We have all experienced feelings associated with loneliness at some time in our lives.
Loneliness can be very difficult to come to terms with even as a short-term experience. However, if loneliness is prolonged it can be associated with the onset of numerous mental health issues, particularly in individuals whom were once considered social, out-going or people-focussed.
What is loneliness? What are the most common causes of loneliness? What are the consequences? And how may counselling help me?
If you would like to know some of the answers to these questions, then read on.
Definition of Loneliness:
“Loneliness is a subjective experience often characterised by a sense of emptiness and solitude” (Roxana Rudzik-Shaw, 2011).
Common causes of Loneliness:
- Individual differences
- Introvert personality
- Shyness
- Fear
- Social phobia
- Insecure
- Lack of trust in others
- Inability to form meaningful in-person relationships
- Divorce
- Separation
- Single parent
- Lack of socialisation experience
- Victim of crime
- Bullying
- Prejudice & discrimination
- Feeling unwelcome
- Social exclusion
- Health-related issues
- Mobility issues
- Disability
- Lone working
- Carer
- Unemployment
Common consequences of Loneliness:
- Ruminating (e.g. over-thinking)
- Irrational thoughts and/or beliefs (e.g. Thinking that you’re going ‘mad’)
- Feeling detached from you environment and other people within it
- Suspicious of self and other people (e.g. Feeling ‘on edge’)
- Emptiness
- Empty nest syndrome
- Avoidance of people
- Low self-esteem
- Comfort eating or developing eating disorder (e.g. anorexia, binge-purge eating)
- Sleeping disorder
- Insomnia
- Anxiety or Panic disorder
- Addiction (e.g. alcohol, drugs)
- Over-reliance on self-medicating
- Decreased self-care and poor hygiene
- Homelessness
- Self-harm
- Depression
- Suicide ideation
How counselling may be able to help you?
RRS Counselling Services is able to offer you time and space to explore your experiences and feelings of loneliness. Sessions are available online and/or face-to-face within Greater Manchester.
I have worked with numerous clients in the workplace, and in independent practice for loneliness-related issues as detailed above.
I vividly remember working with a few male and female clients on self-esteem or anxiety issues with the goal being to work towards seeking and maintaining in-person relationships. These clients often felt worthless, anxious and very mistrustful of others. However, with the development of a good therapeutic rapport, clear goals set and weekly appointments that were often emotive, we were able to gain an in-depth understanding of the origins of loneliness during our therapeutic encounters. To understand the beginnings of loneliness was beneficial to making sense of client’s here-and-now, accepting the past and how this may have impacted on their present, as well as to highlight areas for personal development in order to begin working towards client’s goals.
Thanks for reading my post about ‘Loneliness’. I hope it has been useful to gaining a better understanding of the issue and how I may be able to help you through this. If you think this may be a useful read for others, please share this article.
Best wishes,
Roxana Rudzik-Shaw (MSc (Dist), BSc (dual hons), MBACP, MBPsS, ACTO)
RRS Counselling Services
www.rrs.counselling.co.uk
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