A person who separates himself from other people deprives himself of happiness, because the more he separates himself, the worse his life is.

I chose loneliness as the theme of my work. The problem of loneliness is one of the most serious problems of mankind, when relationships do not develop, without giving rise to either friendship, or love, or enmity, leaving people indifferent towards each other. Loneliness is a severe mental condition, usually accompanied by a bad mood and painful emotional experiences. A man comes into this life alone and he leaves this world alone. Deeply lonely people tend to be very unhappy, they have little social contact, their personal ties with other people are either limited or completely severed.

Loneliness is one of the most difficult psychological problems for a modern person. It happens that an outwardly prosperous person, who has realized himself both in professional activity and in his social relations, nevertheless feels lonely and useless. It feels - this feeling does not necessarily reflect the real situation - but this does not make it easier. Some try to hide from him in a cheerful noisy company, others hope to be saved in the family, a feeling of love for their loved ones. But it turns out that even all-consuming love saves only temporarily and “one should not have the illusion that from loneliness to which a person is sentenced ... you can be cured by love” - wrote E. Fromm

Not so much time has passed since matchmakers and acquaintances through relatives were replaced by dating services that offer their customers electronic databases that allow you to choose potential "partners" by almost any parameter - hair color, height, weight, interests, level of intelligence, etc. Clubs "For those over thirty" were supplemented by nightclubs for young people. The computer becomes not just a printing machine with a screen, but sometimes the only “interlocutor” that helps to forget or change, entering “chats”, changing names.

The changes that have taken place over the past two decades in our country indicate that the problem of loneliness still worries people. Of course, sometimes it is difficult to see the faces of loneliness behind the black windows of foreign cars and “open relationships”. However, no matter what form it takes, a person, remaining alone with himself, as many years ago, thinks what to do with his loneliness. To paraphrase T. Williams, we can say that a person thinks about how to live on, being doomed to life imprisonment in solitary confinement of his "I".

The problem of loneliness occupies not only the minds of ordinary people. Philosophers, theologians, scientists and writers have been studying it for centuries. Despite the relatively short period of existence of psychology as a separate science, in almost every of its areas one can find concepts of theory and research associated with loneliness. To identify the causes of loneliness and offer effective methods of dealing with this feeling is a big step towards establishing normal interpersonal relationships lost by lonely people. In our research, we relied on the statements and assumptions of the following scientists, who, one way or another, touched upon the problem of loneliness: Mudrik A.V.; Kon I.S.; Nemov R.S.; Zimbardo F.; Young J.; Freud Z.; Fromm E.; Miyuskovich B.

Loneliness is one of the main problems in ensuring psychological well-being. It is an acute inner, subjective experience. The fear of loneliness has ancient roots: the entire initial period of history, numbering more than one thousand years, a person left alone could not survive. In primitive society, the most severe punishment was not the death penalty, but exile, i.e. the punishment of loneliness. This tradition has been preserved in modern society. Moreover, modern exile is not necessarily removal from society. There are various ways of psychological alienation: refusal to communicate, boycott, obstruction, etc.

External social isolation is not loneliness, it can only contribute to its appearance or increase the main symptoms. Loneliness is usually experienced on two levels:

1. emotional: a feeling of complete self-absorption, abandonment, doom, uselessness, confusion, emptiness, feelings of loss, sometimes horror;

Loneliness is not just an experience. This is a special form of self-perception, acute self-awareness. In everyday self-awareness, we experience our state in the context of relationships. Loneliness just speaks of the destruction of this network. Loneliness is a feeling that manifests itself in the form of a need to be included in a group or a need to contact someone. The feeling of absence, loss, collapse is fundamental; awareness of one's exclusion and misunderstanding by others. Lonely people feel abandoned, doomed, lost, unnecessary. All of these feelings are excruciating. Loneliness is the breaking of ties, while our expectations are focused on maintaining these ties. A lonely person feels a separation from the past, as well as his uselessness in the future. Thus, to summarize, loneliness is an experience that causes a complex and acute feeling that expresses a certain form of self-consciousness and shows a split in the main, real network of relationships and connections of the inner world of the individual. This definition allows you to breed loneliness, sadness, depression, a sense of fear.

1. Initial event. Loneliness usually comes as a sudden realization. The impetus for this realization is usually some event.

2. Experience of own uselessness, failure, inability to establish social contacts.

3. The subject is also able to identify the causes of loneliness. They can be both external and internal. As internal permanent causes, one can single out the corresponding character traits, for example, shyness. Any situation can be named as an external reason, for example, a company of strangers.

The concept of loneliness is closely related to the experience of situations that are subjectively perceived as undesirable, personally unacceptable for a person, lack of communication and positive intimate relationships with people around. Loneliness is not always accompanied by the social isolation of the individual. You can constantly be among people, contact with them and at the same time feel your psychological isolation from them, i.e. loneliness.

The degree of loneliness experienced is also unrelated to the number of years a person has spent without human contact. People who live alone all their lives sometimes feel less lonely than those who often have to communicate with others. Lonely cannot be called a person who, interacting little with others, does not show either psychological or behavioral reactions of loneliness. In addition, people may not realize that there are discrepancies between their actual and desired relationships with others.

Genuine, subjective states of loneliness usually accompany symptoms of mental disorders, which take the form of affects with a clearly negative emotional coloring, and different people have different affective reactions to loneliness. Some lonely people complain, for example, of feeling sad and depressed, others say that they feel fear and anxiety, and others report bitterness and anger.

The experience of loneliness is influenced not so much by real relationships, but by the ideal idea of ​​\u200b\u200bwhat they should be. A person who has a strong need for communication will feel lonely even if his contacts are limited to one or two people, and he would like to communicate with many; at the same time, those who do not feel such a need may not feel their loneliness at all, even in the absence of communication with other people.

Loneliness is accompanied by some typical symptoms. Usually lonely people feel psychologically isolated from other people, incapable of normal interpersonal communication, of establishing intimate interpersonal relationships with others such as friendship or love. A lonely person is a depressive or depressed person who experiences, among other things, a lack of communication skills.

A lonely person feels different from everyone else, and considers himself an unattractive person. He claims that no one loves or respects him. Such features of a lonely person's attitude towards himself are often accompanied by specific negative affects, including a feeling of anger, sadness, and deep unhappiness. A lonely person avoids social contacts, he isolates himself from other people. He, more than other people, is characterized by the so-called paranoid feeling, which includes increased suspicion, impulsiveness, excessive irritability, fear, feeling overwhelmed and frustrated.

Lonely people are more pessimistic than non-lonely people, they experience an exaggerated feeling of self-pity, they expect only trouble from others, and only the worst from the future. They also see their own lives and the lives of others as meaningless. Lonely people are not talkative, behave quietly, try to be inconspicuous, most often they look sad. They often have a tired look and increased drowsiness. When a gap is found between real and actual relationships, which is characteristic of the state of loneliness, then different people react to this in different ways. Helplessness as one of the possible reactions to this situation is accompanied by an increase in anxiety. If people blame their loneliness not on themselves, but on others, they may experience feelings of anger and bitterness, which stimulates the emergence of an attitude of enmity. If people are convinced that they are responsible for their own loneliness, and do not believe that they can change themselves, then they are likely to be saddened and condemn themselves. Over time, this condition can develop into chronic depression. If, finally, a person is convinced that loneliness challenges him, then he will actively fight against it, make efforts to get rid of loneliness. A lonely person is characterized by an exceptional focus on himself, on his personal problems and inner experiences. He is characterized by increased anxiety and fear of the catastrophic consequences of an unfavorable set of circumstances in the future. When communicating with other people, lonely people talk more about themselves and change the topic of conversation more often than others. They are also slower to respond to the statements of a communication partner. Such people are characterized by specific interpersonal problems. They are easily irritated in the presence of other people, highly aggressive, prone to excessive, not always justified criticism of others, and often exert psychological pressure on other people. Lonely people have little trust in people, hide their opinions, are often hypocritical, insufficiently controlled in their own actions. Lonely people cannot really have fun in companies, they experience difficulties when they need to call someone, agree on something, solve any personal or business issue. Such people are highly suggestible or overly stubborn in resolving interpersonal conflicts. The feeling of loneliness can increase or decrease depending on dynamic changes in individually accepted standards for the intensity of normal interpersonal communication or the breadth of contacts with people that a person should go for. At the same time, such standards are relative, they are always set by comparison with past communication experience. A slight decrease in the number of friends or human contacts in someone who previously had a large number of them can be perceived as an increase in loneliness, while a similar change in the nature of interpersonal relationships in a person who previously had almost no contact with anyone and had limited circle of friends (that is, their increase to the same level as that of the first person) will probably be perceived as a decrease in loneliness, that is, in the opposite way.

Loneliness first arises in adolescence, when the need for intimacy (which operates throughout life) is expressed in the need for a friend, a friend. If communication skills are not developed in a child due to relationships with parents, the child becomes unable to satisfy this need for intimacy. And her frustration just leads to loneliness. The loneliness experienced at this age is often fixed and becomes a characteristic feeling for this person.

It is extremely difficult to classify loneliness, since it is an individual experience, qualitatively and quantitatively different for different people. Therefore, the traditional classification looks extremely poor.

2. Pathological loneliness (clinical cases; accompanied by depression, apathy, outbursts of anger, there is a motive of self-torture).

Chronic loneliness occurs when an individual cannot establish satisfactory relationships with significant people for a long period in his life.

Situational loneliness usually appears as a result of some stressful events in a person's life, such as the death of a loved one or the breakup of intimate relationships, such as marriage. After a short time of distress, the situationally lonely individual comes to terms with his loss and partially or completely overcomes the feeling of loneliness that has arisen.

Transient loneliness is expressed in short-term bouts of feeling of loneliness, which completely and without a trace pass, leaving no traces behind.

Sadler proposed an interesting classification of types of loneliness. He singled out the elementary phenomenon underlying all experiences and called it the personal world. It has four main directions, in accordance with which a person realizes his abilities:

In accordance with these criteria, four types of loneliness are distinguished: existential, or cosmic loneliness; cultural loneliness; social loneliness; interpersonal loneliness.

Loneliness becomes especially unbearable if it is a complex of these four types. Let's take a closer look at this classification:

It is connected, firstly, with the comprehension of oneself as an integral reality, correlation of oneself with nature. If this need is not satisfied, then there is a feeling of loneliness in the form of homesickness, communion with nature. In communication with other people, this kind of loneliness cannot disappear (it can only be muffled for a while), since its causes lie outside the sphere of human communications. This experience does not occur in everyone, but only in people of certain professions, closely connected with nature, etc.

Secondly, some individuals have a strongly developed need for involvement in God, the mystical. With her frustration, a specific experience of loneliness arises. This is the strongest motivating factor leading to the formation of sects, generating religious fanaticism. Thirdly, a person may remain unsatisfied with the strongest need for awareness of his own uniqueness.

A person experiencing self-alienation realizes that the development of one side of the “I” nullifies the development of the rest and feels discomfort. This kind of loneliness is also expressed in the form of a desire for the “true Self”.

2. Cultural loneliness - the experience of separation from the cultural heritage, which was an essential part of life. Mostly experienced as a break with old values, which is an important element in the life of young people.

3. Social loneliness is much more common. Associated with the relationship between the individual and the group. Sources of social loneliness can be: exile, rejection by the group, rejection.

The person feels pushed away, excluded, unappreciated, and so on. The feeling of exile, that a person is superfluous, is often observed in people with unsettled social roles. Such people are characterized by anxiety about their social position, anxiety about social identity.

Suffering from such loneliness is mainly people who need socially significant inclusion: the elderly, low-income, eccentric people, teenagers, women. According to many authors, it is precisely because of the fear of social loneliness that people are so actively involved in social activities, in a team, in communication.

Another kind of social loneliness can arise when a person is perceived only as a role.

4. Interpersonal loneliness usually acts in close connection with social loneliness, but is associated with rejection or misunderstanding, rejection by any particular person. People who experience all four types of loneliness suffer from anomia (a personality disorder). Anomic people have common features: rejection of themselves and others, or attraction to actions under external control. They also write off all responsibility to fate or something else. An anomic person often has the feeling that he lives in an empty space without reference points. People get tired of this existence. Life loses its value, suicide attempts are frequent. Such people are not able to deal with their experiences of loneliness on their own.

From the point of view of adolescents, the main cause of loneliness is social exclusion. About 44% of the surveyed high school students answered that other people are to blame for their loneliness: parents and friends. It was the others who did not understand, rejected, forgot this person (“there is no one to help”, “in a quarrel with parents”, “relatives do not understand”, “no support”, “no one shares interests”, “no one to turn to in a difficult situation” , "betrayed", etc.)

Lack of social circle, close friends, loved ones as the reason for loneliness was indicated by 30% of students. The absence of “one’s own” social circle may be associated with moving to a new place of residence - 3%, changing school - 11%, loss of a close friend - 18%, etc.

The next reason named by students is character traits (selfishness, narcissism, arrogance) - 10%. Reasons such as shyness, self-doubt, fear of communication, inability to communicate, "not like everyone else" are indicated in 10% of the questionnaires. About 6% of high school students found it difficult to name the reasons why one can become lonely in adolescence.

It is noteworthy that the majority of boys and girls (76%) consider themselves quite sociable, pleasant to talk to and popular among classmates, and also have a sufficient number of friendships. They are not characterized by a negative attitude towards themselves, the fear of losing communication or being rejected by their peers.

Students were asked to describe a lonely peer. 38% of the students got the following portrait: closed, immersed in themselves, not communicating well; 35% - quiet, inconspicuous, unable to make acquaintances; 15% described: sad, unhappy, “not like everyone else”, whom no one likes, and from whom everyone turned away. In the remaining questionnaires, there were such options as: “loser”, “nervous”, “stupid”, “outcast”, etc.

When determining the type of loneliness, it turned out that 15% of high school students with a chronic type of loneliness (and these are people with both high and low self-esteem); 28% - situational, 57% - transient. The list of emotional states described by schoolchildren, which from time to time cover a lonely person, is impressive. These are despair, longing, impatience, helplessness, panic fear, depression, inner emptiness, boredom, loss of hope, self-compassion, irritability, insecurity, melancholy, depression.

According to high school students, lonely people tend to dislike others, especially sociable and happy ones, so they often behave aggressively towards other people (8%). This is their defensive reaction, which in turn prevents them from establishing good relations with people themselves. Unable to establish contacts with others, some lonely boys and girls demonstrate feigned indifference (20%) to their problem, bravado (9%), cry, think about suicide (13%), take alcohol (9%).

Youth is a time of awareness and mastery of loneliness. Almost everyone goes through the experience of loneliness in their youth. A tragic sense of self-knowledge grows out of it.

Loneliness in youth is a yearning for solitude, so incomprehensible to the preceding adolescence. Solitude allows you to prepare for future feelings of infatuation and love, which can be experienced alone with yourself.

He who has not experienced loneliness in his youth does not become an adult. He remains an eternal teenager and carries himself like an aging teenager through all the steps of life. When asked when loneliness is more often experienced in adolescence or adulthood: 48% of high school students answered - in their youth (children abandoned by their parents), 22% - in adulthood (life is more difficult), 30% - the state of loneliness does not depend on age, it is subject to all.

It follows from the questionnaire that for 80% of girls and boys, parents are a strong support, despite being very busy. 20% of students said that they can only rely on themselves.

Although the majority of respondents (56%) do not like to be alone themselves, nevertheless they consider such a pastime acceptable and do not experience fear or depression while in this state (“you can engage in reflection”, “you begin to understand yourself at such moments”, “ you think about life when there is no company nearby”). 27% of boys and girls panic, being in a state of loneliness ("communication with oneself gives little pleasure", "what harmony? I'm not a psychopath", "I'm not in a state of "quiet with myself").

Loneliness is the transition from teenage asexual existence to the life of a boy and a girl. Thanks to loneliness, there is an awareness of gender, an attempt to find the style of a woman and a man.

A woman is always harder than a man to endure loneliness. However, in youth - in the era of natural loneliness - it is the loneliness of a young man that seems more obvious. This can be explained by the fact that the girl matures much earlier and to a greater extent bears the features of a self-sufficient personality in her youth. A young man achieves self-sufficiency thanks to an individual strong-willed impulse. Such an impulse to a much greater extent presupposes loneliness, requires it.

The dreams of a young man are fundamentally different from those that girls indulge in. These are dreams of one's exclusivity, which should be realized outside of family well-being, or at least not thanks to it.

A young man is a teenager who has realized himself as the will to power, or the will to contemplate. Both are the will to solitude. The young man masters the element of loneliness, transforms it into solitude. All this allows us to distinguish between a lonely and secluded youth. The first one accidentally falls into the element of loneliness and, suffering, seeks to return back. The secluded one consciously comes into it, striving to find a new fullness of life.

The girl does not need loneliness, as the young man. Her maturation is due to the logic of the spread of the human race on the planet. A girl and then a girl is preparing to become a mother, and this leaves a seal on her personality. The idea of ​​a future birth and motherhood is instilled in a girl from an early age, and therefore loneliness is seen as a harbinger of tragedy.

Only a strange girl who overcomes the instinctive opposition of the family can strive for loneliness. In loneliness, there may also be an outcast girl who has failed to fit into the community of her peers and suffers from this.

The solitude and detachment of the girl, as well as the boys, are manifested through dreams. The girl expects love in her dreams, as an absolute overcoming of loneliness. This expectation makes her related to the young man, and this expectation is realized in the feeling of falling in love.

There are differences in the answers of girls and boys: girls react more emotionally, openly write about their feelings.

In the public mind, loneliness is usually associated with maturity and old age. However, there are studies proving that this problem is most acute in youth, and for the first time loneliness is realized by a person in adolescence.

From the point of view of adults (65%), the main causes of loneliness are social factors: social exclusion, lack of social circle, close friends, situational reasons (“separated from loved ones”, “away from family”, “left relatives”, “lack of attention ”, “indifference of others”, “I come to an empty house”, “change of residence”, “dreams collapse”, “no like-minded people”).

Another good reason is character traits (35%): aggressiveness, arrogance, high conceit. Hence - "discord in the family", "quarreled with everyone", etc. The types of loneliness among adults were distributed as follows:

The description by adults of a portrait of a lonely person differs little from the description of high school students. In the list of experienced emotional states are added: longing for a particular person, vulnerability, pain, humility, hopelessness.

According to adults, lonely people withdraw into themselves (34%), look for negativity in others, complain, envy, cry (33%), behave very aggressively (17%) towards others, wanting to punish them for their loneliness, accept alcohol and tranquilizers (23%), try to get out of this state in different ways (13%).

On the other hand, anyone, even the most sociable person, seeks solitude. Most of us have an ambivalent attitude towards solitude: on the one hand, it is a symbol of independence and autonomy, on the other hand, it is a symbol of social failure. When analyzing the attitude of the subjects to solitude, it was found that they quite accurately determine the boundary between loneliness and the desire for solitude. The opinion about the usefulness of solitude and communication alone is shared by 50% of adults (“you make the greatest discoveries in yourself”, “almost always in harmony with yourself”, “I get great satisfaction from communicating with myself”). 32% do not see the need for solitude and do not believe that it can bring satisfaction to a person. Therefore, they try to avoid such situations by occupying themselves with any business. 9% - do not see the difference between loneliness and solitude and believe that this is one and the same.

Each of the surveyed groups believes that it is they who experience the state of loneliness more often. It is difficult to unequivocally answer this question, however, the reasons for the loneliness of adults are more serious, hence the greater range of emotions they experience. This forces some people to abuse alcohol, tranquilizers, drugs, even if adults themselves do not recognize themselves as lonely. Thus, as it was assumed at the beginning, the perception of the feeling of loneliness by different age categories has significant differences.

In addition, despite the fact that women experience loneliness more acutely than men, nevertheless, they find more constructive ways out of such a situation and are less aggressive towards others, and are also more prone to reflection. In addition, women's thoughts are occupied with household chores, caring for children, and family problems.

There is hardly a person who, at least sometimes, has not experienced a state of loneliness. Throughout life, we lose friends, loved ones, loved ones.

To get rid of loneliness, there are two ways: either learn to accept this feeling and cope with it, switching to other meaningful things, for example, find an interesting activity, hobby, hobby, go headlong into work, or learn to build relationships with people in a new way, in order not to feel your loneliness, to find new friends and a life partner.

The life of each person is one and only, and it passes surprisingly quickly. The unsolvable problem of loneliness for many people is not so much a problem as their real, only life that they want to live well, prosperously, successfully, diversely and fully. This is their right and this right must be respected. We are all different and each of us chooses our own path in life. For one, loneliness is a painful existence filled with depression and a sense of inferiority, for another it is a calm, measured life for oneself, an opportunity to make a successful career or engage in creativity. Loneliness is different, not only negative emotions are associated with it, but also joy and pleasure. Many people are looking for it, tired of communication and deliberately reducing the number of their contacts with others.

Many periods of a person's life are necessarily associated with loneliness, and experiences during a period of loneliness depend not so much on isolation, but on a person's attitude towards himself.

In solitude we have the opportunity to choose what to do and, in many cases, these activities are quite useful and varied.

Loneliness allows us to comprehend our life experience and often stimulates, “spurs” us to actively search for interesting and meaningful communication. It is after a period of loneliness that we begin to value friendships or love relationships more, become less demanding and more tolerant of our partner. We can say that loneliness teaches us wisdom and love.

We begin to live fully and happily not only when we fight for some changes in our lives or desperately change ourselves, but also when we know how to love ourselves the way we are without any change, and accept our life as it is. what it actually turns out or develops. It is important to choose what you like - loneliness or family, to accept what you get with dignity, to have confidence in your choice, not to despair, not to experience an inferiority complex and strive for harmony in your life.

Loneliness is perceived as an acutely subjective, highly individual and often unique experience. One of the most distinctive features of loneliness is a specific feeling of complete immersion in oneself. The feeling of loneliness is not like other experiences, it is holistic, covering absolutely everything. There is a cognitive moment in the feeling of loneliness. Loneliness is a sign of my selfhood; it tells me who I am in this life. Loneliness is a special form of self-perception, an acute form of self-consciousness. It is not necessary to fully and accurately understand all your states, but loneliness requires the most serious attention.

In the process of everyday life, a person perceives himself only in a certain relation to the world around him. He experiences his state in the context of a complex and extensive network of relationships. The emergence of loneliness tells him about disturbances in this network. Often loneliness comes in the form of a need or desire to be included in a group or a need to just be in contact with someone. The fundamental moment in such cases is the awareness of the absence of something, the feeling of loss and collapse. It can be awareness of one's exclusivity and rejection of you by others. From the point of view of existential phenomenology (which is very relevant in this case), loneliness threatens to split or even break the intentional structure of the personality, especially in the intersubjective area. In less scientific terms, loneliness is a complex feeling that binds together something lost in the inner world of the individual.

Loneliness is an experience that evokes a complex and acute feeling that expresses a certain form of self-consciousness, and shows a split in the main real network of relationships and connections of the inner world of the individual. The distress that this experience causes often prompts the person to vigorously seek means to resist the disease, for loneliness acts against the person's basic expectations and hopes and is thus perceived as highly undesirable. The emotional states of a lonely person are despair (panic, vulnerability, helplessness, isolation, self-pity), boredom (impatience, desire to change everything, stiffness, irritability), self-abasement (feeling of one's own unattractiveness, stupidity, worthlessness, shyness). A lonely person seems to say: "I am helpless and unhappy, love me, caress me." Against the background of a strong desire for such communication, the phenomenon of “mental moratorium” (E. Erickson’s term) arises:

Return to the childish level of behavior and the desire to delay the acquisition of adult status as long as possible;

Constantly being in a state of something such that something will happen, affect emotionally and life will change dramatically;

Hostility and contempt for all recognized social roles, down to male and female roles;

Contempt for everything national and an unrealistic overestimation of everything foreign (well, where we are not).

Most often, the reaction to loneliness can be defined as "sad passivity" (K. Rubinstein and F. Shaver). What is this reaction? Cry, sleep, do nothing, eat, watch TV, get drunk or “pass out”, lie on the couch and think, fantasize. Of course, such methods only exacerbate loneliness.

Better "active privacy". Start writing something, do something you love, go to the cinema or theater, read, play music, exercise, listen to music and dance, sit down to study or start doing some work, go to the store and spend the money you saved.

We must not run away from loneliness, but think about what can be done to overcome our loneliness. Remind yourself that you actually have good relationships with other people. Think about what you have good qualities (soulfulness, depth of feelings, responsiveness, etc.). Tell yourself that loneliness is not forever and that things will get better. Think about the activities in which you have always excelled in life (sports, studies, housework, art, etc.). Tell yourself that most people are lonely at one time or another. Take your mind off feelings of loneliness by thinking seriously about something else. Think about the possible benefits of the loneliness you experienced (tell yourself that you have learned to be self-confident, understood your new goals for relationships with society, friends, loved ones - with those with whom there was a breakup).

Even better if you try to change your life. Try to be friendlier with other people, do something useful for someone, try to find new ways to meet people. Do something that will make you more attractive to others, do something to improve your social skills.

Using these methods, one can overcome one of the most dangerous qualities of the "psychological moratorium" - the search for a negative identity ("I want to become nothing", a tendency to commit suicide).

All researchers agree that loneliness is associated with a person's experience of his isolation from the community of people, history, family, nature, culture. Moreover, a modern person feels loneliness most acutely in situations of intense forced communication, when a person feels painful discord with himself, suffering and a crisis of his “I”, isolation and deprivation of the meaning of the world (“the connection of times has broken up” - remember Hamlet?). Forced communication, mass production of the same T-shirts, trousers, clip-on earrings, hairstyles, facial expressions, phrases, tastes, assessments, behavioral styles, habits, feelings, thoughts, desires destroy our uniqueness and uniqueness, erases the idea of ​​ourselves as self-worth.

And communication comes with diversity. Two absolutely identical people will be interesting to each other, because communication is created as a community of diversity. One atom will never combine into a molecule with a similar atom. In order for a molecule to appear, the valencies of atoms, their diversity, are needed, then there will be an opportunity for the transition of electrons, for the formation of common electronic fields. So the communication of people appears only with the corresponding uniqueness of people. And this variety of differences creates a human community, solidarity and merging of people. And the uniformity of the barracks only masks the complete indifference of people to each other. Only the acceptance and cultivation of one's own uniqueness and the uniqueness of the other can counter the growing loneliness in the modern world.

It is necessary to distinguish between loneliness as a product of "full despair" of city life and solitude as a person's concentration on his internal spiritual problems, on protecting his "I" from this "complete despair". A person is constantly trying to go beyond the limits of his "I", to open the framework of loneliness that binds him, to create a community with the Other. By creating this community, the Other extracts from me the innermost, intimate, and thereby deepens me, makes my "I" go deeper, leaving our common "knot", "ensemble" of relationships that was my intimate, hidden from everyone. Parts of my "I" lose my uniqueness and become our uniqueness, turn into a subject of joint ownership. And “I” again go into my depth and look for a new uniqueness. This is the unity of the uniqueness of me (and my loneliness) and the uniqueness of us, who created a community, gave each other their unique parts in common possession (as atoms give each other their valence and become a molecule, so people become a unique community, since they gave each other friend its uniqueness). And “we”, unique, in turn give other “we” our uniqueness in common possession and become a community of a higher order ... And then our unique “we” give others “we” ... And so on ... Until the very last “we” - Humanity? Intelligence? Absolute Idea?

Loneliness is a special form of experiencing and realizing oneself as abandoned, torn off, forgotten, deprived, lost, unnecessary, homeless. This is a split in our relations and ties with the outside world. Our oceanic "I" can split. The “reflexive “I” can also split. Our “social”, interpersonal “I” can split.

To share loneliness means: to listen to a person when he wants to talk about his pain; understand and accept his feelings;

To transform into a positive experience means to be ready to change the situation by analyzing it and start building relationships with others, considering alternative possibilities, such as increasing one’s communicative competence, changing one’s behavior and attitude towards oneself and people, developing reflection and communication skills. Regardless of age, people suffering from loneliness use a variety of ways to improve their social life.

The problem of loneliness has always worried mankind, occupying the minds of scientists, writers, philosophers. Recently, more and more new works have been devoted to this problem, exploring the essence of loneliness, its causes, characteristic manifestations and influence on different categories of people in different periods of life.

However, at present there is no consensus on what loneliness is: trouble or happiness, norm or pathology. Various philosophical currents and psychological schools consider loneliness either as the only possible basis for human existence, or as an unnatural state for a person, a pathology and a manifestation of a person’s weak adaptability, or as a social problem, a consequence of the development of modern social forces.

For some, loneliness is the result of a person’s awareness of isolation and the finiteness of his existence, accompanied by despair and loss of hope, for others, it is an active creative state, a favorable opportunity to communicate with oneself and a source of strength.

However, common in various psychological and philosophical approaches is the understanding of loneliness as a state of a person who is aware of the fact of his detachment and alienation from the world of other people. Alienation of a person from other people can be the result of a real lack of social circle and significant connections, and a person's perception of his social contacts as unsatisfactory.

In the public mind, loneliness is usually associated with maturity and old age. However, there are studies proving that this problem is most acute in youth, and for the first time loneliness is realized by a person in adolescence. This is due, first of all, to the development of reflection at this age and the transition to a new level of self-awareness, with increased needs for self-knowledge, acceptance and recognition, communication and isolation, with a crisis of self-esteem. In addition, the reorientation of communication from parents and significant adults to peers makes the problem of relationships with the latter very burning, and sometimes very painful. If a teenager in communication with friends and classmates does not receive acceptance, recognition and emotional response, if his needs for social unity and self-affirmation are not satisfied, then he has a feeling of loneliness.

Is loneliness our inevitable destiny? A modern person feels it most acutely in situations of intense and even forced communication - in a city crowd, in the circle of his own family and sometimes among friends. But is it possible to consider that the only alternative to loneliness is unlimited communication that absorbs the spiritual life of a person? If by communication we mean the exchange of information that is not accompanied by its intimate meaning, then, on the contrary, it gives rise to loneliness. The streams of information falling on a person, forced communication, devoid of reasonable limits, only exacerbate the feeling of loneliness (for example, a monster - television, a computer, capturing a person, taking away an abyss of time from him, does not give either love or warmth in return.) An alternative to loneliness can be be the ability and desire of a person to look into himself, the desire to learn how to communicate with himself, and therefore - the desire for self-improvement (when one is not bored with oneself). A person can try to understand the nature of loneliness, "tame" his loneliness, making it more constructive and less destructive.

Thus, it is impossible to completely overcome loneliness, and this is probably not necessary: ​​loneliness to a certain extent is necessary for growth, the development of creative forces, and independence; but when it comes to existential loneliness, we should learn to accept it as a natural part of our being.

5. Mukhina V.S. Developmental psychology: phenomenology of development, childhood, adolescence. - M. Academy, 2003. - 456s

6. Nemov R.S. Psychology. In 3 vols. Textbook for students of higher and ped. educational institutions. - M. Vlados, 1997. - 688s

7. Raygorodsky D.Ya. Self-consciousness and protective mechanisms of personality. - S. Publishing House "Bahrakh - M". - 261s

The concept of loneliness in psychology, approaches and methods of its study. Psychophysical characteristics of high school students. A study of the causes of feelings of loneliness in adolescence. Ways to overcome the state of loneliness among adolescents.

Psychological phenomenology of loneliness. Causes of feelings of loneliness in adolescence. The role of early age in the development of loneliness in adults. Ways to overcome loneliness. Description of the procedure of psychological investigation, analysis of the results.

Problems of loneliness in the modern world. Loneliness as a psychological disease. Types of structures of psychological difficulties in communication according to V.A. Labunskaya. The essence of the concept of "mental moratorium". Technology to overcome loneliness through training.

Loneliness of the individual as one of the most urgent problems of our time. Factor analysis of the causes of loneliness and reactions to loneliness. Decreased self-esteem due to lack of communication. Analysis of the emotional states of a lonely person.

Interdependence and forms of biological and socio-psychological changes in old age. The essence of the bipolarity of the concept of loneliness in psychology. An empirical study of the psychological determinants of loneliness in the elderly.

Who do you think a lonely person is? The one who lives alone? Nothing like this. A lonely person is someone who feels lonely. Loneliness is a special form of self-awareness, in which a person feels forgotten, unnecessary, lost, deprived and abandoned. The problem of loneliness is the topic of our article.

First of all, loneliness is a feeling that is born in our soul. Indeed, in fact, we are surrounded by a large number of people - neighbors, relatives, colleagues, classmates, ordinary passers-by ... Where does that chilling chill of emptiness and isolation come from then?

The problem of loneliness: causes and solutions

Let's see why a person feels lonely.

Fear of communication. Fear of rejection is usually associated with low self-esteem. Such people are afraid of being uninteresting in communication, consider themselves unworthy of love and recognition, they do not know how to have fun in companies, they experience severe difficulties if you need to ask something or call someone.

Output. You will have to work on yourself. Force yourself to interact with people. Read books on the subject. Sign up for any sports or dance sections, gym, etc. Exchange experiences with people, look for common interesting topics. In the end, look for friends with the same interests on the Internet in thematic forums.

Alienation and unwillingness to communicate. This problem of loneliness is slightly different from the previous one in that such people can communicate normally, but, due to their personal characteristics and character, interest in communication quickly disappears. As a result, the feeling of loneliness and depression arises from the inconsistency between one's desires and the response. This is a more complicated situation, and here it is necessary to correct subconscious attitudes.

Output. You have to start with yourself. Love yourself with all your heart and stop perceiving the world around you the way your neighbors and colleagues decided for you. Do what you love, immerse yourself in a hobby with your head. Watch good emotional films, read classic books. Do everything for yourself. Think of future plans in a positive context. Your face should radiate positivity, and not tense up at thoughts of loneliness.

High expectations. Finding the perfect life partner can take a long time if we set our standards too high. It may be news to you, but there are no ideal people on our planet. But maybe it's you?

Output. After watching beautiful films, we break away from real life, in connection with which an ideal image of some kind of alien is formed in our minds. You have been waiting all your life for Alain Delon's husband and you cannot concentrate on someone else. Don't waste time. A broken connection with reality does not make it clear that there are good people around with their pluses and minuses, but they are close and real.

If the problem of loneliness has affected you, try to work on yourself in this way.

Decomplex yourself using the "Request" exercise. Address passers-by with any request or question. If they refuse you, it's okay, because your goal is to train communication.

Go to the cinema, the theater (have you been to the theater for a long time?), to a club, to a concert or somewhere else where there is a mass gathering of people. Go not as an event, but as a psychological training. The only prerequisite is a positive attitude. Ask someone for their opinion on the actors, plot, etc. Chat easily and freely!

Try to have an animal at home. The grateful and loving eyes of a cat or dog will help melt away your feelings of loneliness.

Periodically imagine a light inside yourself. It burns with a warm, clear and calm flame, whatever happens to you. Thank yourself for what you have.

The problem of loneliness will disappear if you let warmth into your soul, accept yourself with love and live for your own joy. The Land of Soviets is with you!

Loneliness is a socio-psychological state characterized by narrowness or lack of social contacts, behavioral alienation and emotional disengagement of the individual; also a social disease, which consists in the mass presence of individuals experiencing such conditions.

Loneliness is one of the main social problems that are the subject of social work, and social work is one of the most important tools for eliminating or at least alleviating this social disease. Among the means of combating loneliness are socio-psychological ones: personal diagnostics and identification of individuals with an increased risk of loneliness, communicative training to develop communication skills, psychotherapy and psychocorrection to eliminate the painful effects of loneliness, etc.; organizational: the creation of clubs and communication groups, the formation of new social ties among clients and the promotion of new interests to replace those lost, for example, as a result of divorce or widowhood, etc.; socio-medical: education of skills of self-preserving behavior and teaching the basics of a healthy lifestyle. When helping lonely people, a social worker should have a good idea of ​​the completeness of the problem and the multifactorial nature of its possible solution.

Loneliness is scientifically one of the least developed social concepts. In selective studies, the following types were identified among the lonely. The first type is "hopelessly lonely", completely dissatisfied with their relationship. These people did not have a sexual partner or spouse. They rarely connected with anyone (for example, with neighbors). They have a strong sense of dissatisfaction with their relationships with peers, emptiness, abandonment. More than others, they tend to blame other people for their loneliness. This group includes the majority of divorced men and women.

The second type is "periodically and temporarily lonely." They are sufficiently connected with their friends, acquaintances, although they lack close affection or are not married. They are more likely than others to enter into social contacts in various places. Compared to other singles, they are the most socially active. These people consider their loneliness to be transient, they feel abandoned much less often than other lonely people. Most of them are men and women who have never been married.

The third type is "passive and persistently lonely". Despite the fact that they lack an intimate partner and lack other connections, they do not express such dissatisfaction about this as the respondents belonging to the first and second types. These are people who have come to terms with their situation, accepting it as inevitable. Most of them are widowed people.

Increased marriage and family dynamics (first of all, the nuclearization of families and an increase in the level of divorce), the depersonalization of large cities, the strengthening of the principles of individualism - all these are factors that primarily affect the increase in loneliness. In addition, socio-medical factors that are positively correlated with the increase in loneliness are the increase in psychiatric diseases (schizophrenia) and borderline conditions and the spread of autism, i.e. painful inability to communicate as a result of defects in obstetrics (“rough hands of a doctor”) and education.

The growth in the number of single people, the assertion of loneliness as an acceptable lifestyle, causes the formation of a specific service industry for this category of the population. It has been established that single people have the opportunity and desire to spend more money on their hobbies, on tourism and recreation, they more often purchase expensive goods, primarily for sports and tourism purposes. Abroad, special residential complexes are being built for the familyless; any of their needs can be satisfied in the service market. Of course, this applies only to those people for whom loneliness is a conscious and comfortable choice, and who does not feel the need for family ties.

The specifics of Russian loneliness are predominantly different. First of all, this is the result of the high mortality rate of the male population (Russian women live much longer than men) and mortality from unnatural causes (it is estimated that approximately one in three mothers has the opportunity to outlive their children). In addition, the general social and family disorganization, the lack of developed technologies for helping lonely people or those at risk of remaining lonely, turn loneliness in its Russian version into a rather malignant social disease.

The concept of loneliness is associated with the experience of situations that are subjectively perceived as undesirable, personally unacceptable for a person, lack of communication and positive intimate relationships with other people. Loneliness is not always accompanied by the social isolation of the individual. You can constantly be among people, contact them and at the same time feel your psychological isolation from them, i.e. loneliness (if, for example, these are strangers or people alien to the individual).

The degree of loneliness experienced is also unrelated to the number of years a person has spent without human contact; people who live alone all their lives sometimes feel less lonely than those who often have to communicate with others. Lonely cannot be called a person who, interacting little with others, does not show either psychological or behavioral reactions of loneliness. In addition, people may not realize that there are discrepancies between real and desirable relationships with others.

Genuine subjective states of loneliness usually accompany symptoms of mental disorders, which take the form of affects with a clearly negative emotional coloring, and different people have different affective reactions to loneliness. Some lonely people complain, for example, of feeling sad and depressed, others say that they feel fear and anxiety, and others report bitterness and anger.

The experience of loneliness is influenced not so much by real relationships, but by the ideal idea of ​​\u200b\u200bwhat they should be. A person who has a strong need for communication will feel lonely if his contacts are limited to one or two people, and he would like to communicate with many; at the same time, someone who does not feel such a need may not feel his loneliness at all, even in the absence of communication with other people.

Loneliness is accompanied by some typical symptoms. Usually, lonely people feel psychologically isolated from other people, incapable of normal interpersonal communication, of establishing intimate interpersonal relationships with others such as friendship or love. A lonely person is a depressive or depressed person who experiences, among other things, a lack of communication skills.

A lonely person feels different from everyone else, and considers himself an unattractive person. He claims that no one loves or respects him. Such features of a lonely person's attitude towards himself are often accompanied by specific negative affects, including feelings of anger, sadness, and deep unhappiness. A lonely person avoids social contacts, he isolates himself from other people. He, more than other people, is characterized by the so-called paranormality, impulsiveness, excessive irritability, fear, anxiety, a feeling of weakness and frustration.

Lonely people are more pessimistic than non-lonely people, they experience an exaggerated sense of self-pity, they expect only trouble from other people, and only the worst from the future. They also see their own lives and the lives of others as meaningless. Lonely people are not talkative, behave quietly, try to be inconspicuous, most often they look sad. They often have a tired look and increased drowsiness.

When a gap is found between real and actual relationships, which is characteristic of the state of loneliness, then different people react to this in different ways. Helplessness as one of the possible reactions to this situation is accompanied by an increase in anxiety. If people blame their loneliness not on themselves, but on others, they may experience feelings of anger and bitterness, which stimulates the emergence of an attitude of enmity. If people are convinced that they are responsible for their own loneliness, and do not believe that they can change themselves, then they are likely to be saddened and condemn themselves. Over time, this condition can develop into chronic depression. If, finally, a person is convinced that loneliness challenges him, then he will actively fight against it, make efforts to get rid of loneliness.

The list of typical emotional states, which from time to time cover a chronically lonely person, is impressive. These are despair, longing, impatience, feeling unattractive, helplessness, panic fear, depression, inner emptiness, boredom, desire to change places, a feeling of underdevelopment, loss of hope, isolation, self-pity, stiffness, irritability, insecurity, abandonment, melancholy, alienation (the list was obtained by factorial analysis of the responses of many lonely people to a special questionnaire).

Lonely people tend to dislike others, especially those who are outgoing and happy. This is their defensive reaction, which in turn prevents them from establishing good relations with people themselves. It is suggested that it is loneliness that forces some people to abuse alcohol or drugs, even if they themselves do not recognize themselves as lonely. A lonely person is characterized by an exceptional focus on himself, on his personal problems and inner experiences. He is characterized by increased anxiety and fear of the catastrophic consequences of an unfavorable set of circumstances in the future.

Having inadequate self-esteem, lonely people either neglect how others perceive and evaluate them, or by all means try to please them. Single people are particularly concerned about problems related to personal sociability, including dating, introducing others, complicity in various affairs, looseness and openness in communication. Lonely people tend to see themselves as less competent than non-lonely people and tend to attribute their failures in establishing interpersonal contacts to a lack of ability. Many tasks associated with establishing intimate relationships cause them increased anxiety and reduce interpersonal activity. Lonely people are less creative in finding ways to solve problems that arise in situations of interpersonal communication. It has been established that loneliness depends on how a person treats himself, i.e. from his self-esteem. For many people, the feeling of loneliness is associated with a clearly low self-esteem. The feeling of loneliness generated by it often leads to a feeling of unfitness and worthlessness in a person.

The emotional states of a lonely person are despair (panic, vulnerability, helplessness, isolation, self-pity), boredom (impatience, desire to change everything, stiffness, irritability), self-abasement (feeling of one's own unattractiveness, stupidity, worthlessness, shyness). A lonely person seems to say: "I am helpless and unhappy, love me, caress me." Against the background of a strong desire for such communication, the phenomenon of “mental moratorium” (E. Erickson’s term) arises:

Return to the childish level of behavior and the desire to delay the acquisition of adult status as long as possible;

A vague but persistent state of anxiety;

Feelings of isolation and emptiness;

Constantly being in a state of something such that something will happen, affect emotionally and life will change dramatically;

Fear of intimate communication and inability to emotionally affect persons of the opposite sex;

Hostility and contempt for all recognized social roles, down to male and female roles;

Contempt for everything national and an unrealistic overestimation of everything foreign (well, where we are not).

Better "active privacy". Start writing something, do something you love, go to the cinema or theater, read, play music, exercise, listen to music and dance, sit down to study or start doing some work, go to the store and spend the money you saved.

We must not run away from loneliness, but think about what can be done to overcome our loneliness. Remind yourself that you actually have good relationships with other people. Think about what you have good qualities (heartfelt, deep feelings, responsiveness, etc.).

Tell yourself that loneliness is not forever and that things will get better. Think about the activities in which you have always excelled in life (sports, studies, housework, art, etc.). Tell yourself that most people are lonely at one time or another. Take your mind off feelings of loneliness by thinking seriously about something else. Think about the possible benefits of the loneliness you have experienced.

Personality is a stable system of worldview, psychological and behavioral features that characterize a person.

Man is a being embodying the highest stage of development of life, the subject of socio-historical activity.

An individual is a representative of society, a fundamentally indecomposable element of the existence of society.

The social structure of a personality is a combination of individual psychological and socio-psychological qualities of a personality, manifested through the attitude of an employee to surrounding phenomena and events.

The theory of roles - the theory of symbol, interactionism (J. Mead, G. Bloomer, E. Hoffman, M. Kuhn, etc.) considers a person from the point of view of her social roles.

Social position - the place, position of an individual or group in the system of relations in society, determined by a number of specific features and regulating the style of behavior.

Social status - the relative position of an individual or a social group in a social system, determined by a number of features characteristic of this system.

Social freedom is the ability of a person to act in accordance with his interests and goals, based on the knowledge of objective necessity.

Personality types - an abstract model of personal characteristics inherent in a certain population of people.

Dispositions of personality - numerous personality traits (from 18 to 5 thousand), forming a complex of predispositions to a certain reaction of the subject to the external environment.

The value orientations of a person are a reflection in the mind of a person of values ​​that he recognizes as strategic.

Self-realization is the identification and development of personal abilities by an individual in all spheres of activity.

Mentality - a set of ethno-cultural, social skills and spiritual attitudes, stereotypes.

Motivation - active states of the psyche that encourage a person to perform certain types of actions.

Social attitude - a predisposition fixed in the social experience of an individual (group) to perceive and evaluate socially significant objects, as well as the readiness of an individual (group) for certain actions.

Socialization is the process and result of the assimilation and active reproduction of social experience by an individual, carried out in communication and activity.

Internalization is the formation of the structures of the human psyche due to the assimilation of the structures of external social activity.

Conformity - the tendency of an individual to learn norms, habits and values, to change their initial assessments under the influence of the opinions of others.

Anomia - a psychological state: - characterized by a feeling of loss of orientation in life; - arising when an individual is faced with the need to comply with conflicting norms.

Social satisfaction is a set of perceptions and assessments of the conditions of one's social life, the quality of life, generalized in the mind of an individual.

Interpersonal relationships are a system of attitudes, expectations, stereotypes, orientations through which people perceive and evaluate each other.

The leader is a member of the group, for whom she recognizes the right to make responsible decisions in situations that are significant for her, i.e. the most authoritative person.

Deviant behavior is a form of manifestation of the attitudes of individuals and social groups to the norms and values ​​of the social system in which they operate.

Social control is a mechanism of self-regulation of a system that ensures the orderly interaction of its constituent elements through normative regulation.

Social well-being is a phenomenon of social consciousness, the prevailing state of feelings and minds of certain social groups in a certain period of time.

Social sanctions are measures of the influence of a social group on the behavior of an individual, deviating in a positive or negative sense from social expectations, norms and values.

Logic task

1. Do you agree with G. Tarde, who believed that “the so-called“ social pressure ”only contributes to self-determination and a more vivid expression of each individual personality. Without this support, which provides him with a certain resistance, the individual could not move in the social environment, like how a bird could not fly without the help of the air resisting its wings "(New ideas in sociology. Sat. N2 // Sociology and psychology. St. Petersburg, 1914. P. 80).

Overcoming the barrier of social pressure becomes possible with the expansion of the degree of internal freedom of the individual. In this case, a freer person gets advantages over less free people, whose behavior is predictable and determined by social norms. If such a person expands the number of his social contacts, then he begins to be pushed up like a cork from the water column. The reason is that in every interpersonal contact the freer person influences the less free one. The more cases this happens, and if the contacts are caused by some socially significant issues, the greater and stronger the influence of this person on society as a whole. In this way, the personal power of the individual is extended to more and more members of society, which is social success.

2. "The more primitive the society, the more similarities between the individuals that make them up" (Durkheim E. Method of Sociology. M., 1990. P. 129). How do you understand this statement?

In primitive societies based on mechanical solidarity, the individual does not belong to himself and is absorbed by the collective. On the contrary, in a developed society based on organic solidarity, both complement each other. The more primitive the society, the more similar people are to each other, the higher the level of coercion and violence, the lower the level of division of labor and the diversity of individuals. The greater the diversity in society, the higher the tolerance of people towards each other, the wider the basis of democracy. In primitive societies based on mechanical solidarity, the individual consciousness follows and obeys the collective consciousness in everything. The individual here does not belong to himself, he is absorbed by the collective.

3. Do you agree with the statement that the beginning of individuality is more developed in a woman, and personality in a man? Justify your answer.

I agree. Individuality is a manifestation in the physical space of the essence of a woman - her soul, therefore, the true charm and beauty of a woman is contained in individuality. For most men, getting out of a state of selfishness takes a very long time.

4. Confirm or refute this judgment: "Modern sciences proceed from the fact that each individual person personifies the whole of humanity. He is unique with his individual characteristics, at the same time he is repeatable, because he contains all the incriminating features of the human race."

A true man is a man of the world, he contains within himself the whole of humanity. However, being in a damaged state, driven by egoism, which contains alienation from other personalities, people protect themselves in their isolation and are not even able to see the unity of the human race, they cannot accept and contain all of humanity. The unity of humanity is not an empty concept, it has a real basis in human personalities. How a person lives determines whether he unites or divides the whole of humanity.

5. The following is a judgment. Read it carefully: “Resocialization is the assimilation of new values, roles, skills instead of the old, insufficiently mastered or outdated ones. It includes a lot: from classes to improve reading skills to vocational training for workers. Psychotherapy is also one of the forms of resocialization: people try to find a way out from conflict situations, change their behavior "(Spasibenko S.G. Generations as subjects of public life // Socio-political journal. 1995. N 3. P. 122). What do you think, is it correct or not? What is called resocialization and what types of human activity are related to it? Justify your answer.

Resocialization (lat. re (repeated, renewed action) + lat. socialis (public), English resocialization, German Resozialisierung) is a repeated socialization that occurs throughout the life of an individual. Resocialization is carried out by changing the individual's attitudes, goals, norms and values ​​of life.

Resocialization can be just as deep. For example, a Russian who emigrated to America finds himself in a completely new, but no less versatile and rich culture. Weaning from old traditions, norms, values ​​and roles is compensated by new life experiences. Leaving for a monastery involves no less radical changes in lifestyle, but spiritual impoverishment does not occur in this case either.

7. Prove or refute this statement: Personality is the result of a correctly flowing process of socialization. Socialization is a lifelong process of assimilation of social norms and assimilation of cultural norms.

Personal development can be seen as the progressive transformation of a given organism as it copes with new situations. Also, when considering a person's personality, they also mean such properties that can be described in social or socio-psychological terms, where the psychological is taken in its social conditionality and fullness. Socialization is more than formal education as it involves the acquisition of attitudes, values, behaviours, habits, skills transmitted not only by the school but also by the family, peer group, media.

What is loneliness? This concept can be interpreted in different ways. It is wrong to think that the person who lives alone is considered lonely. Loneliness is, rather, a special way of realizing one's own "I", when a person feels unnecessary, abandoned, forgotten. We will talk about the problem of loneliness in our article.

Loneliness, first of all, is a feeling that is born in the soul. Sometimes, it occurs even when a person is surrounded on all sides by friends, colleagues, relatives. It is quite difficult to understand where this chilling coldness of emptiness comes from. But it is especially common among teenagers and the elderly. Loneliness is a rather complex feeling of denial, and in order to overcome it, you need to make a lot of effort.

The problem of loneliness in the elderly

Elderly people especially often feel lonely. And this is not surprising. They are among the people who need the help and support of others. But, unfortunately, the problem of loneliness in old age is gaining momentum in recent years. At the same time, not only living without relatives or the absence of them leads to loneliness, but also misunderstanding or rejection on the part of relatives and the family in which an elderly person lives.

Feeling lonely in old age can be for various reasons. Children move away, old acquaintances and friends die, communication with society comes to naught, various stressful situations occur in life. Of course, over time, an elderly person will be able to overcome the feeling of his own uselessness, but one cannot do without the support of relatives and friends.

Loneliness as a social problem

When studying loneliness as a social concept, first of all, special groups of society are taken into account, and not society as a whole. Acute forms of social loneliness are manifested in such concepts as ostracism, exile. A person who feels that he has lost connections with the team and the people around him can feel lonely. So, often the usual dismissal from work is the cause of a feeling of loneliness, which develops into depression and has an extremely negative effect on a person’s condition. Thus, loneliness, as a social problem, manifests itself most often when a person is excluded from a team, not hired, fired, outcast, and also when a person is deliberately avoided for various reasons, for example, because of skin color.

Loneliness as a psychological problem

If we summarize the provisions of some theories of psychoanalysts, we can say that loneliness from the point of view of psychology is a condition that is rooted in childhood. One of the psychoanalysts, Zilburg, believed that there was a big difference between loneliness and solitude. The first phenomenon is a constant sensation that can harm a person. The second is a normal and transient state, to one degree or another characteristic of each of us.

G. Sullivan spoke about the etiology of loneliness as a need for human closeness, which manifests itself from infancy. If such a need is not satisfied, a person may develop deep loneliness.

Teenage loneliness

The problem of teenage loneliness is faced by 10 to 50% of people in adolescence. In most cases, this problem is temporary, and together with the end of the transitional age, it disappears.

Feelings of loneliness in teenagers can arise for various reasons. For example, due to self-doubt, unsuccessful relationships with peers, passivity in social projects, mistakes in the course of training, complexes. To avoid loneliness in adolescence, it is necessary to think positively, express yourself, communicate with others. Well, parents should pay close attention to their children and encourage them in every possible way, showing their love and desire to help, listen, and advise.

The problem of loneliness, as you know, is extremely acute in modern society.

Discussing this problem, we will not plunge into scientific reasoning, thoroughly flavored with psychological terminology and consider all aspects of the problem from twenty-five angles of view and points of contemplation, systematically interweaving quotes from eminent authors - classics of psychology. From specialized literature, the reader may learn that loneliness is associated with deprivation of social contacts, may stem from childhood, may be associated with a narcissistic vector in the personality's character, and so on. We will try to avoid special terminology and try to consider the topic of loneliness in a popular way, with a creative translation of the latter into human language and, of course, a bit of spiritual participation for those who are not just interested in this problem, but live in it and suffer - if not constantly, then with sadness. regularity.

You can recognize people who, by an effort of will, have driven the feeling of loneliness somewhere deeper by characteristic phrases and expressions

Loneliness is a real and serious problem.

Loneliness is really a problem. And the problem is real. Someone may consider it far-fetched, but not those people who have experienced all the devastation that loneliness brings to their lives. Loneliness drives someone crazy, paralyzes the will to live, drives them to suicide, makes them seek salvation in sects and God knows where else. For others, being alone is nothing unnatural. For some people, loneliness is an absolutely normal existence that does not carry any discomfort. On the contrary, it is an additional opportunity for self-improvement, development, gaining knowledge, freedom of maneuver, freedom of decision-making, responsibility for one's life, creativity, finally.

Both categories of people are interesting. But, if the second does not need help and words of participation, then those people for whom loneliness is a problem usually need them. Rather, not even words, but real help, and, in many cases, professional help.

Who doesn't know yet

In principle, one more category of people can be distinguished - these are those who are not aware that they are alone; more precisely, that loneliness is a problem for them. These are those who, for some reason, “decided” for themselves that they don’t need anyone else, that the relationship still doesn’t add up and now they are on their own. These people are strikingly different from “true” loners in that they have this problem in reality - they did not solve it, but simply shoved it into the basement of their subconscious and crushed it with a heavier cabinet. In principle, for the time being, such people can live relatively calmly and even happily (at first glance). But in their “basement” there is not something, but their personal “nuclear bomb”, which can explode at the most inopportune moment. Rush like what? Well, for example, manifest in the form of stress, depression, awareness of one's own insignificance after some provocative situation. At the same time, situations can be very diverse - from observing rejoicing colleagues to a yellow leaf that has come off a bare branch on a fine autumn day.

Marker phrases

You can recognize people who, by an effort of will, have driven the feeling of loneliness somewhere deeper by characteristic phrases and expressions.

For example:

• "I do not need anybody"
• "And I'm so good"
• "Since I stopped talking ... my life has improved"
• “It doesn’t matter, no one needs me, so why torture yourself”
• "I am completely self-sufficient"
• “People are rare idiots, I don’t need anything from them”
• "I'm too complex and people avoid me"
• "No one can get along with me anyway"
• "I'm too smart and it's hard for me to make friends"
• "I can't stand all these gatherings"
• And so on and so forth.

This reminds me of Cadet Bigler from The Good Soldier Schweik by Yaroslav Hasek: “The cadet washed his reddened eyes with water and went out into the corridor, deciding to be strong, devilishly strong.”

bodily manifestations

Naturally, among such people there may be those who really do not need communication, or they need it in absolutely minimal quantities. And, the difference between one and the other is that while some live in peace with themselves, while others simply hide the truth, and, as we mentioned, not only from others, but, first of all, from themselves.

However, in many cases, people who “invented” loneliness for themselves are betrayed by an internal traitor - their own body and emotions, which, as you know, are extremely difficult to control everything. An attentive observer, even if he has not known such a person for a long time, can pay attention to the fact that when pronouncing the above “code phrases”, sadness “collects” in the corners of the person’s eyes, a smile can become pathetic; or, on the contrary, an outburst of anger may follow, which, at first glance, is not provoked by anything. It can be lowered shoulders, it can be a detached facial expression, a heavy (or not so) sigh, clenching hands, suddenly increased interest in some parts of the body (for example, a person can pull at the tip of the nose, ear, etc.) and other bodily manifestations.

In general, in order for a psychologist to have a reason to work with such a “hidden under lock and key” problem, it is necessary that the person himself realizes it and comes.

It is clear that there are people who suffer from loneliness and are quite aware of this. And, sadly, there are many such people. And, much more than it might seem. Someone calls loneliness the problem of big cities, someone is the problem of our time, someone else is some kind of problem. Yes, there are many sources of loneliness. Psychoanalysts would start looking for problems from childhood, Mr. K. Rogers (American psychologist, one of the founders and leaders of humanistic psychology) would talk about the weak adaptability of the personality, someone else about the lack of social communication, R. Assagioli (Italian psychologist, psychiatrist , humanist, founder of psychosynthesis - the theoretical and methodological concept of psychotherapy and human self-development), would probably recommend the reassembly of personality. Etc. Everything that is stated in the professional psychological literature on this topic has been tested, worked out and has a place to be. It is also true that for the most part it is difficult for a person to solve the problem of loneliness on his own. For this, a psychologist will be useful. But, fortunately, not always.

How is it manifested?

It would be appropriate to say a few more words about terminology. Obviously, it is necessary to distinguish between loneliness as a temporary lack of communication, that is, in general, loneliness is normal and not traumatic for a person, and loneliness as a psychological state that complicates life. In which, having a formal circle of friends, like even friends, acquaintances, a person feels lonely.
For example, it might look like this:

• “In the evening I met with friends, had a good time, and then I returned home and I became so lonely again !!”
• “There are a lot of people around, but there is no one to talk, chat with.”
• “I used to have many friends, but now they have changed, they have become kind of nasty. I do not want to communicate with them. I feel very lonely." Gogol's The Government Inspector comes to mind here: “I see some pig snouts instead of faces, but nothing else ...”
• “No one in this world understands me. I feel terribly lonely. I even started talking to myself."
• “Those men who like me do not pay attention to me and vice versa. And I can’t step over myself - I can’t live with someone who I don’t like. And because of all this, I feel very lonely.”
• “The guy left me. And friends, too, are always busy with their own affairs. Nobody needs me. I'm very lonely."

Obviously, behind all these stories lies a temporary state of loneliness - when you just need to be alone, put your thoughts and feelings in order and re-open this life. That is, loneliness in such a situation is like a good reason to take a break from active communication and understand yourself a little. And, of course, there are cases of that same terrible loneliness that quickly and abundantly makes people rust even in dry, clear weather. And, formally, such loneliness may not exist - a person can be all right from the point of view of an outside observer - and work, and circle of friends and some interests. But the problem is that loneliness is not formal. And it is not measured by the number of friends, acquaintances, work, social activities - no, it sits inside a person. In other words, in the presence of all of the above, a person can be lonely - because he feels like that. Thus, loneliness is a personal state of a person. It may be temporary, or it may be permanent and acquired from childhood, as the psychoanalytic school rightly observes.

Causes of loneliness

What can be "recorded" as the causes of loneliness? The list is quite varied.

• One of the causes of loneliness is a person's low self-esteem. That is, for one reason or another, a person may believe that he is not interesting to other people. For example, that he is miserable, insignificant, weak, boring ... the list of epithets that a person can “reward” himself with can be continued for a very long time. An additional negative effect is that in such a situation a person receives confirmation of his worthlessness - after all, no one communicates with him (although, in general, he does not allow himself to do this). And this, in turn, reduces this very self-esteem even more. In today's current terms, it reduces it to the state of nano-self-esteem.
• On the contrary, a person may be too arrogant. “And with whom to communicate”, “There are only idiots around”, “They are no match for me.” This usually happens within the framework of a narcissistic vector in a person's character. Although, one must understand that under this, in fact, just the same low self-esteem can be hidden. And flaunting such phrases will be nothing more than an attempt to hide your fear of others. “Concerned about how they are perceived by others, narcissistically organized people have a deep feeling that they are deceived and unloved. It can be expected that they will be able to help develop self-acceptance and deepen their relationship by extending dynamic psychology to areas that Freud had just begun to touch. Our understanding of narcissism has been enhanced by attention to the concepts of basic security and identity (Sullivan, 1953; Erickson, 1950, 1968), the concept of the self as an alternative to the more functionalist concept of the ego (Winnicott, 1960b; Jacobson, 1964); the concept of self-esteem regulation (A. Reich, 1960); the concepts of attachment and separation (Spitz, 1965; Bowlby, 1969, 1973); concepts of developmental delay and deficiency (Kohut, 1971; Stolorow & Lachmann, 1978) and shame (Lynd, 1958; Lewis, 1971; Morrison, 1989)." - ist. N. McWilliams, Psychoanalytic Diagnostics
• People who are prone to dependence on other people and who, accordingly, are afraid of "dissolving" in stronger fellow tribesmen or partners may avoid close contacts, dooming themselves to loneliness. For example, it is likely that many people, when trying to build close (often meaning family) relationships, have met such potential partners. At first, relationships begin to develop well - dynamically, brightly, beautifully, love, dreams, hopes, joint plans ... But, suddenly, as you move to a logical conclusion - marriage, or cohabitation, the partner suddenly begins to somehow quickly “deflate”, get cold right on eyes. And, in the end, relationships are torn, sometimes not even reaching sex. At the same time, the “fearful” receives one more confirmation that it will be more comfortable for him to be alone. In particular, this may be present with a schizoid component in a person's character (not to be confused with schizophrenia). “The primary relationship conflict in schizoid people concerns closeness and distance, love and fear. Their subjective life is permeated by a deep ambivalence (duality) about attachment. They crave intimacy even though they feel the constant threat of being swallowed up by others. They seek distance to maintain their security and independence, but suffer from remoteness and loneliness (Karon & VanderBos, 1981). Guntrip (1952) described the "classic dilemma" of schizoid individuals as follows: "They can neither be in a relationship with another person, nor be out of this relationship, without risking somehow losing both themselves and the object." This statement points to this dilemma as "internal and external program". Robbins (Robbins, 1988) summarizes this dynamic in this message: "Come closer - I'm lonely, but stay away - I'm afraid of penetration." Sexually, some schizoid people turn out to be surprisingly indifferent, often despite the ability to function and have an orgasm. The closer the Other, the stronger the fear that sex means a trap. - ist. N. McWilliams, Psychoanalytic Diagnostics
• Where could this come from? For example, from childhood - with an overprotective, downright "suffocating" mother.
• Another reason could be simply a lack of communication skills. A person, for one reason or another, simply does not know how to right - it means to speak and act in the way it is accepted in the society in which you are located and even go beyond - in the way accepted in society) communicate. There can be many reasons - maybe these skills were not instilled in childhood, when the child was brought up in a specific family, maybe the person moved to another country. Why is there a country - in big cities people are discriminated against even by their village accent - naturally, they have to make more efforts to fit into the society that they have chosen for themselves. However, the opposite is also true. This also includes the problems of communication of various social strata - it is clear that a loader who, by chance, got into a professorial family with an appropriate social circle, must have truly outstanding abilities so that he is accepted there, if not for his own, then at least simply accepted. Obviously, this does not always happen.
• Psychological trauma may be the cause of loneliness. For example, a raped woman may develop a stable perception of herself (which is further facilitated by the ambivalent attitude towards victims of violence in our society - such as she is to blame, provoked, and so on) as defiled, dirty, unworthy. Naturally, such self-representation does not contribute not only to the search for a partner, but also to any kind of communication in general. Or maybe it will be the trauma of betrayal. Moreover, in this case, it doesn’t matter what kind - the betrayal of a loved one or parents even in childhood can lead to the same consequences. After all, one must always remember that even if it is perceived harmlessly from the outside, it can have a crushing effect on a specific person, which he will not be able to cope with on his own.
• In addition, there is an assumption that as a person's consciousness grows, the level of loneliness, so to speak, grows. The level of consciousness, to put it simply, is usually understood as the level of awareness of oneself in this world and this world itself as a whole. For example, about what I do on this earth, or, more down to earth, things are not always what they seem. For example, a joint bottle does not guarantee that the drinking companion is a good person and a person with a certain level of consciousness “catches up” with this. More detailed information on levels of consciousness can be searched in search engines for "logical levels of consciousness". So, the higher this level, the more a person perceives himself as lonely. Well, since the level of consciousness largely correlates with intelligence, it would be quite appropriate to weave Schopenhauer here with the quote: "Loneliness is the lot of all outstanding minds." However, the growth of "comfortable" loneliness as the level of consciousness rises is rather hypothetical.
• And, of course, there are quite physiological reasons for loneliness. For example, a person from childhood has pronounced autistic features, which, obviously, are not conducive to communication. But, in this case, this is not entirely loneliness, since such people feel quite well in their world.

From what we have considered, it becomes clear that in some cases loneliness goes away with the beginning of communication (then, in fact, it is not loneliness), the feeling of loneliness may increase or, conversely, weaken over time; people may try to “suppress” their loneliness by constantly busying themselves with something - work, hobbies, some kind of communication; Not every type of loneliness can be dealt with on its own. Longing, despair, depression - these are just some of his companions.

About choice and responsibility.

It is often believed that the situation of loneliness can be productively used for self-development. Or, in other words, to raise the level of consciousness. In principle, this is possible. But it would be a big mistake to think that everyone can do it. First, as we have seen, the types and stages of loneliness are very different. In some states, a person is simply not able to break out of the limits of his narrowed world, squeezed in the vice of loneliness. Secondly, not all people find pleasure in self-development, moreover, they are simply not able to develop.

And in general, there is a danger in development for many people (or rather, for their existing world) - development makes it possible to rethink oneself, life, surrounding, close people, their behavior, attitude to many things. This means that the person is changing. And changes in a person imply other changes - a change of interests, friends, partners. And this requires responsibility and will. Obviously, we are talking about personal responsibility - taking on all the decisions and choices that a person makes. And with responsibility in our age, as you know, bad. To make a choice, and one that matches the desires of the person himself, and would not be an attempt to please everyone - not everyone is capable of this. And the point here is not only in a weak will, but in the unconscious component of our personality, which is extremely dodgy able to protect a person from what “seems” dangerous to her. Thus, most people in such a situation would prefer proven and “painless” decisions - to remain in the already existing reality (the benefit may “ripen” and additional benefits - for example, in the form of pity from loved ones), and instead of making sometimes difficult choices and decisions fill your vacuum with meaningless or conditionally meaningless activities like workaholism. Moreover, the inability to take responsibility leads to places where decisions are easily and naturally made for them - for example, sects that accept people with open arms and with extraordinary ease give them a simple and understandable meaning of existence in a society of their own kind. Obviously, the question of responsibility and choice arises not only when trying to develop and, first of all, the development of the level of consciousness that was used as an example.

I am a practicing psychologist, I edit this blog and write a lot for it myself. It is difficult to name my field of interest in psychology - after all, everything related to people is insanely interesting! Now I pay considerable attention to the topics of narcissism, psychological abuse, relationships, personality crises, taking responsibility for one's life, self-esteem, existential problems. The cost of the consultation is 3000 rubles per hour. t. +7 926 211-18-64, in person (Moscow, metro station Maryina Roshcha), or via Skype (barbaris71).

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