Coping With Loneliness

What is Loneliness?

Loneliness is feeling empty and hollow inside; it is a feeling of isolation and separation from the rest of the world; loneliness is feeling cut-off from ones with whom a person would like to have contact.

Loneliness can occur when a person does not have: someone to depend on, someone who understands, a close group of friends, collegial relationships at work or at school, opportunity to express private feelings to another, friends to share enjoyable experiences.

Loneliness can be a painful emotional state, ranging from mild to severe. It can be chronic, situational, or transient. Loneliness can be a causal factor in depression, restlessness, suicide, and medical disorders.

Helping a person who is lonely.

Several suggestions are made below. The list is not exhaustive but does provide the basic ideas for appropriate response to a lonely person. In the third section of this list, suggestions are given for a person’s self-use. As a helper, some of these ideas can also be employed in working with a lonely person.

1. Be available to the person

2. Make contact. Maintain the contact. If a person comes to you or you are talking with someone who mentions loneliness, give the person your full attention. If you are unable to give the person your full attention, arrange for another time to talk in an interested, calm and reassuring manner.

3. Listen to what the person has to say. Let the person know you are listening by responding with verbal and non-verbal cues (attending behaviors such as eye contact, nod of the head, uh-huh’s, open ended questions and paraphrasing).

4. Accept the individual. Value and prize the individual as a person of worth. There is a difference between 1) permissiveness – allowing the person to do (not think or believe) anything; 2) apathy – not caring what the person does and 3) acceptance – listening to an individual and accepting the person as an individual of worth and value although the person’s views may be different from and equally important as yours.

5. Support the individual. Support means being with the person, offering your help as well as your knowledge of available resources and remaining relatively calm.
6. Understand the person. Another word is empathy. Get inside the other’s world in terms of how he/she feels. Hear where the person is coming from and share your understanding.

7. Go slow. Allow time for the thoughts and feelings to be expressed. Expression of what the lonely person thinks and feels can be very helpful.

8. Assist the individual, after ample time for expression and sharing, to consider some ways to deal with the loneliness; help the person develop a plan to deal with the current feeling state.

9. Consider the advisability of referring the person to an appropriate professional such as a clergyman, a counseling psychologist, or a physician.

10. Consult one of these professionals if you have questions or want help. Resources and phone numbers are listed in Frog Calls.

11. If the individual appears very despondent, mentions suicide, directly or indirectly, consult a professional. Another handout on “Dealing with Suicide” is available from the Counseling Center. More information on suicide is given in that handout.

Ways a Lonely Person Can Overcome Loneliness

The following are a number of suggestions for an individual who is lonely and wants to rid him/herself of this state. Not all of these suggestions are applicable to each situation. Use the ones that seem to apply. These suggestions are not arranged in any particular order but can be classified as openness to self, cognitive analysis, cognitive restructuring and behavioral action. Regardless of what they are called, they work when they are practiced and used.

1. Accept your reality of loneliness. Start where you are. If we deny or dull our senses to loneliness, we may become more alienated from ourselves or become dependant on others. Admit that loneliness is painful, that you cannot continue feeling this way or you will be plunged into despair.

2. Express your loneliness. Use a way that feels right for you – words, tears, writing thoughts on paper. As people express it, they usually begin to see the reasons for their state, begin to find sources of strength and experience renewal.

3. Ask yourself a question: do I need help in dealing with my loneliness? Resources are available for you.

4. Examine you strengths. Recall past triumphs. Be fair with yourself. Everyone has strengths to help overcome difficulties.

5. Candidly face your weaknesses. A person is being lovable to him/herself when weaknesses are acknowledged. All people have strengths and weaknesses.

6. Recognize your basic attitude towards yourself. Is it loving and accepting or hateful and rejecting? If your attitude is the latter, try to identify at what point in your life that you began to view yourself this way. Work on a decision – “there is no need to perpetuate this attitude.” Work on changing your attitude through further acknowledgment of your assets and by less impulsive criticism of your liabilities. A change of attitude helps in changing how you relate to others and how they relate to you.

7. Take an active responsibility for your predicament of loneliness. Make a conscious decision to change your situation and your feelings. Be stubborn with yourself and get motivated to do something about how you are feeling. “I do not like the way I am feeling and I am going to do something about it.”

8. Focus on activity scheduling and pleasure therapy. Structure your day’s events. In addition to work or study, list hobbies, sports and other enjoyable interests. Emphasize something with vigorous movement; get out of your house or dorm room and engage in the activity. Try to plan something with a potential friend. Afterwards, edit your experience: problems, fun parts, etc.

9. Look at your relationships with others; recognize your need for contact. Be conscious of your preferences for the kind of people you enjoy the most and with whom you share something in common.

10. Recall early childhood experiences of loneliness. How we deal with our current state depends to a great extent on how we dealt with loneliness before. Past hurts and strategies that were ineffective may still be part of your style. Use early experiences to enlighten the current pathway.

11. As a person on campus, ask some questions about what you are doing. Do you decide before asking that students, professors, and others want to keep to themselves? Do you decide that there are no established cliques to which you cannot belong? Do you decide that there are no clubs, organizations or groups that will interest you without checking? Do you expect others to reach out to you even though you do not initiate contact? Do you have fears that are holding you back? What are those fears?

12. If you are a student – get to class early, make contact with someone else. If you are too anxious to do this activity, then do it in your imagination. Get comfortable with the idea. “What are my fears? What is the worst possible thing that could happen? It’s likelihood?”

13. If feeling lonely for a particular reason – give a call or write a letter. If the feeling persists, talk it over with one of the available resources in the campus community.

14. If lonely with people you already know, examine the role you play in these relationships. Are your expectations unrealistic? What changes can you make?

15. Take a leap forward and be reasonably risky with others. To love is to be vulnerable; loving and living does involve risks. Of course, do not take unnecessary or absurd risks. True intimacy is a relationship in which people are real with each other, have the courage to risk being hurt and to come out from behind their masks.

16. If you are lonely because of the loss of a loved one, share your feelings with someone; grief is a natural response and can be managed by time and expressing it.

17. Make friends. In initiating a conversation with a potential friend, start with something in common, i.e., a book the person is carrying, the particular setting, an insignia on a shirt or jacket. Avoid the vital statistics routine. Ask open-ended questions. Personalize the conversation – tell something about your interests and your thoughts on the subject. Be alert for hesitation and disinterest on the part of the other. Take it slow. Remember – some relationships will hit it off and others will not. A lack of positive responses may be due only to incompatibility of interests.

18. If you are lonely because of social skill deficits or social anxiety – work on these problems with a professional person.

19. Avoid generalizing from one or two bad relationships to all relationships.

20. Remember that all relationships are consistently in a state of transition.

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