Loneliness - Social or Emotional?

by Richard C. Raynard, Ph.D.
Licensed Clinical Psychologist

The confusion never stops. There is a need to know who you are as well as a need to play a role in a social group. The first discovers all the ways you are, and the second, all the ways you can belong to the group. The first builds a relation with yourself. The second, a relation with the group.

Lonely

Yet "Loneliness" is used everywhere for both emotional and social needs. Maybe we should use "Alienation" just for the social need.

"Shaking off Loneliness", an article in the NY Times, 5-14-13, quotes Caciappo (2008) about the ill health that goes with loneliness: "social isolation is on a par with high blood pressure obesity, lack of exercise or smoking as a risk factor". The problem: he uses the UCLA Loneliness Scale, which confuses intimacy with a single person with social participation. Other tests make this distinction, i.e. the Social and Emotional Loneliness Scale.

In fact, his chapter titled "Knowing Thyself, among Others" is mostly about empathy for others.

Social acceptance doesn't overcome loneliness. Facebook has been shown to help social acceptance, but not loneliness. Young (2003) and others agree we have needs for nurturance and support, not just for fitting in. Andre (1991) holds up "Positive Solitude" as a virtue in which you learn to have a good relation with yourself, instead of "unproductively comparing your life with that of another". On the other hand, Laing (1965) shows how the lack of self-disclosure can lead to much outward sociability that is all "fake".

In the end, both needs are genuine: a need for uniqueness and a need to belong. They can both get along. Why confuse the two?

About Dr. Raynard
Dr. Richard Raynard is a licensed clinical psychologist with 35 years experience resolving a broad range of emotional problems. As a cognitive-behavioral therapist who has specialized in anxiety and phobic disorders since 1980, he has spent the last 35 years fulfilling his life-long desire to explore and define the true purpose of emotions and how people can easily use emotions to create meaning and satisfaction in their lives. Dr. Raynard's series of books on emotions can be found on Amazon.com. His other books include Don't Panic, and Anxiety & Panic Medications.

The Bomb of Loneliness and Alienation

by Richard C. Raynard, Ph.D.
Licensed Clinical Psychologist

In the Marathon bombing, there were few things that we learned about the interior life of the 26 year old leader, married and a trained boxer. However, it slipped out in his own words that he had no close friend. Also, he felt he didn't fit in with the American culture.


 

Loneliness

 The first, no close friend, is an earmark of the emotion of loneliness, where no one accepts you for who you are and stands beside you in everything. The second is the emotion (for which we have no word) for the need to belong. In belonging, we find our role and place in the larger community, a role that both honors our own needs and that of the group.

Most of the news and commentary in the weekend after the bombing was about the Al Qaida connection, the Chechnya resistance, internet fanaticism, the global Jihad, Homeland Security, etc. These external influences were calls for alarm and opposition, not feeling.

 

Are you willing to plunge into the world of prolonged loneliness and alienation?

 

R. Laing (1959) has shown the  disastrous effects of prolonged loneliness: you have no one who recognizes your most valued experiences, or the most hurtful trauma, or your worst self-doubts. By becoming secretive, you live in fear of being found out, exposed and condemned for who you are. The lonely person learns to put on a face of ease and affability, or whatever, just to get by.  Over time he feels more and more phony and starts to believe others are phony, too. At the extreme, he is contemptuous of the fakeness and lack of meaning around him. Disillusioned, he comes to despise and hate others

 

Cacioppo and Patrick (2008) sum it up: in extreme loneliness, "we mimic others more intensely" and at the same time "betrayal and rejection is lurking around every corner".

 

Hoffer (1951) shows how those who don't belong - marginalized or out of the mainstream - have a loss of a sense of self-worth and blame and hate others for what they see as lack of respect.  If they fail at finding where they belong, they can feel life is over, or "spoiled". He believes they are vulnerable to joining a cause, an alienated group, or a sect that promises redemption, even self-sacrifice, to a glorious cause.

 

Attention to all the external influences does not address the needs of these emotions, and can make us feel overwhelmed by powerful forces. In contrast, looking at the emotions and motives of the person leads us to prevention, early detection and opening up the means of participation in community life. The emotions of loneliness and the need to belong are recognizable to all and lead to constructive change and fulfillment.

 

What do you think?

 

About Dr. Raynard
Dr. Richard Raynard is a licensed clinical psychologist with 35 years experience resolving a broad range of emotional problems. As a cognitive-behavioral therapist who has specialized in anxiety and phobic disorders since 1980, he has spent the last 35 years fulfilling his life-long desire to explore and define the true purpose of emotions and how people can easily use emotions to create meaning and satisfaction in their lives. Dr. Raynard's series of books on emotions can be found on Amazon.com. His other books include Don't Panic, and Anxiety & Panic Medications.

The Need To Belong - A Homeless Emotion?

by Richard C. Raynard, Ph.D.
Licensed Clinical Psychologist

We all have a need and yearning to belong. Whether it's a family, a work group, a club, a Facebook, a community. or a nation. Do you get it?  It is a basic instinct of all warm-blooded animals, an emotion, if you will. But, surprise -  in all our 700,000 word English language we don't have a single word for it. A homeless emotion.



Family Group
Photo Credit: agephotostock.com



I once asked for a name for this emotion in the social media. The best I got was a half-humorous, "belonging-longing".  And the need to belong gets confused with "loneliness", the need to be truly accepted by another for who you are.

At the same time, the need to belong is a huge motivation for both humans and animals.  There has been much documentation that animals that form social bonds are more likely to survive in evolutionary terms. The health consequences of not belonging are also huge: longevity, hypertension, stress hormones, poor sleep, and more. The need for belonging is vital to every age. It is critical for teens, whose emerging needs often don't fit in with the peer group.

The sheer power of belonging is seen in the fierce loyalties of tribes, clans, communities and who nations, who are willing to defend to the death the identity they find in their group. Could alienation from all groups help explain mass shootings?  From the Hatfields and McCoys, to football team loyalties, to ancient tribes, membership gives a sense of strength, safety, a shared destiny, being valued, having a place and even a sense of who you are, your Self. Wow!

But why not a name for it?  Does the emphasis on individualism in our culture conspire to overlook the "need to belong"? Or is it simply a need so widely shared, it is taken for granted? Then, again, the increase in narcissism in college-age adults and the decrease in membership in all forms of social groups has been well documented.

In any case, if we had a single word for it, we might find our planning and decision-making clearer about the choices of where to live, schooling, workplaces, neighborhoods and friends. The words for our emotional needs help other to recognize them, and help us express and justify them. Maybe we will have to borrow a word for it from another language!

"Shyness" is the title of my recently published self-help e-book that shows you how to belong. I guess it will have to do.

About Dr. Raynard
Dr. Richard Raynard is a licensed clinical psychologist with 35 years experience resolving a broad range of emotional problems. As a cognitive-behavioral therapist who has specialized in anxiety and phobic disorders since 1980, I have spent the last 35 years fulfilling my life-long desire to explore and define the true purpose of emotions and how people can easily use emotions to create meaning and satisfaction in their lives. Dr. Raynard's series of books on emotions can be found on Amazon.com. His other books include Don't Panic, and Anxiety & Panic Medications.