Human Fear of Loneliness

The drive behind human existence can be effectively encapsulated by Norman Cousins who claimed that it was “the eternal quest of the individual human being is to shatter his loneliness.” This can be achieved by either confronting or avoiding it. It’s known that for prolonged periods of isolation the mental faculties of human beings gradually begin to degrade. In modern society, it’s evident that individuals’ tolerance for solitude has significantly decreased thereby heightening individuals’ resistance to it. Although this is likely due to the common belief that individuals develop through cultivating relationships and that any form of solitude is unhealthy or unbeneficial.

However, psychologists emphasize why solitude is beneficial to human development and explain why individuals might resist it. This is supported both psychologically and quantitatively through research.

Some psychologists believe that individuals’ fear of isolation is rooted in the fear of oneself. Constantly socializing with others allows individuals to suppress upsetting thoughts by presenting a social persona; however, when removed from the restricting confine of others these darker aspects reemerge.

This is effectively described by Nietzsche who states that “it is what one takes into solitude that grows there, the beast included.” Some may overcome the beast, but many would succumb and be ruined thus Nietzsche believed that “many should be dissuaded from solitude.” According to Nietzsche, an individual who cannot confront the beast is constantly clinging to others stating that “one man runs to his neighbor because he is looking for himself, and another because he wants to lose himself.

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Your bad love of yourselves makes solitude a prison for you.” Although these individuals manage to avoid solitude, they become a crippled version of themselves.

For individuals to actualize their full potential, they need to fulfill Maslow’s meta needs (highest needs). This essentially refers to individuals’ drive for knowledge, beauty, and creativity. However, these needs require self-fulfillment. Ernest Becker, in his book The Denial of Death, reiterates this idea by stating that “it is impossible to get blood from a stone, to get spirituality from a physical being.” When individuals attempt to fulfill these needs through others in an intimate relationship it results in a God-like idealization of the partner and slavish dependence. “If the partner becomes God they can just as easily become the Devil; the reason is not far to seek … If you find the ideal love and try to make it the sole judge of good and bad in yourself, the measure of your strivings, you become simply the reflex of another person. You lose yourself in the other, just as obedient children lose themselves in the family. No wonder that dependency, whether of the god or the slave in the relationship, carries with it so much underlying resentment (Becker, The Denial of Death).” Here, Becker essentially emphasizes how an individual’s dependency causes them to be compliant to avoid abandonment and thus resulting in the formation of a false persona where an individual’s personality becomes a mirror reflex of how they think others want them to be. This was officially termed the False Self by Donald Winnicott. Winnicott claimed that individuals needed to develop “the capacity to be alone” to avoid such dependency. He believed that in the capacity to be alone, the false self can be broken down and individuals can recognize their true feelings and needs.

The majority of individuals today are prone to believe that the maturation of an individual’s psyche is facilitated by social relationships and has a profound role throughout their lives. Object attachment theorist, John Bowlby states that “intimate attachments to other human beings are the hub around which a person’s life revolves, not only when he is an infant or toddler or school child but throughout his adolescence and his years of maturity as well, and on into old age.” However, Bowlby’s emphasis on interpersonal relationships dismisses the significance of solitude on personal growth. Anthony Storr in, Solitude: in a Return to the Self, argued that solitude cultivates creativity and thereby personal growth because “it is in the struggle to give form and order to an external creative work that we also, often without knowing it, are imposing form and order on our mind…maturation and integration can take place within the isolated individual to a greater extent … introverted creators can define identity and achieve self-realization by self-reference, that is, by interacting with their work rather than by interacting with other people (Anthony Storr, Solitude: A Return to the Self).” Ultimately, emphasizes that individuals can attain self-actualization by developing a relationship with their work.

Although solitude is deemed to be beneficial from a psychological and philosophical approach, researchers claim that loneliness results in higher rates of mortality. A meta-analysis conducted by Julianne Holt-Lunstad and her colleagues at Brigham Young University concluded that “social isolation results in a higher likelihood of mortality… Cumulative data from 70 independent prospective studies, with 3,407,134 participants followed for an average of 7 years, revealed a significant effect of social isolation, loneliness, and living alone on odds of mortality. After accounting for multiple covariates, the increased likelihood of death was 26% for reported loneliness, 29% for social isolation, and 32% for living alone.” However, it’s important to distinguish between solitude and loneliness. A study conducted by B. M. Barer and C.L. Johnson examined loneliness among 150 older adults and obtained both qualitative and quantitative data. The qualitative data was obtained by asking participants to discuss their satisfaction with their social life. Using the Bradburn Affect Balance Scale to measure loneliness, Barer and Johnson concluded that “79% of the respondents were unmarried and 58% lived alone. Almost two-thirds were widowed; of those who had children, almost one-third had lost a child; and less than one-half had a surviving sibling. Even though 70% had some functional impairment that limited their mobility, few complained of being lonely. On a four-point scale, 54% reported never feeling lonely, 10% rarely experienced loneliness, 24% reported some loneliness, and only 12% reported frequent feelings of loneliness. The findings suggest that the respondents attach their meaning to being alone, and experience solitude rather than loneliness (Barer & Johnson, 1990).” Thus, it’s important for researchers to clarify the functional definition of loneliness in their experiment and how they are specifically measuring it. For example, feeling misunderstood or ostracized can be characterized as being lonely whereas solitude can correlate with negative emotions such as anxiety but not those of being cast out.

Solitude is important in the sense that it allows individuals to cultivate a character that is removed from any constricting external demands, and once this character has been established individuals will be able to maintain a form of independence in their relationships. This is encapsulated in Angelo Caranea’s article “Lessons of Solitude: the Awakening of Aesthetic Sensibility,” where he deconstructs and emphasizes the importance of Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s philosophy that “it is necessary to teach (individuals)… to retreat from society—at least for a while, until (they become) … self-sufficient or virtuous—so that (they) can then return it to enhance the general well-being or the good of all… (They) are not destined to remain solitary forever… (They are)… member(s) of society and must fulfill its obligations (Caranea, 2007).” Caranea notes that the reason “we suffer from solitude…is because there is a lack of true practice and true communication among us… we can only be of use to our community if we withdraw into solitude and begin, first, a pilgrimage of self-discovery, and then, re-enter the community to serve it selflessly and with silent integrity (Caranea, 2007).” Maintaining individuality is a method of serving that community. However, it is more likely to be achieved through self-imposed solitude than solitude imposed by others. Distinguishing these two scenarios is just as crucial as the distinction between solitude and loneliness.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, in The Sorrow of Young Werther, stated that “there is nothing more dangerous than solitude.” However, the attainment of self-sovereignty over oneself and the cultivation of character can only be obtained by overcoming this darkness. Rainer Maria Rilke, in Letters to a Young Poet, advised that “…it is good to be solitary, for solitude is difficult; that something is difficult must be one more reason for us to do it.”