. We need to offer both informal and formal training and actual work experience in creative pursuits such as music, art, dance, computer technology, mechanics, math, poetry, writing, care taking of animals or people, science, etc. Just as there is a career ladder for athletes from “pee wee” league sports through high school and college, so should there be similar ladders for those children who have other creativity orientations.
These alternative career ladders, like the sports model, should be developed through the combined efforts of the private, non-profit, and public sectors. They should be conducted under the supervision of trained, responsible adults, and they should utilize public facilities to the maximum degree possible. After all, public facilities like schools, playgrounds, and parks were built with our tax dollars and should be operated as “career development centers” for all of our citizens, especially during after-school hours and summer vacation periods.
Trained volunteers and part-time employees should be used to staff these centers. The cost of such programs would be balanced out by reductions in the number of juvenile detention staff and police needed in local communities. Staff salaries for such centers should be subsidized from federal and state grants now directed at preventing crime and substance abuse. Both of these problems are greatly diminished when communities become more cohesive and youth-oriented.
Moreover, local businesses should offer pre-employment, apprenticeship opportunities for youngsters to engage in real-world work experiences. Just as this writer spent her adolescent years working alongside her parents in their country store, modern youth should be allowed to acquire entry-level work skills on a volunteer basis in their local neighborhood businesses—much like the “candy-stripers” that are recruited to volunteer in hospitals. Then, when these youngsters become proficient enough, they should be paid entry-level wages for their services. Many families could benefit from the supplemental income of a part-time youth worker.
Many children are physically and mentally ready in their early teens to take on meaningful part-time work roles. All children deserve the opportunity to learn useful employment skills gradually in settings that provide stable, adult supervision and support. In fact, a beautiful thing happens when children are given the chance to make a genuine contribution to their community—they joyfully embrace the activities and the people they are working with. What’s more, anything that children and young people help to build is never in danger of being vandalized by them in the future. Their pride in their work and their enhanced self-esteem bond them to their neighborhood.
The biggest barrier to effective youth employment lies in our archaic, short-sighted perceptions of child labor. In all cultures, children need to be integrated gradually and gently into the work roles of adults. In primitive societies, children work under adult supervision from early childhood on, performing tasks that are within their physical and mental capabilities. Those children, who show special aptitudes, are “apprenticed” to skilled adults and given specialized training beginning early in their teen years. There are, of course, abuses of child labor in some societies. However, most of those situations occur when foreign commercial interests have taken over the culture and exploited the local population—both children and adults.
Our society seems to think work is inherently bad for children—that we aren’t loving parents if we expect our children to share in the family chores. Our society also fears that children will be exploited in the workplace as they were in “sweatshops” a century ago. Surely, by now, we can figure out ways to involve children more meaningfully in adult work roles, and we can improve on the “sports model” to gradually develop their creative interests. Educators, child development specialists, parents, and civic leaders need to collaborate in expanding the “career development” and identity building training our youth population needs.
If communities want to build such youth-involvement opportunities in their neighborhoods, it will be necessary for state and federal government leaders to revise child labor laws to permit this type of program and to underwrite worker insurance for this youth population. Contrary to popular notions about youthful workers, they are not any more prone to accidents than adult workers, if they are adequately trained and supervised, and if they are assigned tasks appropriate to their age and skill level. Indeed, the rate of accidents of unsupervised youth in their homes and on playgrounds or on the streets is far higher.
From the perspective of mental health professionals, our troubled young people tend to fall into two groups—those that are trying to grow up too fast and those who are growing up too slow. The fast group is out there experimenting with all manner of illicit behavior because there isn’t enough legitimate opportunity to experience adult roles. The slow group tends to be those youngsters who are reluctant to grow up because they fear they can’t compete in the adult world. Both of these groups are lonely and feel unsupported by society. Both would benefit from expanded youth employment opportunities that stimulated their creativity, developed real skills, and connected them with supportive adults. Such programs would address all three of the sources of loneliness:
Conclusions
In this article, we have looked at loneliness in many ways:
First, we suggested that loneliness is a normal emotional response in humans which occurs: 1) whenever they can’t figure out how to fit into their social environment; 2) whenever they can’t find help to meet their needs; and 3) whenever they don’t feel needed.
Second, we examined the emotional components of loneliness and explained how to use them to understand the sources and intensity of our loneliness as well as the types of unmet needs that trigger our loneliness.
Third, we identified the most common destructive patterns that people use to manage their loneliness. We also explained briefly why those patterns may give us temporary relief from our loneliness, but in the long run actually make it worse.
Fourth, we identified constructive patterns for managing loneliness. We began by suggesting that loneliness is a gift to us in that it is a signal that our needs for human connectness and support aren’t being met. Also, it motivates us to make the necessary changes in our lives to meet our needs more effectively.
And, finally, we examined in some detail four specific classes of loneliness that are so common in our modern society. We also tried to suggest solutions to those loneliness situations. However, our treatment of the solutions was necessarily brief and incomplete. In fact, we could not hope to give definitive recommendations in this article. We will, however, continue to develop each of the major concepts of this article in subsequent articles.
Our purpose here is to suggest how significant loneliness is in our society and how much more could be done to relieve this type of suffering. We believe there are many solutions that can be generated on a broader scale once educators, mental health professionals, and community leaders understand this issue better.
See a Therapist or CounselorResearch suggests that loneliness and symptoms of depression can perpetuate each other, meaning the more lonely you are, the more depressed you feel, and vice versa. Sometimes just “getting out there” and meeting other people isn’t enough. It's possible to still feel lonely when you’re around them, which could actually be a sign of depression or social anxiety. If this is the case for you, it may be a good idea to seek psychologist or counselor to help with feelings of loneliness, especially if you also feel other symptoms of depression. Some forms of therapy, especially cognitive behavioral therapy, can help you to change your thoughts as well as your actions to help you not only experience less loneliness but have more tools to prevent it. Whatever you do to combat loneliness, know that you are truly not alone, and there are many things you can do to feel more connected.
Summary of Eight Primary Human Emotions Negative Emotions: Triggered By: 1. Anger Unfairness/Mistreatment 2. Fear Perceived Threat or Danger 3. Shame Perceived Self-Inadequacy 4. Sadness Perceived Personal Loss Positive Emotions: Triggered By: 1. Love Perceived Bonding/Affirmation 2. Joy Perceived Mastery 3. Lust Perceived Sexual Bonding 4. Hope Perceived Potential for Mastery We have labeled anger, fear, shame, and sadness as negative emotions, not because they are bad, but because we do not like to experience them—they make us feel uncomfortable and we would like to avoid them, if possible. We call love, joy, lust, and hope the positive emotions because they are all pleasurable to us, and we generally like to repeat and prolong them as much as possible.
However, all of our emotions are equally beneficial to us in that they help us to become aware of unmet needs that we may or may not otherwise recognize. Emotions are merely automatic signals arising from our subconscious—somewhat like a telephone that rings to tell us when we have a call waiting for our attention. If we can learn to be as attentive to our emotional signals as we generally are to our telephone signals, we can become much more sensitive to our needs.
As we mentioned earlier, we experience our emotions on a continuum from “mild” to “massive” depending on the intensity of the unmet needs that trigger them. Thus, we might experience anger as a state of minor irritation in some situations, but in others, find ourselves seething with rage. Likewise, sadness can range from a mild state of wistfulness to a desperate sense of longing or remorse. On some occasions, we may be surprised at the intensity of emotions that arise within us. This is most likely to occur when we are not fully conscious of our unmet needs, and are struggling with repressed emotions.
Emotions are extremely complex, and we will make no attempt to discuss them fully here. Our task is limited to describing how the eight primary ones relate to loneliness. As indicated in the chart above, each of our major emotions has its own special agenda or message. When any part of our consciousness perceives that we are being threatened, the emotion of fear will rise automatically. Likewise, when we become aware, consciously or subconsciously, that we have not behaved at a level consistent with our personal standards or the standards of others, we automatically experience an emotional state called shame. Anger arises whenever we perceive that we have been treated unfairly, and so on. Love, on the other hand, arises whenever we perceive that someone or something is affirming our life.
Our point here is that we can train ourselves to “read” the patterns and messages of our emotional responses. We can learn to observe the types and intensity of our emotions as they arise, and to relate them to the types and importance of the unmet needs we are experiencing. This kind of self-awareness can be a powerful guide to us in making choices about how to allocate our precious time, energy, and resources.
Indeed, this is the purpose of human emotions. Humans don’t make life choices on the basis of instincts as lower species do. Rather, we must reason our way through the hundreds of choices we make everyday. In order to do this efficiently, we must learn to recognize and trust our emotions that flow from the acquired “wisdom” of both our conscious and subconscious consciousnesses. In much the same way that a computer can be programmed to search its databases, the human mind can learn to scan its store of knowledge and experience to promote better decision-making.
To resolve loneliness, we must use this same process. At the first tinge of lonely feelings, we must pause to scan our emotional state. We must seek to identify the particular emotion (or emotions) that is associated with this episode. Also, it is useful to see if we can pinpoint the exact event (or events) that triggered the lonely feelings.
For example, certain pictures in my home always generate a sense of sadness for me. They remind me of lost opportunities I had to enrich certain relationships. I keep these pictures prominently displayed so they continuously remind me to embrace all my current relationships more fully now. Thus, I resolve the past losses by choosing to commit more time, energy, and resources to my present relationships. Of course, I have also apologized to the individuals I slighted, but my “lonely pictures” keep me focused on preventing future losses. They remind me that all relationships are temporary and that I must enrich the ones I cherish while I still have time, energy, and resources to do so.
Therein lies the gift of loneliness. Had I ignored the pangs of sadness when I looked at those pictures, I would have remained stuck in my isolation from my loved ones. By feeling the pain and asking myself why it was there, I became aware that I had lost opportunities to share greater intimacy and support with those I cared about. I, then, vowed to find ways to make amends and to assure that I stayed more connected in the future. I realized I needed these relationships for my happiness and they needed me for theirs. Now I get to experience the richness of our mutual love and admiration every day.
Another example is the loneliness I felt as a teenager. I knew what caused my loneliness. I was not only being abused physically and emotionally by one foster parent, but I was being sexually abused by the other. I had no resource but myself. I tried confiding in a social worker on one of her visits to my high school, but she told my foster parents what I told her in confidence. Not the sexual abuse, but the way I was being treated on a daily basis. That just made things worse and let me know I had no one to depend on, no one at all. The abuse, all of it, became a big secret I had to keep. Enduring the abuse, especially the sexual abuse, along with sexual abuse I was victim to outside the home, and having to keep the secret, created huge sadness to think I was garbage to be used that no one cared about, and the loneliness was so deep there were nights I prayed not to wake up in the morning.
So, how does a teenage girl or a woman in a domestic violence relationship deal with loneliness if the three ways to resolve loneliness are time, energy and resources, if there are no resources available?
A little known fact about human emotions is that when we intentionally shut down our awareness of our negative emotions, we also shut down our capacity to experience our positive emotions as well. It is like choosing to live our lives in black and white instead of living in the multi-colors of a rainbow. As I speak about in the article Self-Esteem Matters, no one can live on both side of scale. (See Self-Esteem Scale)
Emotions add the color and excitement that makes life really worth living! They tell us what matters to us and alert us to all of the richest opportunities that are available in life. The emotions of loneliness are often difficult to read, especially if we have several emotions associated with a single person or event. When we first attempt to “soul search” our loneliness, it may feel overwhelming and hopeless. However, if we are patient and allow ourselves some occasions to “sit quietly” with our feelings, we will soon begin to experience moments of clarity about our loneliness patterns. We will be able to observe the rise and fall of our moods swings, and we will be able to identify what events trigger them. Perhaps, we have seen a particular movie or heard a certain piece of music that causes loneliness to sweep over us. Those are the moments that invite us to explore our emotions to find their source.
Of the four negative emotions, we are most likely to be aware of our loneliness when it is triggered by anger. That is, when we feel unsupported by the individuals and social groups in which we want to be part. More people are willing and able to recognize their anger emotions than their fear, shame, and sadness. This is because it is more culturally acceptable (especially, for men) to have anger than the others.
There is such a wide range of circumstances that may trigger lonely feelings in us that we cannot hope to list them all. Rather, we shall list four very common patterns of loneliness that we have observed in others and ourselves, and we shall describe briefly how they can be managed constructively. Our examples of these patterns will also show the emotions they typically engender and the unmet needs they reflect. As we said earlier, there are three primary types of unmet needs associated with loneliness: a) the need to belong to some social group(s), b) the need to find help with problems, and c) the need to be needed personally.
Example #1 – Alone and Lonely
This pattern of loneliness is the most recognized one in our society because many people have experienced it through the death of a loved one, the “empty nest” syndrome, the loss of a job, divorce, or having to move to a new location. This pattern is associated with persons making major transitions in their relationships. Anytime we shift our relationships in a significant way, we experience some loneliness because we are deprived of the support and control we once had—we are no longer sure where we belong or we may not be needed in the manner we used to be. Even if the relationships that changed were bad ones, we still have lost some predictability in our lives. These kinds of separations are inevitable in everyone’s life, sooner or later, and may cause us enormous grief.
All four negative emotions may be associated with such losses; 1) fear of being unable to meet one’s future needs; 2) anger at the unfairness of one’s loss; 3) shame over the failures within the relationship; and 4) sadness that one must accept changes one doesn’t want. The sadness is usually the hardest emotion to resolve in this pattern. Indeed, many people dwell on expressing the first three emotions because they don’t know how or won’t let themselves face their underlying painful grief.
Resolution of this pattern of loneliness usually takes four kinds of support: 1) support to facilitate the expression of emotions; 2) support to analyze the causes and conflicts associated with the lost relationship(s); 3) support to find new alternative relationships to replace the lost one(s); and 4) support to build a new creative identity. Groups like Hospice, Compassionate Friends, religious organizations, various support groups, and mental health therapists can all provide the skills training and safe environment to facilitate the expression of emotions. Individual family members, counselors, and even legal advocates may help to support analyzing the conflicts of the lost relationships. Family and friends are the usual source of support to find new alternative relationships to fill the social and personal void of lost relationships.
The fourth type of support is probably the hardest one to find in our modern society. Yet it is of great importance for anyone who is attempting to recoup from lost relationships. Once persons have acquired emotion-management skills, their next task is to redefine their identity to function without the lost relationship and with new sources of support and fulfillment. Whatever transition they are making—loss of spouse, job, health, etc.—they may have to modify many aspects of their identity all at once to restore control over their lives. To do this most effectively, people may need to acquire identity-building skills, which will help them to map their creative abilities. All humans are endowed with special talents that equip them to learn and express themselves in unique ways. Whenever we must make changes in our lives or when we are facing serious challenges of any kind, we need to set goals and make plans that fully utilize these natural creative talents. In this manner, we can focus our strongest personal resources upon our problems and assure the highest likelihood of success.
Unfortunately, training in identity-building skills is not a regular part of our school curricula at any level. In fact, no segment of our society—families, schools, religious institutions, government, etc.—is systematically organized to dispense this valuable training which would equip people to adapt more effectively to the challenges of life. Identity-building technology includes, at a minimum, skills training in managing emotions, mapping creativity, managing grief, promoting healthy love and sexual relationships, making decisions, setting goals, and disciplining oneself and others. These are the basic coping skills that everyone needs to function as a mature adult. In the absence of such organized identity-building training program in our communities, therefore, we all must take responsibility for conducting our own search for a functional identity. If we begin that search now, before our great losses occur, we will have some of these basic skills when our crises arise. The “wave of the future” in the education and mental health fields will be to unify this type of skills training into organized curricula.
Example #2 – Lonely in a Crowd
Ironically, some of the loneliest people in the world are not alone, but rather, are surrounded by other people. So, how can they be lonely? Loneliness is not a matter of how many people are around you, but rather, how many actively support your life in terms of guiding you to fit in, helping you meet your needs, and needing you in their lives. Inmates in prison have extreme physical closeness but live without any of these three types of personal support. Inside the barren prison walls dwells the most lonely and hopeless human population on earth, and their loneliness is expressed most often in rage and betrayal towards each other and the staff.
We see this type of loneliness in many families where one or more of the children are a victim of abuse, scapegoating, or emotional abandonment by the adults around them. We see this type of loneliness in classrooms where one or more children can’t, for whatever reason, compete with the demands of that environment. We see this loneliness in many community settings such as nursing homes, where individuals aren’t getting the physical and emotional connectedness they need and deserve.
Resolution of this pattern of loneliness is often difficult for a variety of reasons. In the prisons, the environment is deliberately oriented towards isolation and punishment, not support or guidance. Thus, we cannot expect persons there to acquire coping skills and emotional growth.
In dysfunctional families, the adults are generally socially isolated and emotionally dependent themselves, and hence, can’t provide the three types of support their children need. In the schools and other institutional settings, lack of support for high-risk children and adults is attributed to the lack of community resources. We are constantly reminded by our political and business leaders that our society cannot afford to provide all the medical, welfare, and social services needed in our schools and institutions for dependent individuals—children, the elderly, the handicapped, etc.
And yet, these same business and political leaders can find the resources to build huge stadiums and sports arenas and to create all manner of corporate subsidies to benefit a minority of our citizens. It is not that the resources are not available to meet the physical and emotional needs of all of our citizens. It is, rather, that it is not the priority of our business and political leaders to use those resources to support the needs of dependent people to the degree that would reduce their isolation and dependence. There is no more appropriate goal for a democratic society than to support the growth and fulfillment of all citizens. Such an agenda provides the greatest long-term stability for the entire society.
Example # 3 – Loneliness from Being Needed Too Much
Another large group of lonely people are those who are needed too much by others, and who are receiving too little support for their own needs. Some examples of these individuals are: a) working women who find themselves caring for most of the physical and emotional needs of their husband and children as well as those of elderly parents; b) workers whose jobs require intensive emotional or physical involvement with their clients but offer little emotional support for themselves—nurses, teachers, counselors, police, etc; c) people who are providing long-term care for handicapped or infirm family members; and d) people in co-dependent relationships.
These individuals often experience all of the negative emotions in their loneliness—anger, because they feel “trapped” and/or unappreciated in their care-giving roles; fear, because they believe bad things will happen to themselves or to their loved ones if they ask for their own needs to be met; shame, because they can’t exert more control over their own needs; and sadness, because no one seems willing or able to help them resolve their situation.
These lonely people all have a certain vulnerability about them. They are often more generous and empathetic than others, or they are less able to ask for help or to set boundaries on those who make excessive demands upon them. In any case, they tend to experience chronic loneliness because they lack all three types of support in their lives. They face so many demands upon their time, energy, and resources that they cannot cultivate fulfilling social or creative outlets. They either don’t know where or how to ask for help, or they have a belief system that won’t allow them to ask for help—e.g., police officers or health care workers who can’t admit their emotional “burn out” on their job. And finally, they have a predisposition to “need to be needed” more than ordinary people.
This predisposition is especially apparent in persons who were abused or exploited as children. It is also characteristic of individuals who establish co-dependent relationships as most substance abusers and their partners do. Co-dependency is an unhealthy relationship in which the partners engage in self-destructive behaviors in an effort get the other to meet their needs rather than taking responsibility for their own needs. The individuals who establish co-dependent relationships usually operate out of higher levels of fear and non-truth (denial) and lower levels of adult coping skills than non-co-dependent relationships.
Resolution of loneliness for most people who are needed too much is mostly “retraining” to set healthier boundaries around meeting their own needs and those of others. For example, the overburdened working mother can learn to discipline her husband, children, and elderly relatives to share more of the daily chores and emotional care-taking tasks of the family. Too many workingwomen are still trying to live up to the myth of the “super mom” while allowing their men and children to entertain themselves with TV or computer games. The net effect of this pattern is that no one is sharing either chores or intimacy with other family members. Indeed, it is the families that work together and play together that stay bonded for life!
Why is this true? It is because there is a special set of dynamics within families that negotiate for the allocation of household chores based on the age, abilities, and skills of each family member. It means the issues of fairness, respect, and responsibility are all discussed, and that the family is viewed as a mutually supportive group. It also emphasizes that every family member is expected to grow in competence and commitment over time. What a powerful message to give to both children and adults! Loneliness is at a minimum in this type of environment because everyone knows they are needed.
What resolution is there for people who are lonely because they are isolated and confined in their care-taking role with an invalid or handicapped parent or child? Such situations can last for years and may be exacerbated by the poverty, age, or infirmity of the caretaker as well. There are public and private agencies that support the needs of these dependent populations, but too often they are understaffed and under funded. Many of these agency personnel themselves are demoralized and lonely because they, too, feel overwhelmed by the depth of the human misery they must deal with, and unsupported by the organizations for which they work.
This mindset is especially prevalent now since the terrorists’ attack on New York and Washington. These events cast an unprecedented sense of vulnerability over our nation, and our people now want more support than ever before from their national and local protection agencies. However, the Homeland Security efforts remain grossly under-funded, and despite much rhetoric, our national leaders stay more focused on creating new international conflicts than reinforcing protective resources here at home.
Our public schools are now meeting the needs of handicapped children far better through outreach and special education services than in the past. Their model needs to be expanded to the health care and welfare fields so that the infirm and elderly can receive similar levels of support. Just as families must do more to divide the household chores among their members, so must society take more responsibility for providing the physical and emotional care its dependent populations need. In addition, society must allocate more resources for the workers who serve dependent people and their families. After all, most people will find themselves either in a dependent role or in a caretaker role sometime in their lives—especially with our large, aging “boomer” population here.
Many people, both men and women, don’t recognize that our workers who do intense physical and emotional care taking also require additional rest and recovery time to maintain their own health. These workers—teachers, nurses, police, protective service personnel, etc—are far more important to our society than the highly paid and over-publicized athletes in our sports arenas. Why is it that our society values “entertainers” so much more than the real heroes who serve, protect, and comfort us on a daily basis and in crisis situations?
Certainly, the mass media and business sectors are largely responsible for these warped social perspectives. They make money off of the artificially contrived celebrities and promotions they produce. They create a world of unreal values that distract us from the true meaning and purpose of our lives. They promote unattainable and unworthy goals for young people to aspire to—few people can become a Michael Jordan type basketball player, but why would we want a lot more of those? Jordan was able to make amazing movements on the basketball court that had short-term entertainment value, but his most lasting contributions are little more than a few record book statistics and some videotape footage for the media to rerun. Yet, he was paid enough each year to buy a year’s supply of immunization shots for all of Chicago’s poor children. Chicago’s citizens were willing to “tax” themselves to pay his outrageous salary, but would balk at paying that much to assure that children had healthier lives.
Our remarks are not intended to disparage either Michael Jordan or the fine city of Chicago. Indeed, Jordan has always been a wonderful role model for his moral character and civic mindedness. Rather, we merely wish to call attention to the extreme imbalance and wastefulness of our current public priorities. Also, our national leaders are willing to give billions to foreign countries to foster questionable war efforts, but can’t afford to finance health care adequately for millions of our own citizens.
From infancy on, we humans need to be needed. Since the 1930’s, it has been documented that infants may exhibit “failure to thrive” syndrome if they are emotionally neglected in their homes or in institutional settings. In this condition, a child shows progressive decline in mental alertness and loss of body weight due to inadequate release of growth hormone. However, the child usually reverts to normal responsiveness and hormone secretion levels if transferred soon enough to a more supportive environment.
My co-owner of The Center for Human Development, Alberta Anderson, is well acquainted with this type of loneliness, having lived in a tiny, impoverished, church-supported orphanage for the first six years of her life. "The conditions in that institution were very bad because the economic chaos of the “great depression” meant parishioners from those churches had little money to share. By the time I was adopted, she had lost 50% of my eyesight from malnutrition and had numerous health problems. My greatest deficiency, however, was that I had almost no language skills because no one spent enough time with me to teach me to speak. Fortunately, my adoptive parents saved my eyesight with medical care and much good food from their country store. The friendly customers in the store and my classmates in school taught me speech as well as how to bond with other people."
Our society has lots of “throw-away” people in it—that is, people that nobody wants or needs. The bulk of these individuals are in three groups—children (0 – 15), the disabled (at any age) and the elderly. They are generally unwanted because they have higher dependency needs and lower productive capacity than other members of society. This is especially true for the very youngest, the very oldest, and the most handicapped individuals within these three groups. Yet, society has both a moral and economic obligation to the commit time, energy, and resources to support their needs.
It is always morally and economically wise for our society to invest in the healthy development of children—morally because they are not responsible for their birth or their dependency, and economically because, given adequate social support they will develop productive capacity as they mature. When caretakers abandon infants, it is not because the children lack potential; it is because their caretakers have not fulfilled their potential, and hence, lack the skills and maturity to be responsible for the children they bear.
Likewise, many disabled and elderly persons could make greater contributions to society if society were willing to support them adequately. We have a moral obligation to promote their physical and mental development because they are human beings with creative potential and the desire to be productive—just as you and I would want to, if we were in their situation. Economically, it makes sense to utilize the full potential of every person because our world is so problem-filled that we can’t afford to waste anyone’s skills or genius.
If society made the same commitment to develop non-athletes as it does to develop athletes, or if we devoted as much resources to the habilitation of underdeveloped and/or disabled persons as we do to building prisons, we could greatly improve the cost-effectiveness and cohesiveness of our whole society. Also, if the mass media promoted information on adult coping skills to the same degree that it fosters dysfunctional attitudes and behaviors, there would be far fewer lonely people in our society.
As we said in the beginning of this article, humans get lonely when they don’t know where they can fit into society; when they don’t know where or how to ask for help; and when they don’t have anyone who really needs them. By these standards, a large segment of our youth population, ages 10-20, experiences all of these deficits. This age group that is making the transition from childhood to adulthood—yet, they fit in neither category. They do not have legal rights to make ordinary adult decisions, but they can enter military service and be trained to kill. What a dreadful double message this is for society to give to its young people—they are old enough to kill, but not old enough to own property and enter contracts in their own name until they are twenty-one.
Add to this picture the fact that this age group has the highest energy level they will ever have in their entire lives. Also, they have great eagerness to “test” themselves in the adult world, and yet, our society offers few “real world” skill-building opportunities, except sports, until their late teen years. When our idle young people get restless and begin seeking challenges and human connectedness through drugs, sex, gang activities, however, our society responds only by building them more playgrounds, or even worse, more juvenile detention centers. Adults have the warped mindset that children and adolescents only want to play sports, be entertained, or be destructive.
Society fails to realize that our young people have a powerful need to be needed. They want to learn how to function like adults and how to find their own special creative niche so they can become productive citizens. When we adults only build playgrounds and jails, or let them flip hamburgers at fast food outlets, we are saying that they are not really needed or able to make genuine contributions to our society. Sometimes we treat our young people as if they were nuisances or even enemies, rather then embracing them as the future leaders of our nation.
To add to their misery, we expect these young people to suddenly emerge as highly skilled workers and responsible citizens at the age of twenty-one. We adults, however, are often reluctant to hire them because they have no “experience” or skills. Indeed, we have given them few opportunities to discover and test their creative abilities and to acquire responsible work habits. Then we wonder why so many young people rebel, engage in destructive/risky behaviors, or commit suicide. Many of them feel rejected, ashamed, and useless in adult society, and hence, they isolate themselves in the fantasy of the mass media, or cluster together in desperate loneliness, or escape into drugs, meaningless fads, and consumerism.
Is there a solution for the loneliness of these young people? Of course, there is! All we have to do is show them how and where they can fit-in in our society; how and where to ask for help when they need it; and how much we really need their energy, vitality, and creativity. Primitive societies have always known how to provide this type of guidance to their youth, and our nation did a much better job of it fifty years ago when we had more cohesive communities.
The solution is to build an “apprenticeship” system into every neighborhood which functions to integrate young people into the full range of creative opportunities that exist there. Through our neighborhood and school sports programs, we already do this for youngsters who have athletic abilities. Now, we need to expand this concept for children who have other areas of creative abilities, since most children are never likely to become professional athletes. We need to offer both informal and formal training and actual work experience in creative pursuits such as music, art, dance, computer technology, mechanics, math, poetry, writing, care taking of animals or people, science, etc. Just as there is a career ladder for athletes from “pee wee” league sports through high school and college, so should there be similar ladders for those children who have other creativity orientations.
These alternative career ladders, like the sports model, should be developed through the combined efforts of the private, non-profit, and public sectors. They should be conducted under the supervision of trained, responsible adults, and they should utilize public facilities to the maximum degree possible. After all, public facilities like schools, playgrounds, and parks were built with our tax dollars and should be operated as “career development centers” for all of our citizens, especially during after-school hours and summer vacation periods.
Trained volunteers and part-time employees should be used to staff these centers. The cost of such programs would be balanced out by reductions in the number of juvenile detention staff and police needed in local communities. Staff salaries for such centers should be subsidized from federal and state grants now directed at preventing crime and substance abuse. Both of these problems are greatly diminished when communities become more cohesive and youth-oriented.
Moreover, local businesses should offer pre-employment, apprenticeship opportunities for youngsters to engage in real-world work experiences. Just as this writer spent her adolescent years working alongside her parents in their country store, modern youth should be allowed to acquire entry-level work skills on a volunteer basis in their local neighborhood businesses—much like the “candy-stripers” that are recruited to volunteer in hospitals. Then, when these youngsters become proficient enough, they should be paid entry-level wages for their services. Many families could benefit from the supplemental income of a part-time youth worker.
Many children are physically and mentally ready in their early teens to take on meaningful part-time work roles. All children deserve the opportunity to learn useful employment skills gradually in settings that provide stable, adult supervision and support. In fact, a beautiful thing happens when children are given the chance to make a genuine contribution to their community—they joyfully embrace the activities and the people they are working with. What’s more, anything that children and young people help to build is never in danger of being vandalized by them in the future. Their pride in their work and their enhanced self-esteem bond them to their neighborhood.
The biggest barrier to effective youth employment lies in our archaic, short-sighted perceptions of child labor. In all cultures, children need to be integrated gradually and gently into the work roles of adults. In primitive societies, children work under adult supervision from early childhood on, performing tasks that are within their physical and mental capabilities. Those children, who show special aptitudes, are “apprenticed” to skilled adults and given specialized training beginning early in their teen years. There are, of course, abuses of child labor in some societies. However, most of those situations occur when foreign commercial interests have taken over the culture and exploited the local population—both children and adults.
Our society seems to think work is inherently bad for children—that we aren’t loving parents if we expect our children to share in the family chores. Our society also fears that children will be exploited in the workplace as they were in “sweatshops” a century ago. Surely, by now, we can figure out ways to involve children more meaningfully in adult work roles, and we can improve on the “sports model” to gradually develop their creative interests. Educators, child development specialists, parents, and civic leaders need to collaborate in expanding the “career development” and identity building training our youth population needs.
If communities want to build such youth-involvement opportunities in their neighborhoods, it will be necessary for state and federal government leaders to revise child labor laws to permit this type of program and to underwrite worker insurance for this youth population. Contrary to popular notions about youthful workers, they are not any more prone to accidents than adult workers, if they are adequately trained and supervised, and if they are assigned tasks appropriate to their age and skill level. Indeed, the rate of accidents of unsupervised youth in their homes and on playgrounds or on the streets is far higher.
From the perspective of mental health professionals, our troubled young people tend to fall into two groups—those that are trying to grow up too fast and those who are growing up too slow. The fast group is out there experimenting with all manner of illicit behavior because there isn’t enough legitimate opportunity to experience adult roles. The slow group tends to be those youngsters who are reluctant to grow up because they fear they can’t compete in the adult world. Both of these groups are lonely and feel unsupported by society. Both would benefit from expanded youth employment opportunities that stimulated their creativity, developed real skills, and connected them with supportive adults. Such programs would address all three of the sources of loneliness:
Conclusions
In this article, we have looked at loneliness in many ways:
First, we suggested that loneliness is a normal emotional response in humans which occurs: 1) whenever they can’t figure out how to fit into their social environment; 2) whenever they can’t find help to meet their needs; and 3) whenever they don’t feel needed.
Second, we examined the emotional components of loneliness and explained how to use them to understand the sources and intensity of our loneliness as well as the types of unmet needs that trigger our loneliness.
Third, we identified the most common destructive patterns that people use to manage their loneliness. We also explained briefly why those patterns may give us temporary relief from our loneliness, but in the long run actually make it worse.
Fourth, we identified constructive patterns for managing loneliness. We began by suggesting that loneliness is a gift to us in that it is a signal that our needs for human connectness and support aren’t being met. Also, it motivates us to make the necessary changes in our lives to meet our needs more effectively.
And, finally, we examined in some detail four specific classes of loneliness that are so common in our modern society. We also tried to suggest solutions to those loneliness situations. However, our treatment of the solutions was necessarily brief and incomplete. In fact, we could not hope to give definitive recommendations in this article. We will, however, continue to develop each of the major concepts of this article in subsequent articles.
Our purpose here is to suggest how significant loneliness is in our society and how much more could be done to relieve this type of suffering. We believe there are many solutions that can be generated on a broader scale once educators, mental health professionals, and community leaders understand this issue better.
See a Therapist or CounselorResearch suggests that loneliness and symptoms of depression can perpetuate each other, meaning the more lonely you are, the more depressed you feel, and vice versa. Sometimes just “getting out there” and meeting other people isn’t enough. It's possible to still feel lonely when you’re around them, which could actually be a sign of depression or social anxiety. If this is the case for you, it may be a good idea to seek psychologist or counselor to help with feelings of loneliness, especially if you also feel other symptoms of depression. Some forms of therapy, especially cognitive behavioral therapy, can help you to change your thoughts as well as your actions to help you not only experience less loneliness but have more tools to prevent it. Whatever you do to combat loneliness, know that you are truly not alone, and there are many things you can do to feel more connected.