What is Loneliness, How Does it Affect Us and What Causes It? from SLC Therapist Christy Kobe, LCSW, CCTP, Utah Therapist
What is loneliness?
Research studies have determined that feeling lonely is different than simply being alone. In fact, the sensation of loneliness doesn’t actually have much to do with how many people you have been around physically or how many people you spoke to in a given day or week.
To the contrary, some of the people who report feeling the most severely lonely are those who actually talk to lots of people everyday. This is due to the fact that these people don’t perceive these people they are talking with as meaningful connections with another person.
To experience relief from loneliness, you need not only contact with other people but also to feel that you are sharing something with the other person (or group) that is meaningful to both of you.
It is essential for you to both be engaged together in something you both think has meaning and value. And, the relationship has to be reciprocal or two-way, and to include a sense of “mutual aid and protection” according to researcher John Cacciopo. [1] If you don’t share anything that matters with the people in your life, you will still feel lonely.
So, loneliness is best defined as “the sense that you’re not sharing anything that matters with anyone else” according to the journalist Johann Hari who has been trained in the social sciences and researched this topic in depth for his book Lost Connections.
How does loneliness affect us?
Loneliness has strong impacts upon us. Research studies have found that extended loneliness causes us to shut down socially, and to be more suspicious of any social contact.
We become more hypervigilant, more likely to take offense when none was intended, and to be afraid of strangers.
This is a paradox because we begin to be afraid of connection even though connection is what we most need when we are lonely.
Cacciopo calls this a “snowball” effect where disconnection spirals into even more disconnection. [1]
People who are lonely have also been found in research studies to be scanning for threats because they unconsciously know that no one is looking out for them and thus know that no one will help them when they are hurt.
The good news is that this “snowball” effect of loneliness can be reversed. [1]
However, to help a depressed or severely anxious person out of loneliness, they need more love and reassurance than they would have needed before they became lonely.
The saddest part about this to me, as a SLC therapist and Utah therapist practicing since 2003, is that many depressed and anxious people already tend to receive less love and reassurance as they become less enjoyable to be around, and their ability to feel love and reassurance from others decreases as their depression, anxiety and loneliness increase.
As individuals are caught in the expanding spiral of receiving judgment, distance and criticism from others paired with their own internal emotional and nervous system dysregulation, their retreat from the world accelerates and their loneliness deepens and increases.
What causes loneliness, depression and anxiety?
In his book, Hari did a masterful job of exploring the causes of depression, anxiety and loneliness and identifying some starting points for how we can really address them. As he studied the work of social scientists and interviewed social scientists from all over the world, he found that social scientists were uncovering evidence that depression and anxiety (of which loneliness is often a part) are often caused not by internal factors nor by a “chemical imbalance” as pharmaceutical company marketers have been claiming without any verified scientific evidence for many decades. Rather, loneliness, depression and anxiety are often caused by some increasing, foundational societal and systemic problems in the way we live our lives.
Hari identified the following nine genuine causes of loneliness, depression and anxiety in his analysis of the research and from speaking to the experts:
disconnection from meaningful work
disconnection from other people
disconnection from meaningful values
disconnection from childhood trauma
disconnection from status and respect
disconnection from the natural world
disconnection from a hopeful or secure future
genetic causes
brain changes
Hari found that while genetic causes and brain changes may still play a role in our struggles, these internal factors are believed to play a much smaller, more nuanced and complicated, and not necessarily causal role in our struggles in contrast to what we’ve been led to believe by the biological narrative of the pharmaceutical companies among other large societal systems. While social workers, doctors, therapists and other healthcare and helping professionals are trained in what is called the bio-psycho-social (biological, psychological and social) model of health and illness, we often hear most about biological causes and biological treatment of illness from big systems like the Western medical system and pharmaceutical advertisers. Increasing that bias further is the fact that as Americans, we are often looking for a quick fix. In other words, if there’s a pill you can take to address your symptoms you may prefer that rather than doing the work to address the bio-psycho-social causes of your struggles.
Since 1997 as a social worker and since 2002 when I began my first clinical practicum as a SLC therapist and Utah therapist, I have always worked with clients using the bio-psycho-social model of assessment, care and treatment.
If you would like my professional support, expertise and guidance in working through struggles like those described above, please reach out to me here through my contact form to get in touch with me most quickly, or you may also email or call me, to request to schedule your 45 minute phone consultation.
If you have more questions about therapy, what you can expect in therapy and how to tell if a therapist is a good fit for you, check out this article with answers to common questions I receive about therapy in Utah (and therapy Salt Lake City).
If you would like to learn more about these findings and what you can do to decrease loneliness without support from a therapist, I would strongly encourage you to buy this book by Johann Hari (for which I have included a link on this page) and begin to apply the principles to your life. It’s one of the best books I’ve read on the subject of depression and anxiety in many years.
1. Lost Connections: Uncovering the Real Causes of Depression —And the Unexpected Solutions,
by Johann Hari
Author Bio
Christy Kobe, LCSW, CCTP, EMDR Therapist Utah, is a Salt Lake City therapist who has been practicing in the SLC area since Spring 2003. In addition to completing her licensure as a Licensed Clinical Social Worker (LCSW), Christy has completed certification as a Certified Clinical Trauma Professional (CCTP), completed training and certification as an EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) Therapist, completed in-depth clinical training on Polyvagal Theory Informed Trauma Therapy, completed a certification training to help clients struggling to deal with an individual with a personality disorder in their lives, completed all of the Gottman Couples Method Therapy trainings through The Gottman Institute, completed a certificate in Trauma-Informed Parent Child Interaction Therapy at The Trauma Center in Boston, MA, and completed extensive clinical training on the treatment of trauma and attachment taught by international experts on these subjects.
She works with sensitive, high achieving, perfectionistic, or progressive women who are stressed, overwhelmed, burned out, and afraid they are about to break. She is especially passionate about working with clients who have experienced complex trauma, childhood trauma, relational trauma, or religious trauma, including developmental trauma, preverbal trauma, and emotional neglect. Please reach out to request a consultation if you would like to explore the possibility of partnering with her as your therapist.
Please note that I will receive a small amount on purchases made from my website in return for directing people to the books I recommend most highly as an experienced therapist. However, I have been recommending this book to my clients, friends and family with no compensation, and will continue to recommend this particular book even if I don’t receive any compensation whatsoever.
