The Bloomsbury Handbook of

Solitude, Silence and Loneliness

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 The Bloomsbury Handbook of
Solitude, Silence and Loneliness
Edited by
Julian Stern, Christopher A. Sink, Małgorzata Wałejko and
Wong Ping Ho
 BLOOMSBURY ACADEMIC
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Copyright © L J Stern, Christopher A. Sink, Małgorzata Wałejko, Wong Ping Ho and Bloomsbury, 2022

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Names: Stern, Julian, editor. | Wałejko, Małgorzata, editor. | Sink, Christopher A., editor. |
Wong, Ping Ho, editor.
Title: The Bloomsbury handbook of solitude, silence and loneliness / edited by Julian Stern,
Christopher A. Sink, Małgorzata Wałejko and Wong Ping Ho.
Description: London ; New York : Bloomsbury Academic, 2022. | Includes bibliographical
references and index.
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ISBN 9781350244603 (paperback) | ISBN 9781350162150 (epub) | ISBN 9781350162174 (pdf)
Subjects: LCSH: Solitude. | Silence. | Loneliness.
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 Contents

List of Illustrations vii

List of Contributors viii
Acknowledgements xiv
Foreword, Olivia Sagan xv

Introduction: Personhood, Alone and Together, Julian Stern 1

Part I: Solitude 11

Part I  Introduction,  Małgorzata Wałejko   13

1 The Philosophy of Solitude, Piotr Domeracki 19

2 Solitude and Schooling, Helen E. Lees 34
3 Solitude Practices in the Context of Catholic Education, Michael T. Buchanan 46
4 Solitude in Nature, Amanda Fulford 58
5 Working Solitude: The Value of Wilderness Time for Leaders and Would-be Leaders,
David Weir 68
6 The Politics of Solitude, Henrieta Șerban and Aleksander Cywiński 80
7 The Art, Music and Literature of Solitude, Julian Stern 89
8 Solitude as a Spiritual Practice: Perspectives from the Chinese Tradition,
Wong Ping Ho 104
9 Solitude and Religion: The Spaces Between, Gillian Simpson 116

Part II: Silence 129

Part II  Introduction,  Wong Ping Ho 131

10 Children and Silence, Richard E. Cleveland 137
11 Multifaceted Silences in Adolescence: Implications for Social Cognition and
Mental Health, Sandra Bosacki 151
12 Creativity, Concentration and Silence, Teresa Olearczyk 162
13 Silence and Sexuality in School Settings: A Transnational Perspective,
Helen Sauntson and Rodrigo Borba 174
Contents

14 Silence and Educational Places and Spaces, Eva Alerby 189

15 The Quiet Professional: On Being Alone/Together in Higher Education,
Anne Pirrie and Nini Fang 200

Part III: Loneliness 211

Part III  Introduction, Christopher A. Sink 213

16 Consciousness and Loneliness, Ben Lazare Mijuskovic 218
17 The Psychological Implications of Loneliness, Christopher A. Sink 236
18 Loneliness in Childhood, Sivan George-Levi, Tomer Schmidt-Barad and
Malka Margalit 250
19 Adult Loneliness, Elżbieta Dubas 261
20 The Morality of Loneliness, Jarosław Horowski 277
21 Loneliness and Dementia: The Role of Communication, Alison Wray 288
22 Loneliness and Care of the Elderly, Rafał Iwański 299
23 Mortality and Loneliness: Towards Less-lonely Grief, Sarah James
and Piotr Krakowiak 310
Conclusion: Lifelong Learning of Aloneness, Julian Stern 323

Notes 335
References 340
Index 399

vi
 Illustrations

Figures

1.1 The heuristic structure of the philosophy of solitude 32

13.1 Comparison of Clause 28 and 2020 RSE documents 182
13.2 Google searches for ‘Escola sem Partido’ 184
13.3 Google searches for ‘Ideologia de gênero’ 185
13.4 Google searches for ‘doutrinação ideológica’ 185
13.5 ESP-related vocabulary Jan/2020-Mar/2020 187
19.1 Aloneness – interpretation of the meaning of the term 263

Tables

13.1 Sample Concordance of promot* As It Is Used in the 2020 RSE Guidance 182
17.1 Sample Prosocial Enhancement Strategies Using Multisystemic Framework
of Support 245
 Contributors

Eva Alerby is Professor of Education and holds a chair at the Department of Health, Education
and Technology, Luleå University of Technology, Sweden. Her research interests are relations,
identity and diversity in education, as well as philosophical and existential dimensions of
education, such as corporality and embodied knowledge, place and space, time and temporality,
silence and tacit knowledge. Her most recent book is Silence Within and Beyond Pedagogical
Settings (2020).

Rodrigo Borba is Professor of Socio/Applied Linguistics at the Federal University of Rio de

Janeiro, Brazil. His research interests include queer linguistics, linguistic landscapes, health
communication and discourse analysis with an activist and research focus on the relations
between discourse, gender and sexuality. He is Co-editor of the journal Gender and Language.

Sandra Bosacki is Professor in the Department of Educational Studies at Brock University,

Ontario, Canada. Her research interests focus on social cognitive development and mental health
in children and adolescence. She has published on social cognition, silence and emotion within
the context of education. Her most recent books are Social Cognition in Middle Childhood and
Adolescence (2016) and Culture of Ambiguity: Implications for Self and Social understanding in
Adolescence (2012).

Michael T Buchanan is Associate Professor of Religious Education and the Deputy Head of
School - Theology, in the Faculty of Theology and Philosophy at Australian Catholic University,
Australia. His research interests include religious education and faith-based leadership. He has
published widely in international journals, and his book publications include Global Perspectives
on Catholic Religious Education in Schools (2019 and 2015); Leadership and Religious Schools:
International Perspectives and Challenges (2013). He was the editor of Religious Education
Journal of Australia. He is a research fellow at York St John University, UK, and an affiliate
associate professor at the University of Malta, Malta.

Richard E. Cleveland is Associate Professor and Program Director of the Counsellor Education
Program at Georgia Southern University, USA. His research interests include mindfulness,
school counselling and psycho-physiological responses to traumatic incidents. He has published
on student wellness in schools, contemplative practices and mindfulness interventions with first
responders, in journals including Paedagogia Christiana, the Journal of Counseling Research
and Practice, the Journal of Counseling & Development and Counselling and Spirituality.

Aleksander Cywiński is Assistant Professor at the Institute of Pedagogy, Faculty of Social

Sciences at the University of Szczecin, Poland. His research interests focus on human rights, and
 Contributors

his recent book is Mutual Social Representations of Professional Probation Officers for Adults
and Their Charges (2017).

Piotr Domeracki is Professor in the Institute of Philosophy at Nicolaus Copernicus University,

Poland. His research interests focus on philosophy of solitude, ethics (with particular emphasis
on psychology of morality, environmental ethics, business ethics), axiology, philosophy of
dialogue, philosophical hermeneutics, philosophy of religion (philosophy of mysticism) and
medieval philosophy. He has published on philosophy of solitude and ethics of kindness. He is
the originator of the term and the initiator of ‘monoseology’ as an interdisciplinary science of
solitude. His most recent book is Horizons and Perspectives of Monoseology. A Philosophical
Study of Loneliness (published in Polish, 2018).

Elżbieta Dubas is Professor of Social Sciences and Director of the Department of Andragogy and
Social Gerontology, University of Łódź, Poland. She was previously Vice Dean of the Faculty of
Educational Sciences, University of Łódź, Poland. She publishes in adult and old-age education
problems, lifelong learning, informal learning, existential problems of human life, solitude and
loneliness, universals of human life in adult education, andragogy and gerontology biographical
research, and biographical learning. Publications include Edukacja dorosłych w sytuacji
samotności i osamotnienia (Adult Education in Solitary and Lonely Situations) (2000), Warsztaty
przyszłości w naukach o wychowaniu (Future Workshops in Educational Sciences) (1997), and
she is Editor of two series, Biography and Biography Research and Reflections on Old Age.

Nini Fang is Lecturer in Counselling and Psychotherapy at the University of Edinburgh, UK. Her
work foregrounds lived experiences, examining how the sociopolitical bears upon the personal-
subjective. She works with creative, qualitative methodology in composing evocative accounts of
the other and their lived domains. Her teaching pushes for a more politically sensitive curriculum
that addresses social inequality in the consulting room. She sits on the Executive Board for
the Association for Psychosocial Studies, the Editorial Board for New Associations (British
Psychoanalytic Council). She is also the Associate Director for the Centre of Creative-Relational
Inquiry at the University of Edinburgh, UK.

Amanda Fulford is Professor of Philosophy of Education and Associate Dean for Research and
Impact in the Faculty of Education at Edge Hill University, UK. Her research interests focus on
the philosophy of higher education, higher education policy and practice, public philosophy and
philosophy with communities. Her research is informed by the works of Stanley Cavell, Gabriel
Marcel and Henry David Thoreau. She has published on relationships in education, and the
aims of higher education. Her most recent edited book is Philosophy and Community: Theories,
Practices and Possibilities (2020).

Sivan George-Levi is Senior Lecturer in psychology at the School of Behavioural Science at

Peres Academic Center, Rehovot, Israel. Her research interest is in coping with stress and in
personal and social resources among children, parents and couples. She has recently published
with Margalit and others: ‘Hope during the COVID-19 Outbreak: Coping with the Psychological
Impact of Quarantine’ in Counselling Psychology Quarterly (2021).

ix
Contributors

Jarosław Horowski is Associate Professor in the Faculty of Philosophy and Social Sciences, in
the Institute of Education Sciences, Department of Theory of Education at Nicolaus Copernicus
University in Toruń, Poland. He is Editor-in-Chief of the scientific journal Paedagogia
Christiana, and is author of Moral Education According to Neo-Thomistic Pedagogy (published
in Polish, 2015). He is interested in the philosophy of education, moral and religious education,
neo-Thomistic notions in pedagogy, education for moral virtues and education for forgiveness.

Rafał Iwański is Assistant Professor at the Institute of Pedagogy, Faculty of Social Sciences at
the University of Szczecin, Poland. He chairs the Szczecin branch of the Polish Gerontological
Society and a secretary of the ISRS (the International Society for Research on Solitude). His
research interests focus on social and economic gerontology and social welfare, mainly long-
term care of dependent senior citizens. He has published widely in Polish and international
journals; books include Long-term care of elderly people (published in Polish, 2016) and
Palliative and hospice care in social and economic context (in Polish, with A Jarzębińska and
E Sielicka, 2018).

Sarah James is an independent researcher and secondary school teacher specialising in the
fields of health and social care; wellbeing; loss and bereavement; and mental health support. She
worked for many years as a lecturer in Education at the University of Hull, UK. Her doctoral and
postdoctoral research activities are in the fields of thanatology, child bereavement support and
children’s well-being. She is also actively involved in Child Bereavement UK (CBUK).

Piotr Krakowiak combines academic work in the field of education, social work, psychology
and spirituality, with a variety of pastoral care activities in the hospice movement, including
with bereaved families and carers. He has considerable experience in palliative care as a
chaplain, volunteers’ coordinator and manager at a hospice in Gdansk, Poland. He is currently
Lecturer in Education and Social Work at Nicolaus Copernicus University (UMK) in Toruń,
Poland. His postdoctoral research activities are in the fields of end-of-life care, thanatology
and bereavement support. He is also actively involved as a lecturer for the European Palliative
Care Academy.

Helen E. Lees is an independent scholar of Education based in Italy. She is an associate research
fellow at York St John University, UK. Her research interests focus on alternative education,
self-care and silence. She has published books and articles on positive silence, alternative
education and higher education, including Silence in Schools (2012), Education without Schools:
Discovering Alternatives (2014) and The Handbook of Alternative Education (2016, with Nel
Noddings). She is founding Editor-in-Chief of the online journal Other Education and the book
series Palgrave Studies in Alternative Education (with Michael Reiss).

Malka Margalit is Professor and Dean at the School of Behavioural Sciences, Peres Academic
Center, Rehovot, Israel. She is Professor Emeritus at the Constantiner School of Education, Tel-
Aviv University, Israel, and is a laureate of the Israeli prize in the field of education research. She
has published widely on lonely children and adolescents, hope theory and students with special
needs. Her research is examining the relationships between hope, social support and loneliness.

x
 Contributors

Her book Lonely Children and Adolescents: Self-Perceptions, Social Exclusion, and Hope (2010)
is a scene-setter for research on childhood loneliness.

Ben Lazare Mijuskovic is a retired associate professor of Philosophy and the Humanities. He
has taught at Southern Illinois University, USA (tenured), San Diego State University, USA,
Long Beach State University, USA, the University of California at San Diego, USA, California
State University at Dominguez Hills, USA, and Chapman University, USA. In 1975–6, he
was a postdoctoral fellow at Yale University, USA, and became fascinated about theories of
consciousness in relation to human loneliness. He has published The Achilles of Rationalist
Arguments: The Simplicity, Unity and Identity of Thought and Soul from the Cambridge
Platonists to Kant, followed by Loneliness in Philosophy, Psychology and Literature, Contingent
Immaterialism: Meaning, Freedom, Time and Mind, Feeling Lonesome: The Philosophy and
Psychology of Loneliness, and Loneliness and Consciousness: Theoria and Praxis.

Teresa Olearczyk is Professor at the Andrzej Frycz Modrzewski Krakow University, Kraków,
Poland. She teaches courses on general pedagogy and the pedagogy of culture, didactics and
ethics, and runs a workshop on educational skills at the Faculty of Psychology, Pedagogy and
Humanities, Faculty of Early School Education, and Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences:
Nursing, Rescue and Physiotherapy.

Anne Pirrie is Reader in Education at the University of the West of Scotland, UK. Her recent
book, Virtue and the Quiet Art of Scholarship: Reclaiming the University (2019), explores the
conditions for human flourishing in an environment blighted by managerialism. She considers
her role as a teacher in the same terms as Nan Shepherd (1893–1981), the author of The Living
Mountain: to try to prevent a few of the students who pass through the institution from conforming
altogether to the approved pattern.

Helen Sauntson is Professor of English Language and Linguistics and Director of the Centre
for Language and Social Justice Research at York St John University in the UK. She specializes
in teaching and researching sociolinguistics and applied linguistics. She has a special interest in
language, gender and sexuality, particularly in relation to educational contexts, and has published
numerous books, chapters and journal articles in this area. She is Co-editor of the Palgrave
Studies in Language, Gender and Sexuality book series and Co-editor of the Cambridge Elements
in Language, Gender and Sexuality book series.

Tomer Schmidt-Bara is Lecturer in Psychology at the School of Behavioural Science, Peres

Academic Center, Rehovot, Israel. His research focuses on person–environment interaction
in relation to social behaviour. He has published on power-incongruence, self-control and
compliance to soft and harsh influence tactics. He has recently published ‘When (State and Trait)
Powers Collide: Effects of Power-Incongruence and Self-control on Prosocial Behaviour’, in
Personality and Individual Differences (2020).

Henrieta Șerban is Senior Researcher at the Institutes of Philosophy and Psychology, ‘Constantin
Rădulescu-Motru’, and of Political Sciences and International Relations, ‘Ion I. C. Brătianu’,

xi
Contributors

at the Romanian Academy, Romania. She is a PhD Hab. and a correspondent member of the
Academy of Romanian Scientists. Her research interests focus on ideology, feminist theory, social
epistemology and Romanian philosophy. Her most recent published book is Symbolical Forms and
Representations of Socio-Political Phenomena (published in Romanian, 2017) and Neopragmatism
and Postliberalism. A Contemporary Weltanschauung (published in Romanian and English, 2021).

Gillian Simpson was previously Senior Lecturer in Theology and Religious Studies at York
St John University and is now researching at Bishop Grosseteste University, UK. Her research
interests include Judaism and Holocaust fiction, reflective learning and approaches to the study
of religion through autoethnography. Her most recent journal publication, Beyond the Lonely
Leaner: Towards an Autoethnographic Method in Studying and Researching Religion (2020),
focuses on the dangers of isolation in higher education, and one potential solution which involves
a holistic and integrative approach to study through the individual’s self-understanding, using an
autoethnographic method.

Christopher A. Sink is Research Associate and Instructor in Counsellor Education in the

Department of Psychology at Western Washington University, USA. His previous academic
appointments include Professor and Batten Endowed Chair of Counselling in the Department
of Counselling and Human Services at Old Dominion University, USA; Professor of Counsellor
Education at Seattle Pacific University, USA; and Associate Professor in the Department of
Psychology at Northwest Missouri State University, USA. Prior to serving in academia, he worked
as a school-based professional counsellor. He has published and presented extensively on various
topics related to strengths-based and systems approaches to school counselling, social–emotional
development, spirituality, as well as psychometrics, programme evaluation and research methods,
writing Mental Health Interventions for School Counselors (2011) and editing Contemporary
School Counseling: Theory, Research, and Practice (2005).

Julian Stern is Professor of Education and Religion at Bishop Grosseteste University, Lincoln,
UK. He is President of the International Society for Research on Solitude, Editor of the British
Journal of Religious Education and researches the philosophy of schooling, issues in religion and
education, research methods, and solitude and loneliness. His recent books include A Philosophy of
Schooling: Care and Curiosity in Community (2018), Teaching Religious Education: Researchers
in the Classroom: Second Edition (2018), Virtuous Educational Research: Conversations on
Ethical Practice (2016), and Loneliness and Solitude in Schools: How to Value Individuality and
Create an Enstatic School (2014).

Małgorzata Wałejko is Assistant Professor at the Institute of Pedagogy, Faculty of Social Sciences
at the University of Szczecin, Poland. She has a PhD in pedagogy, specializing in philosophy of
education and an MA in theology, specializing in family sciences. She is Vice-President of the
International Society for Research on Solitude, and her research interests focus on pedagogy of
solitude, pedagogical ethics, personalism and spiritual theology. She has published Separately
and Together: Personalistic Education to Solitude and Community (published in Polish, 2016).

David Weir is Visiting Professor in International management at the University of Lincoln,

UK, Professor of Enterprise at University of Huddersfield, UK, and Professor of Intercultural

xii
 Contributors

Management at York St John University, UK. His research interests include the Middle East,
risky work, and vulnerable systems, autoethnography and critical management. His published
books include The Sociology of Modern Britain (with Eric Butterworth, 1975) and Ethnographic
Research and Analysis: Anxiety, Identity and Self (co-editor, 2018). He also writes and performs
poetry.

Wong Ping Ho is Adjunct Associate Professor in the Department of International Education at

the Education University of Hong Kong (formerly the Hong Kong Institute of Education), Hong
Kong, China, and serves as coordinator of the EdD in Life and Values Education programme.
Before moving into teacher education, he had been a secondary school teacher for ten years. He
founded the Hong Kong Institute of Education’s Centre for Religious and Spirituality Education
in 2006, and was its Director prior to his retirement in 2016. He is Chief Editor of the Chinese
volume Life Education: Its Intellectual, Emotional, Volitional and Practical Dimensions (2016).

Alison Wray is Research Professor in the Centre for Language and Communication Research
at Cardiff University, UK. Her research interests include formulaic language (linguistic units
supporting fast-track processing) and the patterns of language and communication used by people
living with a dementia, as they navigate reduced processing efficiency. She has published widely
on both topics, and her most recent monographs are The Dynamics of Dementia Communication
(2020) and Why Dementia Makes Communication Difficult: A Guide to Better Outcomes (2021).
She has also scripted three animated films about dementia communication which are available on
YouTube: https​:/​/ww​​w​.you​​tube.​​com​/c​​hanne​​l​/UC6​​kMlO8​​mkB09​​GN​CLm​​1zbaH​​Q.

xiii
 Acknowledgements

All the editors would like to express their gratitude to Alison Baker and the other editorial
staff at Bloomsbury for their valuable oversight of and support for the book.
Julian Stern would like to thank both Marie Stern and Mike Bottery, for reading and
commenting on his chapters, and the anonymous reviewers for Bloomsbury, who were positive
and helpful with respect to the whole book. He would also like to thank all the members of
the ISRS: the International Society for Research on Solitude (http://isrs​.usz​.edu​.pl/), who have
organized conferences and seminars, and journal special editions, along with much of this
Handbook, notwithstanding the extraordinary challenges of working through the Covid-19
pandemic.
Małgorzata Wałejko would like to thank Julian Stern for inviting her to edit the Handbook and
for his constant faith in her.
Wong Ping Ho wishes to express his immense gratitude to his late father Wong King Por
(1930–2001) and late mother Chau Yeung Ting (1934–2021) for their formative influences on
his life, which have permeated and undergirded all his work, not least the work on this volume.
 Foreword

The pandemic year of 2020–21 revealed us to ourselves. As observed by Yuval Harari among
others, the pandemic sped up the future, hastening awareness of what we have become, on what
planet the becoming was unfolding and at what cost. Resilient species that we are we adapted. We
learned, superfast. Yet vulnerable and precarious as we also are, we suffered, pined and many died,
are dying still – the shock waves of Covid-19 on a global scale set to reverberate many years after
the publication of this book. In that revealing and adapting many words gained a new poignancy.
Among them: ‘solitude’, ‘silence’ and ‘loneliness’, the subject of this timely anthology.
Those of us fascinated by the loneliness study were challenged during the pandemic even
more than during the preceding years in which loneliness had been branded an epidemic and a
public health issue. Mental health problems were rapidly foregrounded as an inevitable effect
of being alone (Killgore et al., 2020) with rather less positioning of aloneness as a possible
opportunity for reflection and re-basing proposed action, as Weir, in this volume, points out.
Silence swiftly became something to be drowned out as though threatened by an impending
and interminable performance of 4’33” with none of its nuanced lessons about what constitutes
music. Solitude, for centuries the stronghold aspiration of the hermit, the creative, the luminous
and the dreamer, became further tainted by lazy discourse that collapsed it with loneliness, the
grand taboo of hyper-connected, frenetically networked, group thinking neoliberal society. The
pandemic challenged us to grapple with and make sense of sudden-onset isolation; quarantine;
social distancing; and states of loneliness that for many were entirely new and menacing
human experiences. Covid-19 demanded with new fervour that we keep back the dreaded
tide of loneliness using the well-honed tools of connected society and its sophisticated toys of
distraction and affluence and ward off the echo in our four walls of silence once we grudgingly
switched off Netflix on another lockdown Zoombie day. Yet out of this, we also saw the power
in learning to be with ourselves, and the magic of private quietness in nature – gifts that Fulford
and Weir explore in this volume.
Arguably we now know more about solitude, silence and loneliness than ever. Our
understanding of each, as Wong Ping Ho, Mijuskovic and others in this anthology remind us, is
predicated on a long history; a history that bears cicatrices of inveterate fascination on the part of
poets, artists, naturalists, philosophers, theologians, psychoanalysts and spiritualists. We know
each is culturally inflected, historically and socially constructed. We know that solitude wears a
shroud of association with punishment and renunciation as well as a gown of awe, creativity and
the numinous (Vincent, 2020). We know that silence, a ‘cold, pure blessing’ (McGregor, 2021)
can feel as though it ‘unskins’ you (Maitland, 2009), and that every silence, as observed by Sartre,
has its consequences. We know that loneliness is a fidgety emotional cluster with ambivalence
and oscillations (Dubas, this volume); an expensive psychosocial and medical problem faced by
its own strategies, policies and ministers. It is derived from ‘oneliness’ (Bound Alberti, 2019), the
word loneliness only having picked up currency post-1800, as industrial society began dispersing
Foreword

us, capitalism fragmenting us and consumerism isolating us, leaving us to bowl alone (Putnam,
2000), live alone, age alone and die alone (Nelson-Becker & Victor, 2020). We also know quietly,
that despite its ubiquity, loneliness, as Olivia Laing baldly states, is also difficult to confess.
This book is part of an important sense-making and reckoning process. It is a sense-making
not just of the current, transient situation with its new lexicon of shielding; waves; super-spreader
events; quaranteams; covidiots; social bubbles; vaccine nationalism, but a sense-making of what
this volume reminds us are three enduring human experiences, and their unique textures; impacts;
exuberant rewards and soul-touching challenge. A long overdue sense-making too, of what we
lose, or stand to lose, when in panic we throw out developing the capacity to be alone (Winnicott,
1958) in what Melanie Klein (1963) called a ‘ubiquitous yearning for an unattainable perfect
internal state’.
The authors in this volume have turned down the volume on the panic of the loneliness
‘epidemic’, the attendant horror of silence bouncing off the walls of isolation and the existential
angst of misunderstood solitude. When you turn that noise down and turn up the granular view of
these human states and experiences, you find complexity, richness and depth. You find something
core to the human condition and necessary to our survival, and yet something that the twenty-
first century in particular has been masterful in building sophisticated structures, technological
solutions, systems and spaces to protect us from – seemingly at any cost.
I’ll make a pitch for what the constituent parts are of this sense-making. This sense-
making, like any making sense of the sometimes senseless, needs to be an unfolding, un- and
re-making, divergent, macro and micro holistic perspective, one that takes a bird’s-eye and a
worm’s-eye view; one that takes risks; is playful and irreverent, respectful and learned. It
requires multidisciplinary thinking that embraces the arts, which can, as pointed out by Stern
in this volume, explore topics ‘failed’ by conventional research. We need both solitary and
group creativity and polymorphic, ruthless deconstruction. As the powerful field of medical
humanities urges us (Fitzgerald & Callard, 2016), bringing body and mind and their attendant
constellations into alignment is an interdisciplinary endeavour and one that needs scholarship,
imagination, play, wit and generosity (Frank, 2004). This book is one such contribution. Drawing
on an international and multidisciplinary team of writers it explores the history, philosophy and
experience of solitude, not as an end in itself, as described by Wałejko, but a path. Of silence,
a multifaceted phenomenon, inextricably linked, particularly in the East Asian cultures, with
solitude and stillness – as pointed out by Wong Ping Ho. Loneliness, the very notion of which
Sink urges us to grasp in the broad tapestry of personhood, being aware of how it meshes and
juxtaposes from the contours of solitude and silence.
In the hard revealing of us to ourselves during the pandemic of 2020–1, we saw the hunger of
our social species for connection; for a return of the myriad anchor points of human exchange, of
validation, of being seen and heard. We saw the default of our raucous noisiness and how when
it abated, birdsong changed in richness (Derryberry et al., 2020) and animals boldly reclaimed
places fallen quiet; we saw the sheer privilege inherent in the choices we have had and how such
choices were and are withheld from so many. The choice, for example, of solitude is frequently
one of privilege, an index of power, as pointed out in this volume by Șerban and Cywiński.
But we also discerned that when left alone, that state that Heidegger (1962) held to be no less
than an ontological necessity, we grew in unexpected ways. Solitude forced us in on ourselves

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 Foreword

and paralysed but then revived us. Silence frightened us but disclosed its secrets and thrilling
power of balm. We expanded, unexpectedly, even as we were cast adrift by solitude, silence and
loneliness. That very contradictory ability is part of their deep mystery, explored here, in what
Stern refers to as a research archipelago.
Olivia Sagan
Queen Margaret University, UK

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xviii
 Introduction
Personhood, Alone and Together – Solitude,
Silence and Loneliness in Context

Julian Stern

Introduction

Being alone is one of the central experiences of every person. Indeed, a person’s life can be
described in terms of the ebb and flow of togetherness. Birth itself is a separation (for the
mother and for the child), and throughout infancy, togetherness and separation dominate the
emotional and cultural formation of the person. The game of peekaboo is typically an infant’s
playful first lesson in how other people appear and disappear. Psychologists such as Bowlby
(2005; Bowlby in Weiss, 1973) and Winnicott (1964, 1971) put separation and togetherness at
the heart of their developmental theories, but all disciplines and all people are familiar with both
separation and togetherness, in ‘good’ and ‘bad’ forms. ‘Bad’ separation may be experienced
as loneliness, as bereavement, as rejection, as exile; ‘good’ separation may be experienced as
exciting independence, freedom or as growing up. Likewise, togetherness may be experienced
as love or as troubling co-dependency, as a comfort or as a trap, as friendship or as abuse. (A
person may experience the opposites, together: a bereavement, for example, may be experienced,
somewhat guiltily, as exciting freedom.)
Social organizations recognize and often celebrate coming together and separating. Families
welcome new members (e.g. through birth or marriage) and commemorate loss (through leaving
home to join another family, or through death). Workplaces, likewise, often have arrival and
departure ceremonies, formal and informal, as do religious communities and friendship groups.
Through the giving and taking away of citizenship or legal rights, nations, too, recognize coming
together and departing. The experience of exile and of seeking refuge in a new country was as
familiar to ancient societies as it is today. At every life stage, personhood is learned in large
part through these experiences alone and together. This chapter – like this Handbook – focuses
on various forms of aloneness, rather than togetherness. Aloneness appears to be less well
understood than the togetherness. Loneliness may be a ‘taboo’ subject (White, 2010: 237), while
exiles and refugees may, similarly, be politically taboo in some political climates (Kromolicka &
Linka, 2018). There is, therefore, a need to explore the experience of aloneness in all its forms.
There are some (Hobbes, 1968; Stirner, 1963; Mijuskovic, 2012) who believe that aloneness,
even loneliness, is the central characteristic of personhood; there are others (Macmurray, 1991,
2012; Buber, 1958, 2002; Stern, 2018a, 2018b; Wałejko, 2016) who see personhood as existing
primarily in and through dialogue and community. Both of these positions – and much in
The Bloomsbury Handbook of Solitude, Silence and Loneliness

between and beyond these positions – are represented in this Handbook, and we as editors and
contributors do not take a unified collective position on the fundamental (individual or social,
alone or together) character of personhood. What should be emphasized, though, is that aloneness
is important across the spectrum of philosophies from the most individually focused to the most
communally focused. That is why we have attempted to bring together in a single volume a wide
range of research on solitude, silence and loneliness (three forms of aloneness), to bring together
research from a range of academic disciplines, and to bring together research from the whole
lifespan. The chapter, therefore, describes some of the ways of understanding how aloneness
is learned and develops over time, with implications for how it can be appropriately hosted, or
mitigated or responded to – depending on its form and quality.
The chapter attempts to pick apart the three forms of aloneness (solitude, silence and
loneliness) used to structure many people’s accounts of the topic, and the processes involved
in understanding aloneness are explored – both in disciplinary terms and in terms of various
practice settings. The purpose of this Handbook is to bring together research of all kinds, and the
development of the volume is itself described in the conclusion of this chapter.

Being Alone: Solitude, Silence and Loneliness in Context

How are solitude, silence and loneliness best described, and how are they related to each other
and to other forms of aloneness and separation? It is a complex field. Even the words themselves
are dangerous friends of scholars. ‘Lonely’ derives from being ‘alone’ or ‘all one’ (OED, 2005),
and for centuries was barely differentiated from aloneness or solitude. ‘Solitude’ itself has similar
historic roots in being separate or alone or ‘all one’. The two words seemed to develop their
distinctive and – for many – contrasting meanings only in the nineteenth century. And in languages
other than English, there may be one word covering all the various meanings of both solitude
and loneliness, as in the French seul, or there may be a range of different words and meanings
covering negative, neutral and positive senses of the terms. In Arabic and Hebrew, loneliness (i.e.
words regarded as translations of the English word ‘lonely’) is particularly associated with the
loss or absence of family, while in Hindi the synonyms ‘dull’ and ‘surly’ indicate a more grumpy
emotion. Finnish loneliness seems to indicate distance (‘out-of-the-way’, ‘remote’) while Spanish
has a whole set of rather positive characteristics (‘serene’, ‘poised’, ‘easy’) (Stern, 2014: 83–5).
The word ‘silence’, meanwhile, has meanings related to the absence of all sound, the absence of
speech, and the omission of a particular topic (OED, 2005), and has been categorized by Lees
as either ‘strong’ or ‘weak’ – with weak silence involving denial, shame or fear (and, therefore,
not being ‘true’ silence) (Lees, 2012: 59–60). Silence may be as much about disengagement as
it is the absence of sound (Stern, 2014: 147–8), or the ‘unsayability’ or ineffability of particular
topics (as in Wittgenstein, 1961, described in the Conclusion of this Handbook). The words
are embedded in cultures that can disguise as much as reveal their meanings (as described in
Chapters 7 and 8). Here, some descriptions of the three terms are given in contexts – the contexts
being both disciplinary (e.g. how loneliness is seen differently by psychologists or theologians)
and social (e.g. how silence is experienced in different practice settings).

Solitude: From Exile to Ecstasy and Enstasy

Solitude has been described in two contrasting ways, as a form of punishment and as a state to be
sought for the sake of spiritual or personal development. One of the great ancient accounts of punitive

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 Introduction

solitude is that of Ovid (2005). His poems of exile echo to the present day, with Green writing of
exile as ‘an all-too-familiar risk’ in the light of the ‘ruthless demands of two world wars and, worse,
a variety of totalitarian ideologies’ which ‘have made the exile, the stateless person, the refugee, the
dépaysé, a common feature of our social awareness’ (Green, in Ovid, 2005: xiv). Ovid describes his
‘sickness, senility and lassitude, but also . . . sloth, depression, [and] accidie’ (Green, in Ovid, 2005:
xxxiii), but not – it seems – loneliness, at least not in its fullest sense. Exile is loss, loss of place and
of people. Even Ovid’s own writings can go where he cannot go: ‘Little book – no, I don’t begrudge
it you – you’re off to the City / without me, going where your only begetter is banned!’ (Ovid, 2005:
3, from Tristia). Alongside loss, Ovid describes rejection: ‘I have lost all: only bare life remains to
quicken the awareness and substance of my pain’, he says, adding, ‘[w]hat pleasure do you get from
stabbing this dead body?’ concluding, ‘[t]here is no space in me now for another wound’ (Ovid, 2005:
200, from Black Sea Letters). It is the combination of separation/loss and rejection that makes exilic
solitude a punishment. Some punitive forms of solitude involve separation from all social contact, as
in some types of solitary confinement in prisons.
Whether an imposed solitude is in fact a punishment is, in part, a subjective matter. Many
will be familiar with parents punishing a child with solitude – sending the child to their room,
for example. In a loners’ manifesto, Rufus (2003) describes her puzzle over why this would be a
punishment:
When parents on TV shows punished their kids by ordering them to go to their rooms, I was
confused. I loved my room. Being there behind a locked door was a treat. To me a punishment
was being ordered to play Yahtzee with my cousin Louis. I puzzled over why solitary
confinement was considered the worst punishment in jails. (Rufus, 2003: xxviii)
Rufus’s prison example is a very old puzzle. Webb (2007) recounts the twelfth-century Cistercian
William of St-Thierry, noting how a prisoner and a monk may both spend time in solitude in a
cell. How can such an existence be a punishment for one and a time of freedom and happiness
for the other? ‘He who lives with himself’, William says, ‘has only himself, such as he is, with
him’, and this is a punishment for a bad person as in such solitude ‘[a] bad man can never safely
live with himself, because he lives with a bad man and no one is more harmful to him that he is to
himself’ (quoted in Webb, 2007: 72). In contrast, a monk in solitude, of course, has a good person
for company. Weir (in Chapter 5 of this Handbook) writes of the value of solitude to managers
in industry – whether or not they are good people – but his hope is that it is a monkish reward.
Non-punitive forms of solitude are particularly common in religious discourses. In the
Christian tradition, roughly at the time the religion became accepted within the Roman Empire,
mystics developed a way of seeking solitude as hermits. St Antony is the best known of these,
made famous by a biography describing his life, starting as a child who was ‘wishing . . . to stand
apart from friendship with other children’ (Athanasius, 1980: 30) and continuing for many years
living in a desert cave. That was a life of many hardships, yet one that is described as bringing
Antony his wisdom. The Christian traditions of hermits, anchorites/anchoresses and monasteries
since the fourth century have involved different forms of solitude – all described positively and
often ecstatically: escaping from the limits of the self. (See also Chapter 9 of this Handbook.)
Similarly, in Hindu and Buddhist traditions, there are positive solitude traditions, notably the
yogic attempt to achieve ‘enstasy’ (samādhi), being at one with oneself – in contrast to ecstasy, in
which a person escapes from the self. In the Bhagavad-Gītā (Zaehner, 1992), enstasy is achieved

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The Bloomsbury Handbook of Solitude, Silence and Loneliness

‘[w]hen a man puts from him all desires’ and ‘[h]imself contented in the self alone’, and ‘when
he draws in on every side . . . [a]s a tortoise might its limbs’ (Zaehner, 1992: 326). Therapeutic
solitude is recommended in many contemporary accounts, from Rufus (2003) extolling the virtues
of solitude for ‘loners’, to Shepherd (2011, writing of her time in the Cairngorms), Sarton (1973,
writing of her garden, for example), Koller (1990, in an isolated rural community), Kagge (2019,
on polar exploration and mountain climbing) – all of whom describe relationships to ‘nature’
as central to human solitude (in the tradition of Thoreau, 2006). A whole genre of ‘living with’
or ‘living like’ non-human animals has added to positive accounts of solitude in recent years.
Lindén (2018) provides a shepherd’s diary, and this account, along with those of Jamie (2005,
2012), Foster (2016), and Wohlleben (2017), describes human solitude as rich in interaction –
albeit not with other human beings. In such ways, solitude can be positive or negative. It can
also, paradoxically, be achieved in company – in human company at times (Webb, 2007: 67, for
example, describes solitude achieved in a busy family home while reading), but especially in the
company of non-human animals and nature (Morton, 2017, and see Chapter 4 of this Handbook).
Given the variety of solitudes, how can solitude be best described? Koch’s comprehensive
account defines solitude as ‘the state in which experience is disengaged from other people’ (Koch,
1994: 44), with disengagement being fourfold, ‘in perception, thought, emotion, and action’
(Koch, 1994: 57). There is no ‘pure’ or ‘perfect’ solitude as ‘the world is ultimately inescapable’
(Koch, 1994: 76) except perhaps through death. But one can achieve more solitude the greater
the disengagement, and the more ways in which one is disengaged. In Koch’s account, solitude
is an experience, neither positive nor negative – it can be chosen or enforced, an experience
accompanied by pleasure or pain, joy or suffering. Although he extolls the value and the virtues of
solitude, he is aware of its dangers and harms. This seems to be a tremendously broad definition
of solitude, and yet it hangs on one characteristic that is all-too-often taken for granted. The
disengagement is disengagement from ‘other people’. Thoreau’s solitudinous engagement with
loons (Thoreau, 2006: 148), Shepherd’s (2011) engagement with the Cairngorms or Lindén’s
(2018) engagement with sheep: are they really solitudinous? Naess (2008) describes a personal
world in his deep ecology. Drawing on Spinoza (1955), he does not differentiate contact with (and,
therefore, withdrawal from) human beings from contact with and withdrawal from other animals,
plants and non-living objects. ‘Personhood’ in his account is therefore radically post-human –
and closer, in that way, to Hindu accounts, where humanity is not as central to personhood as
it is in most Jewish, Christian and Muslim traditions. And even the Hindu/Buddhist enstasy, in
which a person withdraws from the whole world, is, in such a withdrawal, an achievement, also,
of oneness with the whole world. As a result of enstasy through yoga, the person ‘now . . . sees
the self in all being standing, all beings in the self’ (Zaehner, 1992: 348). So solitude involves
disengagement from people (for Koch, 1994) and – in some traditions such as those of Hinduism/
Buddhism – from all of the world, but in these senses it is ultimately impossible. Even in death,
when it could be said (for those without a belief in reincarnation or the afterlife) that we achieve
total disengagement, we also (at least) return – ashes to ashes, dust to dust – to the earth from
which we came (see also Chapter 23 in this Handbook).

Researching Solitude in Settings

The literature on solitude includes a number of accounts in practice settings and across the
lifespan. Positive versions of solitude in religious communities are described by theologians

4
 Introduction

such as William of St-Thierry (quoted previously), Georgianna (1981) on anchoress traditions

(and see also Savage and Watson, 1991) or Julian of Norwich’s (1966) writings as herself an
anchoress. Hide (2001) describes Julian’s use of ‘oneing’, a unity – the ‘oneness’ implied by
‘alone’ (‘all one’) and by ‘solitude’ – related, he says, to the modern word ‘atonement’ (i.e.
‘at-one-ment’) (Hide, 2001: 53). Jantzen writes of Julian’s approach to solitude in the modern
world, suggesting there might be ‘part-time’ anchoresses and anchorites ‘of the heart’ (Jantzen,
2000: xxiii). Negative portrayals of solitude are more common, unsurprisingly, in prison settings.
Solitary confinement in prisons is a well-established practice, and there is some research there,
such as Smith (2006) and Eastaugh (2017) which focus on the harm typically done by solitude
in prison. The interesting work by O’Donnell (2014) addresses solitary confinement and also
the ‘pathological’ loneliness of prisoners and the role of silence – and the ways in which some
prisoners in solitary confinement are able to survive and live well beyond or even in prison,
notwithstanding their incarceration. O’Donnell’s work also refers to the work on solitude in
monastic settings, mentioned previously. Another setting in which punitive solitude is studied
is schooling. Barker et al. make an explicit link to prisons in their account of the practice in
schools of isolating individual children or young people in ‘isolation booths’ or ‘seclusion units’
(also perversely referred to by many schools as ‘inclusion units’), asking whether these forms
of seclusion make the inhabitants ‘pupils or prisoners’ (Barker et al., 2010). There are positive
accounts of solitude in school too, notably Lees’s account of spaces for silence, away from others,
as ‘[t]here is something magical about having a place to retreat to; a sanctuary for the mind that is
laden with thoughts’ (Lees, 2012: 100, and see Chapter 2 of this Handbook). Similar accounts can
be found in Kessler (2000) and Lantieri (2001). In old age, solitude may be portrayed as inevitable
as older generations and then contemporaries die, and the elderly are ‘[l]essened, impoverished,
[and] in exile in the present day’ (de Beauvoir, 1972: 498). That presents an interesting idea of
being historically, rather than geographically, exiled.

Silence: Soundless, Unvoiced or Quietude

The overlap between solitude and silence in the work of Lees (2012), O’Donnell (2014) and
many other quoted previously may suggest that silence is itself simply an oral/aural form of
solitude, linked to dictionary definitions referring to the absence or omission of speech as well
as the absence of all sound (OED, 2005, mentioned previously). I use that approach myself,
saying that although silence is often described simply as the absence of sound, when people
talk of silence they usually refer to a kind of disengagement. As Kierkegaard says, ‘because the
human being is able to speak, the ability to be silent is an art, and a great art precisely because
this advantage of his [sic] so easily tempts him’ (Kierkegaard 2000: 333). If solitude is a form of
disengagement ‘in perception, thought, emotion, and action’ (Koch, 1994: 57), then silence may
be experienced as primarily perceptual (not listening or hearing: aural) and actional (not speaking
or making other intentional sounds: oral) disengagement (Stern, 2014: 147–8, Stern & Wałejko,
2020). This oral/aural disengagement is one way of understanding silence, among many ways
– as with solitude. (Some of these various understandings are represented in this Handbook.)
And, like solitude, silence can be a positive or negative, chosen or imposed, experience (Lees,
2012, and Chapter 2 of this Handbook). Silence is also, like solitude, ultimately impossible
to achieve, at least for those with hearing. Those who have had hearing and who lose all hearing
may experience this as total silence, although most people described as having profound hearing

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loss will retain experiences of some sounds.1 (It is difficult to describe those who have never
had any hearing as experiencing ‘silence’, any more than human beings’ inability to directly
experience radioactivity can be experienced as a ‘loss’ of a sense that has never existed.) The
phrase ‘silent as the grave’ does not indicate that the dead experience silence, but rather that
the living can no longer hear from or communicate with those in the grave. Even that is an
ambiguous phrase, as people may talk to the grave of friends or relatives, and find their ‘silence’ an
encouragement to further talk. For that and related reasons, silence seems – more than solitude – to
indicate the ineffable, as described with respect to Wittgenstein’s silence (in the Conclusion to
this Handbook).

Researching Silence in Settings

There are various settings in which silence is researched. St Augustine talks of his infancy, being
‘quietened by bodily delights’ (Augustine, 1991: 7). A small but growing current literature on
silence for children and young people includes the work of Lees (2012), mentioned previously,
which provides a particularly useful distinction between what she refers to as ‘weak’ and ‘strong’
silence, the former being framed in this chapter as negative or punitive, the latter as positive
and sought. Lees also distinguishes between ‘techniqued’ and ‘untechniqued’ silences, with the
former including meditative and mindfulness practices, the latter simply taking opportunities
for a quiet and reflective time. (See also Chapter 11 in this Handbook, on adolescent silences.)
Alerby writes about schools while drawing on the whole lifespan of experience of oppressive
silencing. ‘Whoever has been forced into silence’, she says, ‘for example through repression and
the exercise of power, can eventually experience him or herself to have no voice, and therefore
unable to be heard’ (Alerby, in Hägg & Kristiansen, 2012: 71, and Chapter 14 of this Handbook).
Sauntson and Borba (Chapter 13 of this Handbook) write of the relationship between silence/
silencing and sexuality. Alongside oppressive silence is the silence of complicity: ‘[i]t is not the
evil nature of evil people, but the silence of good people that is dangerous, according to Hannah
Arendt’ (Alerby, in Hägg and Kristiansen, 2012: 71). Fanon, similarly, writes of political silences
and ‘the silenced nation’ (Fanon, 1963: 57, and see also Chapter 6 of this Handbook). Alerby also
describes positive uses of silence such as increasing the length of time teachers wait for a response,
which leads to not only longer answers but also more reflective and speculative answers (Alerby,
in Hägg & Kristiansen, 2012: 73, and see also Chapter 10 of this Handbook). Both positive and
negative versions of adult silence are described, such as in the idea of the ‘quiet professional’
(in contrast to the ‘silenced’ professional) as promoted by Pirrie (2019, and see Chapter 15 of
this Handbook). References to silence in old age are more often negative. The ‘unvoicing’ of the
elderly is commonly described, with Arendt casually referring to ‘marginal social conditions like
old age’ (Arendt, 2004: 615). One form of silence that is, to an extent, ‘chosen’ and yet usually
portrayed as negative is that of selective mutism. Although such self-silencing may be portrayed
in popular fiction as experienced as a response to trauma (as in Hannibal Lecter’s portrayal in
Harris, 2006), there is evidence that it is more symptomatic of extreme social anxiety without
prior trauma (Black, 1995).

Loneliness: Emotion or Existential State

Solitude and silence are both ‘experiences’, and are both at least somewhat subjective experiences
of aloneness. Wordsworth writes of wandering alone, and in noticing some daffodils, achieves

6
 Introduction

a sense of solitude, an example of ‘the . . . communion with the natural and the spiritual world
that can be reached through contemplation in solitude’ (Bound Alberti, 2019: 207, and see also
Chapter 7 in this Handbook). Both solitude and silence can be associated with and experienced
alongside a whole range of emotions, positive and negative. Loneliness, in contrast, is itself
an emotion, at least in current usage (Bound Alberti, 2019). The origins of the words ‘lonely’,
‘alone’ and ‘solitude’ are similar (as described previously), all relating to ‘oneness’. Yet, as it
has developed since the nineteenth century (in some social contexts), loneliness has become an
emotion and, as an emotion, combines a negative affect (i.e. pain or suffering) with an associated
interpretation of that pain (as in the theory of emotions of Spinoza, 1955: 173–85). One of my
own definitions of loneliness in this form was ‘loneliness is pain accompanied by the idea of
love that is now absent, when that pain is accompanied by self-rejection, for example because
the absence is thought to be “deserved”’ (Stern, 2014: 182). More recently (Stern, 2021), I have
written of the ‘three dimensions’ of loneliness, these being, first, a sense of separation (whether
physical or attitudinal); second, a sense of rejection; and third, a sense of self-rejection – with all
accompanied by pain or suffering. Such an emotion-definition of loneliness is clearly context-
dependent, and there are – as mentioned previously – several authors (notably Mijuskovic,
2012 and Domeracki, 2018, and Chapters 16 and 1 of this Handbook) who describe the ‘lonely’
situation of human beings as a necessary existential state. In that model, loneliness is no longer
seen as an emotion – as people may not experience pain or suffering (or may not recognize their
pain/suffering) but are still essentially lonely.

Researching Loneliness in Settings

There seems to be a much larger (and rapidly increasing) literature on loneliness, in contrast to
the literatures on solitude and silence, perhaps because many see loneliness as an ‘ailment’ to
be ‘cured’. The loneliness literature includes extensive accounts of professional approaches in
psychology (Margalit, 2010, Chapters 17 and 18 of this Handbook), counselling (Moustakas
& Moustakas, 2004), public health (Hammond, 2018) and education (Stern, 2014) (mentioned
previously). Childhood loneliness research has a shorter history than adult loneliness research.
Rotenberg notes how some deny any loneliness exists prior to adolescence (in Rotenberg &
Hymel, 1999: 5), and he notes that there was little research literature on the topic until the 1980s
(in Rotenberg & Hymel, 1999: 3), albeit with a much larger literature now available. However,
the foundations were laid in the psychotherapeutic literature of Winnicott and Bowlby in the
1960s and 1970s (described above, and see also Chapter 16 of this Handbook). Adult loneliness
research was given a considerable stimulus by the popularity of the idea of the ‘lonely crowd’
(Reisman et al., 2000, first published in 1961) and Yates’s (2009) eleven short stories on the
theme of loneliness first published in 1957, 1961 and 1962 (including one account of childhood
loneliness). Weiss’s (1973) account is perhaps the most influential early book of research on
loneliness, and it explores adult and elder loneliness (and see also Chapters 19 and 22 of this
Handbook). On elders, Townsend notes the difference between being ‘socially isolated’ and
having ‘an unwelcome feeling of lack or loss of companionship’ (Townsend, in Weiss, 1973: 181,
original emphasis). For him, ‘[o]ne of the most striking results of the whole inquiry was that those
living in relative isolation from family and community did not always say they were lonely [, even
if a] . . . few people liked to let their children think they were lonely so the latter would visit them
as much as possible’ (Townsend, in Weiss, 1973: 181). That finding – based on the observation

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that elderly respondents were more likely to say they were lonely if their children were present –
is an excellent example of how context can affect how a person responds to research questions.
Loneliness is an ethical as well as political issue for people of all ages (see Horowski, Wray, and
Iwański, in Chapters 20, 21 and 22 of this Handbook).
More recently, along with ‘ministers of loneliness’ (described previously), concerns over
loneliness in old age has also led to the setting up of the ‘campaign to end loneliness’, which
quotes Holt-Lunstad in saying that ‘lacking social connections is as damaging to our health as
smoking 15 cigarettes a day’.2 Similarly, The Silver Line3 is a helpline for lonely, isolated, elderly
people – founded by Esther Rantzen, who had previously set up Childline for children and young
people.4 It should be said, however, that some of the accounts of loneliness in recent research
and practice – including that of The Silver Line – conflate various forms of social isolation with
loneliness. Research based on the UCLA Loneliness Scale (such as Cacioppo & Patrick, 2008)
ask about ‘the subjective experience known as loneliness’ (Cacioppo & Patrick, 2008: 5), and yet
the scale never asks about loneliness itself (e.g. ‘have you felt lonely?’) but instead asks about
various forms of social isolation (see Stern, 2014: 49–50).

Conclusion: A Handbook

There is a growing body of research on solitude, silence and loneliness, from various academic
perspectives and practitioner and public policy contexts. The disciplines and fields in which I have
found valuable work on the topic include education, philosophy, psychology, theology, history,
sociology, literary and cultural studies, gender and sexuality studies, health and gerontology – and
there are no doubt many more accounts in other disciplines and fields. Currently, the significant
bodies of research tend to reside in separate disciplinary ‘islands’. As editors of and contributors
to this volume, we hope to respect each of the islands while at the same time recognizing the
separate ‘islands’ as forming an archipelago.5 That is, we believe there is now a need for a book
that brings together the various ‘aloneness’ issues, and we wish to create an alliance out of the
archipelago. This sets out to be the first book to do that comprehensively, providing a serious
overview of the field that might be termed ‘solitude studies’, or for Domeracki (2018, and
Chapter 1 of this Handbook) ‘monoseology’. What brings all of the authors together is a concern
for how the experiences of solitude, silence and loneliness develop over time across the lifespan.
It is therefore a distinctly ‘educational’ project, not because the authors are all educationalists
or because we focus on formal educational institutions, but in the sense of considering how
we learn to be alone, in good and bad ways – whether in families, communities, workplaces,
care homes or, of course, in schools and higher education. We do not attempt a single view of
being alone, or of the separate concepts of solitude, silence or loneliness. As this chapter has
attempted to demonstrate, that would be impossible if we are to reflect the different perspectives
and cultures represented in the literature. Yet this is still an ‘alliance’, an alliance that recognizes
the importance of understanding solitude, silence and loneliness in their social contexts, and that
recognizes the value of bringing disciplines, settings and cultures together in dialogue.
There are other types of aloneness or separation that this Handbook does not address in such
detail (if at all), such as boredom, various ‘separating’ forms of mental health concerns (such as
schizophrenia), conditions on the autism spectrum, shyness and social anxiety, or sensory and
other physical impairments (e.g. related to hearing or speaking). There are specialist disciplines

8
 Introduction

and practice settings that will be covered in more detail than others, given a Handbook written by
thirty authors based in eleven different countries across five continents. Yet we do hope to provide
an anchor text that is the result of collaboration and dialogue, as well as systematic disciplinary
research across the range of both positivist and interpretive research methodologies. There is,
we believe, a critical mass of scholars researching in this area and we hope to stimulate further
growth in the study of, and professional practice related to, solitude, silence and loneliness. Each
of the three core concepts has its own section of the Handbook, introduced by one of the editors.
All the authors of chapters will specialize in one of the concepts, yet – as I know from my
own research – it would be impossible to keep all the loneliness out of solitude studies, or all
the silence out of loneliness studies, and so on. We invite readers to join us in asking how the
‘aloneness’ aspects of personhood can be understood, together. Some of our own conclusions are
drawn together in the final Conclusion chapter to this Handbook.

9
 Part I

Solitude


12
 Part I

Introduction

Małgorzata Wałejko

The Good Space

Now I see how much time I spent to fill the space which doesn’t need to be filled that way, because
it is a good space – my space. (Student, University of Szczecin)
Part I of this Handbook is devoted to solitude, described as ‘the good space’ by a university
student. At the time this chapter was written, students had just submitted assignments based
on giving up using their mobile phones that eat up most of their free time, for five days. The
assignments illustrated the process and results of ‘disengagement from other people’, as Koch
has defined solitude (1994: 44). Solitudinous disengagement might involve perception, thought,
emotion and action (Koch, 1994: 57) and can be either enforced or chosen. (The students’ task was
voluntary.) Thus, solitude has been described in two contrasting ways, as a form of punishment
(exile, solitary confinement or disciplinary techniques in education) and as a state to be sought
for the sake of personal or spiritual development (as hermits or – the students again).
‘I left my home to read a book on a bench. I was reading, looking up to the sky now and then.
It was beautiful, gently blue. Clouds were moving fast. The bench, book and me. Silence all
around me. Just a bench under my block became my place, where I could focus and be alone’.
‘Listening to sounds of classical music I wasn’t thinking of any missed messages. I’ve
notices a significant improvement in mood’.
‘I’m learning to value my time and devote a part of it to a talk to myself, to considerate’.
‘I admired the last autumn leaves on the trees. I haven’t spot them before’.
‘I reminded myself how I love to paint, what kind of pleasure it gives me’.
‘During my walk I encountered a few lovely places, which I necessarily wanted to register,
but I had no mobile with me . . . So, I “registered” them in my head to possess beautiful
memories’.
We read in their diaries that the ‘experiment’ opened them up to see the beauty of nature, literature
and art, their (forgotten) talents and passions, their inner world of thoughts. It revealed a deeper
attention, when a person doesn’t take a quick photograph, often never to be seen again, but looks
to see and to remember. But the first step, the primary condition to set up a process of chosen
The Bloomsbury Handbook of Solitude, Silence and Loneliness

solitude, is an agreement to disengage. That agreement is to restrain from filling up the ‘good
space’ with what randomly comes from outside: people, stimuli, superficial turmoil. Only then
can you accept the space, and can fill it in with what is truly yours, coming from the inside.
As the Polish poet, Anna Kamieńska wrote, ‘We must internally accept / solitude, / to be able
to fill it with / effort, / love, / prayer. // The solitude / which is not accepted / can not be filled’
(Kamieńska, 1995: 40).
It takes effort to accept the space – as we read in some of the following chapters – whether
this is at schools, to provide solitude practices (Chapters 2 and 3), at work, to be, for example, a
reflective leader (Chapter 5), in nature (Chapter 4), in our spiritual lives (Chapters 8 and 9) and
through art, music and literature (Chapter 7). Because of the effort and its possible fruits, Paul
Tillich named solitude ‘the glory of being alone’, in contrast to ‘the suffering of being alone’, that
is loneliness (Tillich, 1991: 4). According to Bréhant, strong souls will strengthen in solitude, and
these deserve ‘the glory’, whereas ailing souls will get stuck in it (Bréhant, 1980: 31).
On the other hand, solitude might also entail suffering, especially if it is enforced, leading
to the emotion of loneliness. In Part I we encounter such descriptions taken from the world of
politics, with the marginalized (Chapter 6), and from the world of art, music and literature, with
the experience of exile (Chapter 7).
The first of the accounts in Part I is by Piotr Domeracki, who provides us with a panoramic-
synthesizing introduction to the philosophy of solitude, which emerged in the twentieth century,
although with its origin (in its modern form) going back to the eighteenth century. Domeracki
refers to the study of solitude as ‘monoseology’, from the Greek. The increase of interest in the
issue at the beginning of the twenty-first century, he believes, is related to a ‘loneliness pandemic’,
a shared experience and ‘our collective trauma’. There are two public responses to the phenomenon,
optimistic and pessimistic, and it is pessimism that has been the more dominant. Domeracki argues
that contemporary culture promotes narcissistic individualism, which, alongside community-creating
attitudes, leads to a ‘society of individuals’, units in fact strictly isolated by modern communication
techniques. Modern times typically involve a narcissistic concentration on oneself (and having an
audience), with a deconcentration on the other, resulting in a ‘society of the spectacle’.
Chapters 2 and 3 consider schooling. Helen Lees in Chapter 2 presents an approach to solitude
in education as a neglected human right. We have a right to education, but do not yet have a
right to solitude. The lack of attention to solitude in schooling – however popular mindfulness
and other meditative practices have become – might be partly caused by the association with its
negative, punitive forms. Lees describes how in school, where cooperation and collaboration
are promoted, solitude may be seen as political resistance, a rebellion against manipulation. So
solitude can play a role of protector in a busy school community, as it enables children to keep
a comfortable distance from each other, preventing some violence. Standing apart from others,
reference to the norm of the learning community supports constructing otherness. Lees refers
to the problem of technology, specifically exacerbated by the remote education resulting from
the Covid-19 pandemic. The distinction is made between solitudinous ‘busyness’ and solitude
as an experience of enstasy, protected from the harmful influence of others. According to Lees,
students need to realize what ‘productive solitude’ can be, in a hyper-connected world. She goes
on to consider the status of solitude in ‘alternative education’, but returns at the end of the chapter
to consider possible spaces for solitude in schools and the contribution to health and well-being
of the right to think in peace and privacy, undisturbed.

14
 Introduction

In Chapter 3, Michael T Buchanan provides insights from a qualitative study of solitude

and the goals of Catholic education. Because social interaction is a basic feature of humanity,
isolation has often been viewed negatively. But too much sociality can be stressful and oppressive.
Schools are learning communities, where dialogical interaction is referred to as the main method
of education, while solitude has been associated with disciplinary strategies. Buchanan’s study
on Religious Education leadership in Catholic schools identifies the need for planned solitude
opportunities for leaders, teachers and students at all levels of schooling. Buchanan describes
how solitude practices can help foster positive socialization (and, paradoxically, the sense of
inclusion), creativity, and independent thought. Therefore, teachers should seek for these
practices. Solitude experiences in the Catholic tradition are described in terms of the life and
teachings of Jesus, along with monastic traditions. Although Catholic schools in Australia in the
nineteenth and twentieth centuries used to offer various forms of solitude (such as retreats and
worship), now they concentrate more on communal settings rather than on solitude.
Amanda Fulford in Chapter 4 explains what it means to experience solitude in nature. By
studying key works on the theme by Henry David Thoreau, the nineteenth-century American
philosopher, and Nan Shepherd, the twentieth-century author and poet, Fulford asks if solitude
can be equated with solitariness. Their ways of perceiving are compared and solitude is described
as a kind of communion and presence stemming from attentiveness to what surrounds us. Both
Thoreau and Shepherd are richly poetic and philosophical, as is Fulford’s Chapter 4. Solitude
is not just being without human others in the outdoors: we are opened up to the possibilities
of society with nature herself. Fulford finds some remarkable lines connecting Shepherd’s and
Thoreau’s works, with solitude described by both as ‘less an absence than a form of presence’.
For Shepherd it was not solitude in the mountains that she craved; it was rather the friendship and
company of the mountains. Moreover, she walked with an unnamed companion and it did not
distract from but enhanced the silence. Thoreau’s preference for solitude was not a simple aversion
to society and a rejection of hospitality of people, animals and ideas: he drew readers’ attention to
the unfamiliar and the foreign. They both pursued relationships with others and sought solitude
in nature apart from people. Although solitude in nature, as described by Thoreau and Shepherd,
may not be a model for everyone, we can instead experience solitude in nature in urban locations
‘as communion with one’s surroundings that foster a particular kind of engagement and attention
that brings the ordinary into presence such that we see things in a new way’. Attention of this
kind involves a lack of intention, just pure waiting without judgement. Attention is our hope for
solitude in the midst of the ordinary life.
Chapter 5 by David Weir presents solitude as a chance for business leaders to build latent
strength, to work on reflection, critique, introspection and, in consequence, improve their
leadership capabilities. Part I reviews theories of leadership emphasizing judgement skills as the
core of effectiveness when a leader faces wicked problems. Readers will find here an analysis
of leadership as connected with action, a list of capabilities – cognitive, intuitive, charismatic –
that a good leader should possess. According to conventional theories, leaders need to focus on
response mechanisms, but concentrating on ‘how to get things done’ instead of ‘whether they are
worth doing’ is problematic. ‘Wicked problems’ require emotional intelligence as well as good
judgement, and solitude provides a chance to confront who you (really) are, a foundational state
of being human. Weir believes that the value of solitude is increasingly recognized in leadership
and management training. He focuses on the need for ‘wilderness’ in leadership education.

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Wilderness takes its inspiration from the biblical account of Jesus and Essene philosophy. This is
the ‘temptation’ takes place, a ‘trying out’, ‘testing’ or ‘practising for future’. In the wilderness
one learns new ways and better methods, as Jesus preparing himself for the ultimate test. Thus,
solitude is an opportunity for leaders to create latent capability made possible by ‘the open mind,
open heart and open will’. Finally, Weir enumerates the benefits that leaders might acquire from
wilderness time.
Henrieta Șerban and Aleksander Cywiński in Chapter 6 describe how solitude is a political
issue for individuals and for states. Individuals in solitude, as described by Hobbes and
Machiavelli, seem to have a ‘need’ for states and yet they cannot avoid a fundamental loneliness.
The philosophy of Blaga helps explain how solitude can lead to action, while Arendt, Honneth
and Habermas tie this into the possibilities of democracy. In the pandemic, are the positive or
negative aspects of political solitude – the estrangement or the activism – going to predominate?
And just as solitude is an important lens through which to consider individual people in political
systems, so, also, are whole states. Countries may be described both positively and negatively,
actively and passively, as alone on the world’s stage. Terms like ‘loneliness’ and ‘solitude’ are
appropriate when considering how states reject or are rejected by other states, just as sociability
and intimacy would be relevant to considerations of international political alliances. The macro-
and micro-political aspects of solitude and loneliness provide new ways to consider politics and
new ways to consider aloneness.
Chapter 7, by Julian Stern, explores solitude in literature, music and art, starting with an
explanation of why art can be used alongside conventional research to help understand solitude.
In the pre-Romantic period exile and ecstasy are described as the most characteristic forms
of solitude. The Roman writer Ovid, exiled himself, created a body of exile literature. Stern
notes that the very first use of the word ‘lonely’ was by Shakespeare, associated with exile, and
Shakespeare also helped create a modern, emotional, sense of loneliness. The second solitude
theme of that time was ecstasy, commonly described in religious traditions of the desert, alone
in a cave or living as hermits or anchoresses. In the Romantic period we encounter the artist
as a solitary figure and solitude itself as sought, mainly in nature. Wordsworth, one of the
most significant Romantic poets of solitude, eagerly used the word ‘lonely’ but in the meaning
related to a place more than to an emotion; Hölderlin, in contrast, is seen as describing more
emotional loneliness. For visual representations of the solitary-artist-in-nature, Friedrich is well
known. Romantic musicians of solitude include Liszt and Paganini, both charismatic virtuoso
performers, standing on the concert stage as on a solitary mountain-top – in danger of falling
into solipsism.
In post-Romantic arts, solitude has three faces. Lonesomeness, related to a risk of the loss
of nature, is artistically described through images of American cowboys, outlaws and frontiers,
and through the poetry of Dickinson and Whitman. There is a return of exilic literature, too.
The second face of post-Romantic solitude is that of suppressed/oppressed sexuality leading
to the sense of isolation or rejection (in literature represented by Hall, Wilde and Larkin). And
the third solitude theme is that of alienation, considered in theology, philosophy and literature
(Hegel, Feuerbach, Marx, Kierkagaard, Satre, Dickens, Rilke, Kafka, Thoreau). Stern finishes
his analysis with solitude in post-Romantic music – as more solitary than social. Although the
chapter does not attempt a comprehensive account of solitude, it illustrates a wide range of
traditions influential on the human experience of solitude.

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 Introduction

Chapters 8 and 9 touch on the issue of spirituality and solitude. Chapter 8, by Wong Ping Ho,
describes how Confucianism, as one of pillars of Chinese culture, on one hand describes solitude
as not the ultimate way to human fulfilment, but on the other hand puts a great emphasis on
solitudinous practices of self-cultivation. The cultivation of personal life including making the
will sincere, extending knowledge, improving the mind – all these involve solitude and form the
foundation of an active and social life.
Wong notes the ubiquity of the solitude motif in Chinese culture, evidenced with examples
from the classical canon, painting and poetry. The term ‘xianju’ (‘dwelling at ease’, ‘living alone
away from people’) frequently appears in Chinese poetry as well as in titles of numerous Chinese
paintings and lute music. The plot of wild solitude with perhaps a few contemplative figures is
the norm for Chinese landscape paintings, and many poems present their authors being alone,
usually in a melancholic mood. The melancholy is caused by following one of Confucius’s
remarks, that although social life is generally seen as most praiseworthy, good people should
not accept the corrupt world and may appropriately retire in solitude instead. It does not mean
a rejection of society, but a critical reflection on one’s social roles and self-reflection in the
service of the community. Furthermore, the Confucian idea of ‘vigilance in solitude’ (‘shendu’)
is introduced, a way of using solitude to check on and refrain from improper thoughts that
might lead to evil acts, and a way of achieving spiritual well-being. As well as supporting self-
monitoring, vigilance is also interpreted as a meditative practice; these two practices might be
complementary. Although Confucianism is focused on the interpersonal dimension, it allows
‘worthy people to go into reclusion’ with the well-being of humankind in mind; but, in fact,
human subjectivity is as important as relationship. It is traditional in China to withdraw regularly
from social ties for the sake of self-cultivation, turning to the ancients, great authors of the past,
to lute playing, landscapes painting, poetry or contact with nature. All these practices cultivate a
spiritual solitude and lead to the attainment of full humanity.
Gillian Simpson in Chapter 9 explores and assesses two perspectives on solitude in religion:
ordinary or ‘structured’ solitudes, from within religious traditions, offering to enhance spiritual
growth by ‘strictly’ regulated forms, and deep solitude, proposed by inspirational religious
writers who dared to move beyond the ‘structured’ forms and encountered their own traditions
in non-conventional ways. Simpson starts by explaining historical approaches to solitude,
focusing on Judaism and Christianity. The differences between them are evident. Judaism is
defined as ‘peoplehood’, so personal solitude is considered problematic. Yet, notwithstanding
the ‘peoplehood mentality’, there is evidence of contemplative solitude within the Jewish
tradition. Christian spirituality built on the unity of the community and common liturgy, but
a growing need to retreat to the desert emerged. The early pioneers sought a balance between
spiritual insight through solitude and the communal nature of the church. After the eighteenth-
century wave of collective approaches to social welfare, voices emerged expressing the need for
seclusion together with the broad cultural movement towards subjectivity. In the modern church,
an increased interest in personal devotion is observed. Simpson then introduces approaches to
solitude in contemporary Judaism and Christianity, finding ‘the spaces between’ and presenting
manifestations of the growth of deep solitude in both traditions. She makes a distinction between
ordinary solitude through organized disciplines and deep (free) solitude chosen by the ‘religious
virtuosos’, who ‘from within the boundaries of their own traditions form bridges between
religious affiliations and secular life’.

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The Bloomsbury Handbook of Solitude, Silence and Loneliness

Both the free thoughts from student assignments referred to at the beginning of this chapter,
and the specialist chapters that follow, lead to one conclusion: solitude is not an end in itself,
but a path (Wałejko, 2016: 98). ‘The good space, my space’ seems to be a place that helps a
person flourish – whether morally and spiritually (as in the chapters by Wong and Simpson),
or aesthetically (as in Fulford and Stern), or in terms of caring of various kinds (as in Lees,
Buchanan, Șerban and Cywiński). Nouwen maintains that we cannot just divide people to two
groups: those who enjoy solitude, and those who feel lonely. ‘Each of us is constantly moving
between these two poles, . . . but if we can recognise the poles . . . we don’t have to feel lost
anymore and we are able to see the direction we want to pursue’ (Nouwen, 1994: 54).

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 1

The Philosophy of Solitude

Piotr Domeracki

To the memory of John Gregory McGraw (1934–2019), ‘Professor of aloneness’

Introduction

Solitude is one of those issues that probably leave no one indifferent. This happens if not
because it arouses natural curiosity, then at least because it concerns every human being without
exception. It fits – which is one of the guiding theses of this chapter – into the framework of
human existence, being its inalienable component and distinguishing feature. It is possible that
solitude does concern not only people but all social beings in general, capable of perceiving their
own situation and the states associated with it in terms of ‘pleasant – unpleasant’. In view of the
material subject matter of this study – solitude as framed within and in the context of human life –
as far removed as possible from anthropocentric declarations, I only signal the possibility, or the
need, of extending or complementing the study of solitude with elements of zoology, especially
primatology, oriented ethologically.
The philosophy of solitude is an extremely vast and intriguing field of knowledge, providing
a conceptual basis and substantive framework for every field of science that makes solitude the
object of its interest. This relatively young sub-discipline of philosophy, which emerged only in
the twentieth century, although with historical roots dating back to the distant past, and entering
into cooperation with other sciences, initiates the development of a promising field of research,
multi-area focused on solitude. I call it from the Greek ‘monoseology’.

Contemporary Solitude in Pandemic Times

The temporal aspect of the matter is not accidental here. Without going into details – undoubtedly
important, but more from the point of view of a historian of science or a historian of ideas than a
philosopher – a clear increase in interest in the issue of solitude on the part of science occurred
at the beginning of the twenty-first century. One can try to see some regularities in this fact.
The Bloomsbury Handbook of Solitude, Silence and Loneliness

They do not necessarily testify to the emergence of a certain scientific fashion, although it is
otherwise known that science can also succumb to periodic fashions. Basically, there are three
such regularities that I think deserve attention. However, I will only mention one of them because
of the specific gravity it has.
It refers to the scale of the phenomenon. It is no coincidence that many authors decide to
talk about the loneliness pandemic that characterizes our times, covering the whole world.
The American futurologist Toffler was the first to predict and describe this phenomenon in his
1980 work entitled Third Wave. It contains several key passages, which are worth quoting in full
to illustrate the issue:
The net effect is to carry us away from the Huxleyan or Orwellian society of faceless,
de-individualized humanoids that a simple extension of Second Wave tendencies would suggest
and, instead, toward a profusion of life-styles and more highly individualized personalities. We
are watching the rise of a ‘post-standardized mind’ and a ‘post-standardized public’ (Toffler,
1980: 273). [. . .] Community offsets loneliness. It gives people a vitally necessary sense of
belonging. Yet today the institutions on which community depends are crumbling in all the
techno-societies. The result is a spreading plague of loneliness (Toffler, 1980: 383). [. . .]
loneliness is no longer an individual matter but a public problem created by the disintegration
of Second Wave institutions [. . .] (Toffler, 1980: 385). [. . .] The hurt of being alone is,
of course, hardly new. But loneliness is now so widespread it has become, paradoxically, a
shared experience (Toffler, 1980: 384). [. . .] This will bring its own social, psychological,
and philosophical problems, some of which we are already feeling in the loneliness and social
isolation around us. (Toffler, 1980: 273)
From Toffler’s words, there is an observation worth emphasizing: this is not why solitude
intrigues contemporary researchers as if it were a completely new phenomenon – after all, it is,
as McGraw notes, to whose memory I dedicate this chapter, ‘the eternal and immortal human
Nemesis’. (McGraw, 2000: 11) – but because it has historically been underrecorded. Loneliness
has nowadays become a global phenomenon, commonly felt and experienced – as Toffler says –
collectively (Toffler, 1980: 384). We live in an era of loneliness which has become our collective
trauma, but also an opportunity and challenge. Toffler’s observation, however, narrowed down
to loneliness, allows for a philosophical generalization towards solitude, which in the most
fundamental sense is an inalienable element of human destiny, defining – as José Ortega y Gasset
is convinced to say – ‘what is the most human’ (Ortega y Gasset, 1982: 376).
The loneliness virus (Kruczyński, 2010) is now spreading not only in terms of time and space
(occurring simultaneously in different parts of the world) but also mentally and culturally. In this
way, it acquires the meaning of a contemporary cultural universal, becoming a sign of our times,
their emblematic distinguishing feature. In the public space, in the media, in cultural products, in
educational programmes and practices – which on the one hand serve as a catalyst for changes
taking place in every sociocultural and political-economic system, and on the other hand, in a
way, these changes absorb and transform into their own codes – two general moods dominate,
piercing through their dominant attitude to solitude. The author of the term ‘general moods’,
Dilthey, includes optimism and pessimism (Dilthey, 1993: 43). Depending on which of these
moods prevails, such interpretations of solitude arise: either optimistic or pessimistic, which then
rival each other. Needless to say, that as a rule the latter prevails over the former, although the

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 The Philosophy of Solitude

proportions between them are not so obvious. The result is an adversarial cultural mechanism
that generates contradictory lifestyles and models of behaviour whose negative consequences and
resulting difficulties – speaking in the spirit of the somewhat ironic maxim of Kisielewski – are
then heroically overcome (Kisielewski, 1990: 42).

Both Connected and Disconnected

On the one hand, we are now dealing with a strong emphasis on expansive individualism
(Bokszański, 2008: 59–63), which the Renaut and his colleague Ferry call hyperindividualism
(Renaut, 2001: 68; Ferry, 1994: 34–5); on the other hand, there are loud and firm calls from all over
the world for integration, cooperation and the expansion of areas of solidarity (Rorty, 2009: 292–3)
in order to build a modern, cosmopolitan (Appiah, 2008) but not collective society and state,
focused on the individual, which will be inclusive and not exclusive (Szahaj, 2008: 83–94). Popper
called such a society ‘open’, and obsessively excluded from it all organic, tribal ties, until it became
an ‘abstract society’ (Popper, 1993: 197). To illustrate his idea, Popper resorted to a deliberate
exaggeration in his description in order to emphasize the constitutive features of such a creation.
Imagine a society whose members practically do not meet face-to-face, where all matters
are handled by strictly isolated individuals, communicating with each other by letter or
telegraph and moving from place to place in closed cars. (Artificial insemination may enable
reproduction without human intervention.) Such a fictional society could be called a ‘totally
abstract or depersonalised society’. (Popper, 1993: 197)
Popper’s prophetic vision is only two steps away from reality and probably only because it was
created in 1945: ‘strictly isolated’, and therefore lonely individuals no longer use telegraph, but
mobile phones and the internet to make contact with each other more effective, and a society
made up of such individuals – which Elias described as a ‘society of individuals’ (Elias, 2008) –
it is not fictional anymore. Just look around. In Popper’s image, special attention is paid to
the ambivalence of the role that modern communication techniques, tools and vehicles play
in people’s lives. Modern information and communication technologies (ICT) appear to bring
people closer to each other; however, it seems that people have become unprecedentedly distant
from and alien to each other.
At least three elements have changed in this context, illustrated by significant changes to
the ontological triad (person – tools – world) and the communication triad (sender – medium –
recipient). First of all, there has been the virtualization of reality and the realization of the virtual
(Korab, 2010; Sobczak, 2014, 19; Morbitzer, 2016). Contemporary humanity functions not so
much at the intersection of the two worlds – real and virtual, as a person penetrates and becomes
established in the cybernetic augmented reality, finding in it an asylum and a springboard from
the ills of the real world of life, from which the person consequently alienates himself/herself.
Second, we are dealing with an empowering humanization of ICT and an objectifying
technicalization of people, their world and human relations. From people and networks of relations
with them, devices, carriers, gadgets, accessories, in a word, technical equipment become more
important. It ceases to be seen as a mere means of communication and begins to be treated as
an end in itself. Accordingly, the relationship with the person loses its importance. Much more
important turns out to be the contact with a personalized device, which becomes deanonymized
as an object. Turkle provides valuable confirmation of this issue:

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While my computer science colleagues were immersed in getting computers to do ingenious

things, I had other concerns. How were computers changing us as people? My colleagues
often objected, insisting that computers were ‘just tools.’ But I was certain that the ‘just’ in that
sentence was deceiving. We are shaped by our tools. And now, the computer, a machine on the
border of becoming a mind, was changing and shaping us. (Turkle, 2011: X)
Augé writes that one of the four basic characteristics of contemporary Paris, and more broadly of
the contemporary Western world, is ‘the intensification of the feeling of loneliness, paradoxically
accompanying the expansion of communication technology’ (Mikułowski Pomorski, 2009: 6).
Third, finally, we observe an increase in individuals’ narcissistic concentration on themselves
with a simultaneous deconcentration on the other. He or she is needed only as a viewer, observer,
follower, subscriber, commentator, admirer or flatterer. In fact, it is not about any relationship, let
alone a bond, but about having an audience, about being able to show oneself, about being noticed,
about coming out of the shadows, about finding uncritical followers. This is unfortunately not an
isolated case, but a general and intense tendency, probably involving all electrified, computerized
and networked societies. Debord rightly reserves for them the name ‘the society of the spectacle’
(Debord, 2006). Its key and most desirable feature is ‘visibility as a sign of prestige and personal
meaning’ (Szahaj, 2015: 11–12) of an individual who builds his or her self-esteem ‘by presenting
himself or herself in the media’ (Szahaj, 2015: 12), even social ones. The thing is – what the
narcissistic individual, absorbed by self-presentation and the search through it for approval,
appreciation and admiration from others who are reduced to the role of (re)viewers, usually does
not see – that, as Debord states, ‘the alpha and omega of the spectacle is separation’ (Debord,
2006: §25, 40), understood here as a common alienation, producing the abstract seclusion of
‘lonely crowds’ (Debord, 2014: §28, 10).
[§29] The spectacle was born from the world’s loss of unity [. . .]. [. . .] In the spectacle, a
part of the world represents itself to the world and is superior to it. The spectacle is simply
the common language of this separation. Spectators are linked solely by their one-way
relationship to the very center that keeps them isolated from each other. The spectacle thus
reunites the separated, but it reunites them only in their separateness (Debord, 2014: 10).
[§30] The alienation of the spectator, which reinforces the contemplated objects that result
from his own unconscious activity, works like this: the more he [sic] contemplates, the less he
lives; the more he identifies with the dominant images of need, the less he understands his own
life and his own desires. The spectacle’s estrangement from the acting subject is expressed by
the fact that the individual’s gestures are no longer his own; they are the gestures of someone
else who represents them to him. The spectator does not feel at home anywhere, because the
spectacle is everywhere (Debord, 2014, 10–11). [. . .] [§28] The reigning economic system is
a vicious circle of isolation. Its technologies are based on isolation, and they contribute to that
same isolation. From automobiles to television, the goods that the spectacular system chooses
to produce also serve it as weapons for constantly reinforcing the conditions that engender
‘lonely crowds’. (Debord, 2014: 10)
The abstract object of Popper’s desires is materialized here in the empirical concrete of Debord.
He shows that the essence of the spectacle, which is the hallmark of the contemporary society
(which no longer belongs only to the Euro-Atlantic civilization, but also to the global one) and
consists in people being seen by others only to be admired by them for their appearance and

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 The Philosophy of Solitude

personality (Lasch, 1979: 59) – not necessarily for knowledge, competence, merit or actions,
these are not the source of social prestige and recognition today – despite its concreteness, is
the abstraction that produces abstractions (Debord, 2014: §29, 10). It should be understood
that although every form of ICT-mediated social self-presentation seems concrete, because it
is always done by a concrete person at a specific time and place, it is nevertheless, due to its
carefully directed, theatrical, spectacular character, in which the authentic, concrete Self gives
way to the currently simulated (created) and thus abstract Self, the physical concreteness of
self-presentation is abolished and replaced by its imaginative, abstract embodiments, one after
another.
The categories developed by Debord, which characterize ‘the society of the spectacle’, prove
surprisingly topical and very helpful while trying to describe the impact that ICT are having
on the consolidation of information-based societies in the twenty-first century – which Marian
Golka, as a sociologist, suggests calling more appropriately ‘technological society’ or ‘high-tech
society’ (Golka, 2005: 255), and Zbigniew Brzeziński as a ‘technotronic society’ (Brzeziński,
1970: 10) – extremely individualistic cultures and practices, leading to social isolation and
various forms of solitude.

Minimal Self – Maximal Solitude

Lasch completes the picture of the whole, developing the concept of a ‘minimal self’ which
perfectly fits into the realities of Popper’s ‘minimal society’ (Pietrzyk-Reeves, 2012: 248).
‘Minimal’ is synonymous with ‘narcissistic’. What, according to Lasch, characterizes the minimal
self most fully is the fearful uncertainty as to what it is or rather what it would like, should
or may become. Individuals, absorbing their surroundings with themselves and their constant
metamorphoses, want either to transform the world into their own image or to blend into it in
a blissful union (Lasch, 1984: 19). ‘The minimal self is not just a defensive response to danger
but arises out of a more fundamental social transformation: the replacement of a reliable world
of durable objects by a world of flickering images that make it harder to distinguish reality from
fantasy’ (Lasch, 1984: 19).
In Lasch’s perspective, we are confronted with further troublesome paradoxes. Contemporary
humans cannot accept themselves as they are in reality or the world around them in its given
condition. Perhaps there would be nothing surprising or problematic about it, if it were not for
the fact that – as Lasch claims – people are narcissists. There is little more ridiculous than the
sight of narcissists not reconciled with their own reflections. But such is the peculiarity of the
contemporary narcissist. The person looks with pleasure not so much at the mirror image of his
or her own Self, but at the imaginary Self, each time created and constantly corrected until a
temporary aesthetic satisfaction is achieved, raised to the power of abstraction. Modifying the
term, introduced to philosophy by Sellars (1968: 222 et passim), we can precisely describe the
narcissist understood in this way as ‘I-intention’. It is the intended Self (Krokos, 2013: 190–1;
Rosiak, 2009), that is to say, that to which the individual’s attention is directed, spontaneously or
purposefully; that which is the object of his or her desire, the result of plasticity and mobility of
his or her imagination. In a word, it is the Imagined Self, constructed, and therefore – following
the rhetoric of Rorty – it is the contingent ego (Rorty, 2009: 50–80; in the original: Rorty, 1989:
23–43).

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The concept of Lasch’s ‘minimal self’ has lost little of its relevance and continues to stimulate
researchers to redefine it. The era of the individualism of ‘psychological man’ – as Larry D.
Nachmann (Nachmann, 1979: 176) has put it extremely aptly and eloquently – not only has
reached its end, but it now seems to be reaching its peak. Its symptom is the scourge of solitude.
In order to highlight the scale and seriousness of the problem, Imogen Tyler describes the cultural
history of narcissism as a transition from the contemporary Lasch’s ‘The Me decade’ (1970s
and 1980s) to the twenty-first-century ‘The Me Millennium’ (Tyler, 2007: 358). Tyler leaves no
illusions that
Narcissism is not only central to popular and academic histories of America in the 1970s, but
is now widely attributed to a transnational generation of ‘baby-boomers’, a new generation
of new media users (television viewers, web-bloggers and game players), celebrity culture,
therapy culture and, more recently, cultures of terror. (Tylor, 2007: 358)
It is worth knowing that recently there have been appearing works that not only creatively develop
the Lasch’s concept, but which are increasingly critical of it. One such work is undoubtedly
Elizabeth Lunbeck’s book from 2014 entitled The Americanization of Narcissism. The author
accuses the American researcher of being too reductionist and obscure in his approach to
narcissism (Lunbeck, 2014).
Recent research by Mads Gram Henriksen, Josef Parnas and Dan Zahavi (Henriksen et al.,
2019) shows that the minimal self – characterized by these scholars as ‘for-me-ness’ or as ‘ipseity’
(the primordial, pre-reflexive, inconceivable phenomenal Self, which unites and unifies the
experiences of the humans, giving them a sense of existence and rootedness – Kapusta, 2007) –
is ‘a necessary, universal feature of phenomenal consciousness’ (Henriksen et al., 2019: 102770).

Contingent Ego – Casual Solitude

It is interesting to see Rorty’s career-making concept of contingency (Czerniak, 2006), especially

– though not only – in the postmodern world, rendering its services in the field of epistemology,
philosophy of language, philosophical anthropology, social philosophy, political philosophy,
philosophy of culture and even ethics. Eulogists of contingency made it an inalienable feature
of practically everything that can be embraced by thought, without excluding the latter itself.
Contingency means here: everything unnecessary, unpredictable, random, relative, contextual,
variable, impermanent, surprising, undetermined, uncontrolled, happening or accidental.
According to the contingentists such as Marquard, this is what constitutes the human condition
(Czerniak, 2006: 20). Marquard formulates a position opposed to the ‘program of human
absolutization’ (Marquard, 1994: 120–5) and states that people are the result of accidental
circumstances more than rational, well-thought-out decisions (Marquard, 1994: 122–3; Czerniak,
2006: 20–1).
Such a view, as all the others presented so far, entails important consequences from the point
of view of the philosophy of solitude. It allows us to recognize solitude in terms of contingency
as something that simply happens to a person. Like everything that happens to us in life, solitude
appears unenquired and goes away equally unenquired. It cannot be predicted or prepared for,
just as one cannot predict or prepare for the possibility of an accident, suffering, illness, loss of
job, bankruptcy, disloyalty from a friend, deception, betrayal, unfulfilled desires, disappointed
hopes, misguided investments or death. Somebody may decide to spend their life alone, but in

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the meantime, unfathomable fate will ridicule them and put them on their path as an inseparable
companion. Others will intend avoiding solitude when they suddenly – contrary to their intentions
– find themselves trapped in it. Thus, there is no justification even for the most rational and
devout strategy of meticulous and consistent planning of everything in life, because, as a matter
of fact, no one has power over contingent life which goes on blindly. So what is left for a troubled
person to do, is to try to reconcile with the course of successive accidents, accepting them with
an awareness of the common contingency of things, states, processes, phenomena and events.
Czerniak includes Rorty in the anti-fundamentalist discourse based on the idea of contingency
(Czerniak, 2006: 29–39). Rorty distinguishes three basic categories of contingency: the
contingency of language (Rorty, 2009: 21–49, 1989: 3–22), the contingency of selfhood (Rorty,
2009: 50–80; 1989: 23–43) and the contingency of a liberal community (Rorty, 2009: 81–117;
1989: 44–69). All three categories are linked, but Rorty seems to attach the greatest importance
to the third. All of them, in fact, find their culmination in it. At the same time, the category of
adventure, used to understand the organizational structure, functions and goals of social life,
appears to be relevant to philosophy of solitude. It is worth noting that Rorty – unlike Marquard –
gives a normative (postulative) meaning of contingency, not a descriptive (factual) one. This
has got a direct impact on the way the author of Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity views the
contingency of social forms of life and individual participation in them.
Contingency here becomes a synonymous with human finiteness and mortality (Rorty, 1989:
45). They indicate the inscribed a priori in every human existence, its manifestations and the
forms it takes, its limitations, ordinariness, impermanence, spontaneity and occasionality. It
follows that nothing in human life occurs in its finished form (but requires an effort of creative
commitment and work); nothing is given once and for all (because it can be lost or destroyed);
nothing is completely certain (identifiable or predictable with any accuracy) or definitive
(everything is labile, subject to constant change, redefinition, renegotiation and redistribution).
Since human life remains elusive in its essence – including for the person to whom it belongs –
and thus inscrutable, it is all the more unlikely to be acknowledged or guided by any image, idea,
standard or doctrine recommending a particular model of life claiming universality, timelessness
and indisputability.
Leaving aside the undeniable debatability of Rorty’s statements – without refusing, of course, their
validity in some aspects – let us note that they lead to conclusions of paramount importance to the
starting point of any theory of solitude developed in philosophy and, more broadly, any philosophical
reflection on humanity. It is expressed in the finding that one cannot reasonably claim that people, by
virtue of their species nature, are determined either to be alone or to live in a community. After all,
there is no substantial nucleus of existence that would constitute an objective criterion and at the same
time a universal norm of humanity. The anti-essentialist stance of Rorty harmonizes in this respect
partly with the view of Heidegger, and partly with that of Sartre, abstracting from the similarities and
differences between them (Puszko, 1992; Michalski, 1998: 140–6). For example, there is an association
between Rorty’s ‘contingency’ and Heidegger’s ‘thrownness’ (Geworfenheit). From the ontological-
existential point of view (Baran, 2004: XV–XVII), the basic situation of a person in the world is
primordially defined by the fact of being ‘given’ to this world (Heidegger, 2004: § 29, 173, 1962: § 29,
174). It consists, in short, in identifying one’s place in the world and the role we have to play in it from
birth to death, as being contingently thrown into it (Rymkiewicz, 2002: 142). What is important, it has
no sense-creative metaphysical basis, explanation, justification or direction. This thrownness belongs

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to the essence of a person (Heidegger, 1977a: 207, 1977b: 90). However, it is not ‘an essence’ in the
traditional philosophical sense (Heidegger, 1977a: 208, 1977b: 91; Rymkiewicz, 2002: 77; Drwięga,
2012, 43–4), understood as a permanent and universal substratum of being, determining its given in
advance identity, defined as belonging and generic, species or individual specificity. This is not at all
about ‘essence’ in the sense of actualitatis existentiae (actuality of existence through the realization of
an essence), which makes it possible to grasp the being as ‘fully present, here and now perceptible’,
‘as a material thing or a spiritual thing, as Someone or as Something’ (Rymkiewicz, 2002: 75). We are
only talking about ‘essence’ in the sense of the ‘characteristic of human way of being’ (Rymkiewicz,
2002: 77; Baran, 2004: XVI; Heidegger, 2004: § 5, 21; § 54, 337 et al.; 1962, § 5, 37; § 54, 312 et al.),
reduced in its interpretation to the current situation in which individuals live within their own lives’
possibilities, without ultimately exhausting their own potential or reaching the maximum limit of their
possibilities, let alone their total fullness. As a result, a person is not so much the one who becomes
each time, but what that person can (still) become until the last of the possibilities that is death, the end
of all possibilities (Heidegger, 2004: § 53, 320–36, 1962, § 53, 306–11; Rymkiewicz, 2002: 149). ‘I
am always not someone anymore, I have just stopped being someone, although at the same time I am
not yet someone, I am just going to be someone’ (Rymkiewicz, 2002: 75). Being a human being is
irrevocably marked by the stigma of negativity (Nichtheit)1 (Heidegger, 2004: § 58, 359, 1962, § 58,
331; Rymkiewicz, 2002: 145), which inevitably causes existential discomfort and a feeling of anxiety
(die Angst) (Heidegger, 2004: § 53, 335, 1962: § 53, 310).

In anxiety being becomes Nothing. This Nothing does not mean the negation of the whole of being,
it is not also the lack of something – an object or a tool – and it is also not emptiness in the sense of
an empty three-dimensional place after something (Rymkiewicz, 2002, 145). [. . .] Anxiety opens
up to us our openness: that Nowhere – which we make our home, that Nothing – from which we
only make our life, that Nobody – from which we emerge. (Rymkiewicz, 2002: 147)

As we can see, neither solitude nor communitiveness is an essential human characteristic; they do
not belong to the essence of humanity but are merely existential possibilities into which a person
is ontologically thrown and between which the person can projectively choose or into which they
can unwillingly fall.2 In this sense, referring to Sartre (Sartre, 1998: 62, 1948: 45–6), one can
say that solitude, like communitiveness, is an inalienable element of ‘a human universality of
condition’ (Sartre, 1998: 62, 1948: 46). As such, it can happen in our lives only as an opportunity
but not as an inexorable necessity. Its occurrence or absence is a result of the way in which life is
organized, the conditions in which it runs and the circumstances in which it develops.

Essential Solitude – Existential Loneliness

The Rortian recognition of solitude and communitiveness (Rorty, 2009: 106, 1989: 61) as
‘contingent events’ (Czerniak, 2006: 30) significantly contributes to their being demystified.
Solitude is naturalized, and communitiveness is no longer absolute: it is demythologized. This
philosophical position is, however, on a collision course with the equally important, if somewhat
unfashionable, approach to solitude that uses essentialist categories3 – that of Tillich (O’Meara,
1968: 251; Tillich, 1951: 163, 1955: 5; 1966: 86, 2004: 25–34, 1967: 19–28).
Tillich created a ‘philosophical theology’ (Tillich, 1966: 83, 92–3; Tolvajčić, 2019: 314–17),
which presents his own concept of alienation, situated in a decisive opposition to Hegel’s one

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(Tillich, 1967: 44–75, 125–35, 2004: 48–75, 120–8). This provides a conceptual framework
for Tillich’s analysis of solitude. Alienation, or more accurately ‘estrangement’, is a ‘quality of
the structure of existence’ (Tillich, 1967: 74, 2004: 74). Tillich describes alienation as a human
‘predicament’, that is, a nagging, difficult and embarrassing position that is the inevitable destiny
of all people, without exception. To be more precise, it should therefore be stated that ‘alienation
[or estrangement] points to the basic characteristic of man’s predicament’ (Tillich, 1967: 45,
2004: 48) and ‘indicates a fundamental characteristic of the human predicament’. (Tillich, 1967:
45, 2004: 48). This is the estrangement of a person ‘from what he [sic] essentially is’ (Tillich,
1952: 127, 1983: 126), ‘of his true being’ (Tillich, 1952: 75, 1983: 78, 1967: 45, 2004: 48).
It is, in turn, according to Tillich, the original union of a person with God, with other people
and with oneself, the ontological bond resulting from the essential belonging of a person to
‘God, his own self, our world’ (Tillich, 1967: 46, 2004: 49). That union is violently invaded and
brutally torn apart by original sin, the inevitable consequence of this existential state of ‘man’s
estrangement from God, from men, from himself’ (Tillich, 1967: 46–7, 2004: 49–50). Hence
Tillich’s ‘existential estrangement’ (Tillich, 1952: 77, 127, 1983: 79, 126).
Tillich constructs a philosophy of solitude based on the distinction between the ‘essential and
existential structure of aloneness’ (Tillich, 1967: 71, 2004: 72). This distinction has not only a
substantive value but also a normative one. Aloneness in its essential aspect is valued by Tillich
moderately positively. The existential variant of it, on the other hand, is unequivocally negatively
valued by him, entailing his decisive disapproval. In fact, we are dealing here with two different
phenomena, not just as one might think – two sides of the same phenomenon. He describes
this difference by contrasting ‘essential solitude’ and ‘existential loneliness’ (Tillich, 1967: 71,
2004: 72). The former has an ontological colouring and is linked to the individual character
of every human existence, concentrated around a guiding principle of structurally, completely
centred self, which is ‘alone in his world and the more so, the more he is conscious of himself as
himself’ (Tillich, 1967: 71, 2004: 72). This centredness, indeed, ‘cuts man off from the whole of
reality which is not identified with himself’ (Tillich, 1967: 71, 2004: 72), but it does not bear the
signs of a pathologized, misanthropic egotism. On the contrary, solitude – which Tillich describes
positively – determines the individual’s community-forming reflex. ‘Only he who is able to have
solitude is able to have communion’, he says, ‘for in solitude man experiences the dimension of
the ultimate, the true basis for communion among those who are alone’ (Tillich, 1967: 71, 2004:
72). Paradoxically, therefore, solitude, which is a consequence of the individual separateness of
each man, his ‘being alone in essential finitude’ (Tillich, 1967: 71, 2004: 72), not so much closes
the individual to communion with others as it opens up communion from the source, enabling the
person to go out towards it.
Existential loneliness, in contrast, grows and is structured from the universal predicament
of alienation. Tillich describes such loneliness as the source of ‘meaningless suffering’ (Tillich,
1967: 71, 2004: 72). The negative form of loneliness is described thus:

In existential estrangement man is cut off from the dimensions of the ultimate and is left alone –
in loneliness. This loneliness, however, is intolerable. It drives man to a type of participation in
which he surrenders his lonely self to the ‘collective’. [. . .] Therefore, the individual continues
to seek for the other one and is rejected, in part or in full; for the other one is also a lonely
individual, unable to have communion because he is unable to have solitude. Such rejection

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is the source of much hostility not only against those who reject one but also against one’s
self. In this way the essential structure of solitude and communion is distorted by existential
estrangement into a source of infinite suffering. (Tillich, 1967: 71–2, 2004: 72)
Tillich’s philosophy of aloneness can be extended a more comprehensive philosophy of solitude.

The origin, directions and methodological basis of the philosophy of solitude

Systematic philosophical reflection on solitude has a relatively short pedigree, dating back only
to the eighteenth-century work of Zimmermann (1785). The content of this treatise is a wide and
interrelated spectrum of issues and problems: from the influence of solitude upon the mind and
feelings; through the general advantages of solitude in exile, the benefits of solitude in exile,
the benefits of solitude in old age and on the deathbed, the motives that lead to the choice of
solitude; to the dark sides of solitude, its influence on the imagination, its links with melancholy,
its influence on passions; to the threat of falling into an idleness in solitude. Beck notes that
Zimmermann propagated the ideal of a life lived in withdrawal from superficial society, while
at the same time criticizing monastic isolation as being conducive to fanaticism. Solitude, for
Zimmermann, was the occasion for reflection on permanent values, and for observation of the
self. (Beck, 2016: 880)
Zimmermann’s work on solitude was also known to and influential on Schopenhauer
(Schopenhauer, 1970: 183, 285 footnote 140). Zimmermann’s historical merit is to raise solitude
to the rank of an independent philosophical issue in which the nodal problems of human life
are concentrated, as in a lens. However, this is not an analytically in-depth study, but a general
reflection of the character of a reverie on the phenomenon of solitude and its place and role in
human life, maintained in the convention of practical philosophy. Nevertheless, it makes sense to
divide the philosophy of solitude into periods before and after Zimmermann.
Solitude intrigued philosophers almost from the very beginning of their discipline. As a rule,
however, it was only mentioned, with philosophers rarely making longer statements and not going
beyond the narrow limits of an occasional diatribe or essay. The oldest surviving text of this
kind, which is a peculiar monument to the philosophy of solitude, is one ascribed to Epictetus
entitled What Is Loneliness and Who Is Lonely (Epictetus, 1961: 252–6). In the early modern
era, Montaigne devoted an essay to solitude (Montaigne, 2004: chapter XXXIX, 192–200). After
Zimmermann, solitude found a distinct place in Schopenhauer’s philosophy (Schopenhauer,
1970: 167–83) – ‘the work of old age’ (Garewicz, in Schopenhauer, 1970: 15) of this philosopher.
Otherwise, solitude is a somewhat marginal philosophical topic, although its very marginality
makes it liable in time to become more and more important and receive full philosophical
citizenship. Lîiceanu (1975, 2018) describes the fragmentary nature of the philosophy of solitude
as not so much its disadvantage as a valuable advantage. The unavoidable fragmentariness,
limitedness, particularity, in a word, the peratological (the ‘study of the margins’) character of
philosophy as such, and even more so of monothematic philosophies such as the philosophy of
solitude, Lîiceanu explains in terms of the inevitably fragmentary ‘condition of a finite conscious
being’ (Lîiceanu, 2017: 350). Due to it, ‘the only honest course of action can be expressed as
such: to write fragmentarily in the perspective of a single idea – this is our highest (and only)
form of coherence’ (Lîiceanu, 2017: 350). The philosophy of solitude should therefore take the

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form of peratology. This means that it is governed by a ‘logic of limit’, ‘which recognizes its own
limits, abandons the obsession with the Text, and naturally weighs down to a fragment, to a text
that has fallen from a paradise of thought, from a paradise that cannot be mourned because it has
never been lost and can never be found’ (Lîiceanu, 2017: 351).
Philosophies of solitude are often moderately laudatory, perhaps stemming from the personal
beliefs of the philosophers as from their observation of human existence more generally. It was
only in the twentieth century that solitude received a kind of philosophical ennoblement as a full-
fledged philosophical discourse engaging with ontology, philosophical anthropology and ethics,
along with epistemology and axiology. Ontology as a general theory of being makes it possible,
on the one hand, to embrace solitude in the broad plan of existence and, on the other hand, to
capture its own specificity. The general ontology of solitude seeks an answer to the question of
what are the existential determinants of solitude (Heidegger, 1994: § 14, 89–94, § 15, 94–102, §
16, 102–8, § 18, 118–26, § 43, 283–5, 1962: § 14, 91–5, § 15, 95–102, § 16, 102–7, § 18, 114–22,
§ 43, 244–6; Buczyńska-Garewicz, 2005: 12, 16, 18; Hoły-Łuczaj, 2013). Ontological specificity
explores the modes of solitude’s existence, being a given in human experience.
Philosophical anthropology as the philosophy of humanity recognizes solitude as an essential
element of what is specifically human, in the context of the entirety of the conditions of human
life and the place of people in the universe. It focuses on the question of who is human in context
and in confrontation with solitude or how solitude determines the human condition. To a narrower
extent, philosophical anthropology, transformed into the anthropology of solitude, asks about the
specific human determinants of solitude; about how the human being, the structure of human
existence and the habitus created (in the sense given to this term by Bourdieu, 2008: 72–89,
2001: 106–8; Matuchniak-Krasuska 2015) influence the formation of the content components of
solitude and its course and effects.
In turn ethics, as a philosophy of moral action, problematizes solitude in terms of an important
motivator of intentions, attitudes, behaviours and acts, manifested by an individual in relations
with others and with himself/herself. This is accompanied, on the one hand, by the question of
the influence of solitude on the chosen direction (goal), the choices made and the moral quality
of people’s lives, and, on the other hand, by the moral quality of the phenomenon of solitude itself
and the ethical criteria for its moral recognition or rejection.
Epistemology penetrates solitude from the angle of its cognitive qualities or, more precisely,
its conditioning or influence on the quality, scope, course and efficiency of cognitive acts of a
general nature – extraspective (view of the world), as well as a specific, that is introspective
(insight into oneself). Enquiring about the nature of solitude in the cognitive-knowledge aspect,
epistemology poses questions about its intellectual value and carrying capacity, its influence on
the formation of human self-knowledge, its rank and role in the cognitive process, both common
(prephilosophical) and philosophical or scientific. The history of philosophy provides many
examples of such discussions, the greatest in terms of significance and fame is Descartes’s Ego
cogito and Husserl’s Transcendental Self. These have both been accused of solipsism, of reducing
the objectivity of the world being known to the subjective content of sensations, impressions and
experiences of the individual subject getting to know it.
Finally, axiology as a theory of values explores solitude in the aspect of its value, answering
the question of what kind and sign it is, what is its place in the intersubjectively communicative
hierarchy of values, what affects one or another of its positioning in this hierarchy, how solitude

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impacts on the constitution and condition of axiological consciousness, and, in the end, what is its
strength, scope and character of determining individual axiological preferences.
The twentieth-century philosophy of solitude found its leadership especially in the figures
of Levinas, Berdyaev and Ortega y Gasset. Fuller accounts of their philosophies of solitude
can be found in Domeracki (2016 and 2018). It is enough to mention that all the philosophers
emphasized the negative character of solitude – tempered by nostalgia for the Other, activating the
layers of dialogue and striving for contact and community – as well as its ontological-existential
absoluteness, expressed in its inevitability and inalienability throughout human life. In this
approach, solitude acquires a crucial meaning, as the foundation legitimizing and co-determining
the typical human way of existence in the world with all its consequences.

The Heuristic Structure of the Philosophy of Solitude

The philosophy of solitude is not only internally highly differentiated but also susceptible to
constantly new interpretations, revising or deepening our understanding. My own research
developed a heuristic structure of a philosophy of solitude (Domeracki, 2016: 44–9, 57–9),
intended to enable an understanding of the breadth of the field and the problematic diversity of
this increasingly important and progressively autonomized research area.
The skeleton of the philosophy of solitude is formed by two antagonistic grand narratives:4
individualistic and communal. The former focuses on the individual in three fundamental aspects:
ontological, relating to the individual character of a person’s existence; ethical, concerning a
person’s self-development in the context of formed moral abilities; and anthropological, directed
towards the constitutive dynamism of freedom for the individual. If following Berdyaev (Berdyaev,
2003: 384; Krasicki, 2009: 105), and especially Levinas, who directly formulates such a thesis
(Levinas, 2002: 45, 52, 55, 57, 128), one considers that the essence of solitude is separation
(Levinas, 2002: 128; Domeracki, 2016: 49, 98–9, 286, 2018: 50–1, 55–6, 334, 352), understood
as closing in the cocoon of the immanence of the Self (called in philosophy ‘selfishness’ – see:
Domeracki, 2016: 49, 51, 86–7, 2018: 60), radical separation (disconnection), then the ontological
fact of the unbridgeable individual character of human existence can be interpreted in Levinasian
terms as a source, pre-relational, primary and irremovable separation of the Self from Others,
taking place on a plan of uniquely belonging to every human individual existence.
In fact, we are dealing here with a pre-psychological and pre-sociological – because ontological
– phenomenon of solitude. Contrary to usual thinking habits, and in a way arguing with common
sense, it should not be identified with the type of personality (e.g. introversion in the sense of
Jung, 1960: 159, Nowak, 1969: 252–6), nor should it be associated with the circumstances of fate
or the results of the dynamics of social life development. It is a kind of pre-solitude, emerging
from the very core of always individual, unique and indivisible human existence (Levinas, 1999:
24, 26, 1987: 42, 43, 1991a: 36; Ortega y Gasset, 1980: 58, 1982: 363, 372, 373–88, 431). That
is why Levinas calls it ‘the solitude of existing’ (Levinas, 1999: 24, 1987: 42), and Ortega y
Gasset describes it as ‘moné life’ (Ortega y Gasset, 1982: 376) or, using a Levinasian phrase, ‘the
solitude we are’ (Ortega y Gasset, 1982: 377).
The optics adopted by the aforementioned philosophers allows us to locate the sources (which
should not be confused with the causes) of solitude much deeper than we normally do, at the very
basis of human existence. As Levinas says: ‘Solitude lies in the very fact that there are existents’

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(Levinas, 1999: 26, 1987: 43). It constitutes a deep structure of human existence. As such, it
exists and accompanies people continuously throughout their life, from its very beginning to
its inexorable end. The vast majority of people are completely unaware of its existence and its
influence on all their life activities, attitudes, positions and choices, because until it is realized by
someone, it is not an object of anyone’s feeling or thoughts.
Harnessing Heidegger’s motif of the ontological difference between being and beings
(Heidegger, 1991: 87, 89, 93–5; Rogacz, 2012) and, accordingly, between ‘essence and existence,
existence and presence, existentials and categories, ontology and ontics, species and individuals,
possibility and reality, existential analytics and thinking of being’ (Sobota, 2011: 270), the
existential (existenzial) [ontological] and existentiell (existenziell) [ontical] (Heidegger, 1994,
§ 4, 18–20; 1962, § 4, 32–4), the issue of solitude discussed in this form should be referred to the
order of being, not beings.
These issues are a theme of the philosophy of solitude within the framework of individualistic
metanarrative, which I call onto-existential. Of all themes of the philosophy of solitude, this
one is the most philosophized – and thus the most abstract. Two subsequent themes co-creating,
together with the onto-existential, the individualistic metanarrative, are contemplative and libertal
– terms referring back to the times and concepts of Socrates, Plato and Aristotle. The former
points to its essential links with contemplation5 (philosophical, religious, mystical) as a condition
for moral or spiritual-religious development, contributing to the growth of self-knowledge in the
individual, which then translates into the individual’s identity consolidation, being more fully and
consciously oneself and progressing improvement in humanity.
By virtue of the servant relationship between solitude and contemplation I call it, in this variant,
contemplative solitude. It no longer belongs to the ontological-existential order, but occurs in
the ontical-existentiell order. This means, among other things – and this is its distinguishing
feature – that, unlike ontological solitude, it can be the object of a conscious, intentional and
unforced choice by an individual guided by higher moral or religious aspirations, while at the
same time constituting a condition and a bridge to their realization. In view of the useful and
devout nature of contemplative solitude, not only for the individual but also for the community
in which it functions and for which it works every day, morally changed thanks to this solitude,
its philosophical eulogists value it positively, but not uncritically, because of the challenge it
poses especially to people accustomed to living in a community and not self-reflective. The
philosophical prototype of a life subordinate to contemplative solitude is Plato–Aristotle’s βίος
θεορητικός (bíos theoretikós – the theoretical life), which the philosophers of fifteenth-century
Italy described as vita contemplativa.
The third and last trend I have identified belonging to the individualistic metanarrative I
call ‘libertal’ (not to be confused with ‘liberal’). The term comes from the Latin word ‘libertas,
-ātĭs’, meaning ‘freedom’, ‘independence’, ‘free thoughtfulness’, ‘free life’. I consider Epicurus
of Samos to be the first representative of this current. The quintessence of the libertally oriented
philosophy of loneliness is the conviction that true freedom is only found in solitude. From this
perspective, solitude is presented as difficult but extremely important for human life and the
harmonious development of the individual good.6
The communal metanarrative symmetrically reverses the narrative, and presents unambiguously
and uncritically glorified communal forms of life, and their incomparable advantage over
solitude. The communally oriented philosophy of solitude, in each of its three currents, is critical

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Figure 1.1  The heuristic structure of the philosophy of solitude.

of solitude. This, according to the theorists of this great narrative, collides with the three founding
principles of human life.
The first concerns the inherent social and not solitary nature of people, the second relates to
the equally natural orientation of a person towards βίος πρακτικός (bíos praktikós – the practical
life), and thus towards vita activa as opposed to vita contemplativa, and the third places freedom
in the area of interpersonal dialogue in which the parties witness and guarantee freedom to each
other. Each of these issues is developed within the framework of the relatively independent
current of the communal metanarrative. Successively, these are the collectivist, the practical and
the dialogic currents.
The heuristic structure of the philosophy of solitude can be presented thus: (Figure 1.1)

Conclusion: From the Philosophy of Solitude to Monoseology

As you can see from the analysis, solitude is a polymorphic phenomenon. For this reason, a
clear assessment of it as just positive or only negative is impossible. Much here depends on
the assumptions, determinations and research perspective adopted as a starting point, as well
as the researcher’s personal attitude towards the issues. Undoubtedly, solitude is an extremely
complex and intriguing, serious and difficult theoretical issue, albeit often distinctively affecting
the challenges that people face throughout their lives.
Taking into account the multifacetedness of solitude, implying ambiguity both in its
description and in its evaluation, in order to organize and unify the research field of the philosophy
of solitude, I propose to adopt the following terminological and conceptual solution: The term
‘solitude’ should be considered as a generic term, being the name for a generalized concept of
solitude, covering all specific terms, being the names for specific concepts of solitude such as
seclusion, loneliness, alienation and depersonalization.7 They are all specific cases of solitude;
they are sui generis solitude. Each of them reveals an important aspect of it. None of them should
be treated as separate, and even more so opposite to solitude.8 This is sometimes done with the
concepts of solitude and loneliness, and it can create conceptual confusion which distracts from
an adequate understanding of the phenomenon of solitude. Solitude is best seen as a continuum
or spectrum of possible states, positions and experiences, a kind of separateness or disconnection
of an individual from another individual (McGraw, 2000: 15, 16, 2010: 17) of significance

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for the individual and for society. The feeding ground for solitude is made up of interpersonal
relationships and bonds, their quality, intensity and frequency.
The complexity of the issues that solitude poses to researchers makes its philosophical
exploration challenging. We need research on solitude that integrates the research efforts of all
humanities and social sciences. I call it ‘monoseology’,9 which more narrowly might mean the
philosophy of solitude (Domeracki, 2016 and especially 2018). The term is gradually beginning
to spread both in the research community and more widely. Among Polish educators, the
name ‘pedagogical monoseology’ has been adopted to describe the subfield of their research,
sometimes called the pedagogy of solitude (Dubas-Kowalska, 2007; Wasilewska-Ostrowska,
2019). It remains to be hoped that this Handbook will, in its own way, contribute to the growth of
interest and dynamic development of monoseology on a global scale.

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 2

Solitude and Schooling

Helen E. Lees

Introduction

Solitude is a luxury? Education is a basic? In the past people were rich, lucky or plucky to
deliberately get or seek solitude (as a positive, chosen state): ‘Until the modern period, opportunities
for solitude have been greatly limited for the vast majority of people’ (Averill & Sundararajan,
2014: 106). Until the modern period (up to 1870) education or schooling was limited for the vast
majority of people (Wolfe, 2013) and then became the norm. Positive solitude and education for
all as potential and possible have this ‘newness’ in common. Yet, despite describing both as new,
the positive, chosen, pleasant and beneficial form of solitude discussed here has always been with
us since the dawn of time (Storr, 1988), as has education (Gray, 2016). As Kierkegaard said, ‘In
antiquity as well as in the Middle Ages there was an awareness of this longing for solitude and a
respect for what it means’ (Kierkegaard, 1980: 64). We, the people, just had little opportunity for
either, before modern times.
On the side of a human right to compulsory education (not compulsory schooling, this being
something different, see Lees, 2013a) the law, around the world, largely intervened. General
consensus is that this is a just change in social, political attitudes serving children and their
future for purposes of equality. We, however, await legal support for a right to solitude. There is
no such right. There is no such concept. Now, since the invention of the telephone (Bruce, 2020)
and the vast array of impacts which came with subsequent developments of communication lines
to enhance existing relationships or seek new ones (Nowland et al., 2018) one can suggest the
potential development of such a concept – a right to solitude – is weakened further. This situation
pertains despite educators, of which some are cited herein, persistently outlining the righteous
value of solitude.
The experience of being in solitude is also, like education, a necessary element in a
flourishing human life (Averill & Sundararajan, 2014; Batchelor, 2020; Buchholz, 1997; Coplan
& Bowker, 2014a; Galanaki, 2013, 2014; Stern, 2014; Storr, 1988; Vincent, 2020). Similar,
perhaps, to the potential positive and protective right for children to dignity (Ezer, 2004) or the
right to privacy (Sim, 2002) as these involve conditions for flourishing. While one could say
 Solitude and Schooling

we already have plenty of time in solitude because, as Batchelor states, ‘There is something
banal and everyday about solitude . . . .Even in company we spend much of our time alone,
absorbed in our innermost thoughts and feelings, quietly talking to ourselves’ (2020: chap 17),
and ‘The experience of solitude is a ubiquitous phenomenon’ (Coplan & Bowker, 2014b: 3),
nevertheless children in schooling often can experience a particularly social time. School is
‘a community’ (Stern, 2009, 2013a) or a ‘household’ (Stern, 2012) for thousands of hours of
childhood life (Rutter et al., 1979). In such an environment, taking so much of a child’s life
experience, are children able to access the time-energy human requirement for forms of chosen
solitude in order to regulate socially induced well-being? (Hall & Merolla, 2020; Yoneyama &
Naito, 2003). Especially given the lack of volition involved in schools in choosing with whom
to interact, which is a parameter potentially affecting such well-being? (Hall & Merolla, 2020).
Unfortunately, not.
There is ‘relatively little research evidence . . . on solitude’ as it relates to schooling and
education (Galanaki, 2013: 79; Stern, 2014) and in general ‘Solitude theory and research
represents a quieter, less oft-told tale’ than its painful cousin loneliness (Detrixhe et al., 2014:
311). There is plenty of ‘prejudice against solitude’ (Averill & Sundararajan, 2014: 90), and it
is often considered as a sign of pathology (Detrixhe et al., 2014). Also, despite a recent rise in
literature attending to the topic of solitude (as distinct from loneliness) with new conceptual
frames of ‘solitude theory’ (Detrixhe et al., 2014) or ‘alone theory’ (Buchholz & Helbraun, 1999;
Thomas, 2017), there is only growing awareness of solitude as an educationally relevant idea. It
is only recently, for instance, that research outlining the teachable skills for achieving beneficial
solitude has been published (Thomas, 2017) or that solitude and attachment theory have been
combined to make sense of solitude as a form of childhood-linked attachment (Detrixhe et al.,
2014) or that modelling for schools in how to become an environment encouraging and supporting
the enstatic conditions of solitude has been offered (Stern, 2014). In other words, given a lack
of concept and only recent developments in new work, solitude in schooling can and is ignored.
Schools do not often deliberately include solitude within schools, with schools that do acting
in a ‘countercultural’ way (Stern, 2014: 1). It is not paid due in a school, as we see herein, for
complex reasons of uninterest in the paradigm of benefit within which solitudinous and silent
practices reside.
This lack of attention by schooling professionals is despite fairly widespread appreciation
(outside of schooling systems) of solitudinous benefits (Coplan & Bowker, 2014a, 2014b;
Galanaki, 2005; Stern, 2014; Storr, 1988; Thomas, 2017). We see that ‘Research is now yielding
data to support the theories of Fromm (1941), Maslow (1970), and Winnicott (1958), finding, in
general, that those with the capacity to be alone enjoy better mental health than those without’
(Detrixhe et al., 2014: 314) and ‘For those able to utilize solitude . . . the experience seems to
serve a protective or healing function, improving psychological wellbeing’ (Detrixhe et al., 2014:
315).
The lack of attention to solitude as it relates to schooling is possibly especially strange in
recent times when mindfulness and other meditative practices have been rising in prominence
as educationally important (Burke, 2010; Burnett, 2009; Clark & Chorley, 2014; Gold et al.,
2009; Huppert & Johnson, 2010; Hyland, 2011; Orr, 2012, 2002; Weare, 2010; Woods, 2014) and
silence – often the companion in many ways of solitude – has risen as a concept of educational
note (Caranfa, 2004; Cooper, 2012; Forrest, 2013; Jaworski, 1993; Jule, 2004; Lees, 2012, 2016b).

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Thus we can suggest that while silence is becoming fashionable and thereby gaining some
traction, solitude is yet to break through its negative profile and join in.
This chapter seeks to highlight the complex reasons why solitude is a challenge to the school
as institution, as well as for individuals. The chapter then posits, in conclusion, a new ‘mind
rights’ approach to solitude to be embedded in schooling, as a fundamental aspect of a just and
pedagogically unoppressive experience of education as a human right.

The Value of Solitude in Schooling

Being solitudinous – being alone through choice – in schooling is thoroughly educational. The
power it has in this respect is, as Stern (2013a) points out, manifold: it can offer at least three
core, important curricular aspects, these being engaging with others in dialogue through solitude
(communal sustainability involving heritage and history, tradition and culture: such as reading
authors ‘long-gone’), engaging with scientific nature study as a form of solitudinous attention
(which one can these days argue is a cornerstone of educational practice for protecting the future
of this world due to the ravishes of climate change and a need to change attitudes radically
towards care and curation), and through solitude with oneself – often via humanities subjects,
suggests Stern (2013a) – to reflect on intentions, motivations, desires and attitudes to self, other
and learning. These skills are part of what it means to be at peace with self and the world and in
a good mental state to take on new knowledge by inducing calm from absence of confusing over-
stimulation (Burke, 2010; Huppert, 2010), as well as be thereby balanced and ready to question
dogmas that underpin injustices (Lees, 2016b). Despite the theory for benefits, in practice being
alone can be ‘hard’ (Thomas, 2017: 47). To do so successfully requires learning intrinsic to
experience of solitude: ‘There are many potential reasons for solitude being difficult, but lack of
practice is certainly one of them’ (Thomas, 2017: 47).
Apart from strong curricular contributions there are further aspects for educational progress
that solitude can offer according to various authors. Alerby highlights the power of enabling
children to ‘withdraw’ from ‘the rush of people’ (ten-year-old child speaking in Alerby, 2018: 2)
as antidote to the anti-educational stress created by the environment of the school (Alerby, 2018).
Stern and Walejko (2019: 110) suggest solitude has power as experience for ‘moral and political
purposes’ because it helps to bring about ‘self realisation [which] is an explicitly educational
process, the “business” of making ourselves more real’. They state

The sense of individuality as wholeness, often achieved in solitude and in silence, is of

considerable educational significance. A ‘hurrying world’ of performative school cultures
in which everyone, students and staff alike, are chasing externally-determined targets, is
subverted or at least mitigated by providing opportunities for quiet, non-oppressive, solitude.
(Stern & Walejko, 2019: 118)

Personal creativity in solitude is enhanced (Storr, 1988). A creative attitude in education is part of
an original and voice-based contribution to learning (Neill, 1968), rather than blind participation
in a banking model (Friere, 1972). Thus solitude is not only educational but can potentially affect
pedagogy and even ‘modes of study’ (Meyerhoff, 2016) to open up educational experience to
diversity and alternatives.

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 Solitude and Schooling

What Do Children Think of Solitude?

Too few authors have engaged directly with children – as individuals or as part of a community –
to understand better what they thought of solitude. Solitude is definable as volitional time spent
by oneself that is generally used constructively; in other words, alone time that is sought after
and utilized for the purpose of engaging in intrinsically motivated activities (Koch, 1994; Larson,
1990). In addition, solitude is marked by an absence of communication and interaction with other
people, typically – but not necessarily – involving physical separation from others (Thomas,
2017: 2). We can conclude that to take oneself away to be alone is solitude as here discussed.
Galanaki says, with reference to positive forms of being alone:

The majority of 7 year olds are able to define privacy, to which the meanings of controlling
access to information and being alone are most frequently attributed; the understanding
of ‘being alone when you want to’ appears at age 9, and of ‘being alone and unbothered’
at age 11 (Wolfe & Laufer, 1974). In this study, the ages between 7 and 13 seemed to be
crucial for the understanding of the meaning and the significance of aloneness. (Galanaki,
2013: 81)

Stern surveyed children in schools about their thoughts on solitude:

There is a wonderful variety in the ways of enjoying solitude. Jilly (aged 12–13) enjoys solitude
‘[i]n my room on the weekend in the spring,’ Keely (aged 12–13) enjoys it ‘in the summer at
home,’ whilst Alison (aged 12–13) says ‘I prefer solitude in the winter’ . . . Mornings are good
‘early in the morning on a Sunday’ (Emma, aged 12–13), . . . ‘[i]n morning tutor, Monday
when everyone reads’ (Jon, aged 12–13). Lunchtime can be good, for Jason (aged 12–13),
when ‘I just sat on my own for some of it to just think,’ and for Danny (aged 7): ‘Sometimes
at lunchtime I like to be on my own because I want to eat my lunch without anyone bothering
me.’ (Stern, 2014: 27)

We can see from such reports that solitude is not something of which to be afraid for the sake
of either children or adults. It can be ‘conceptualised as a largely positive experience’ (Averill
& Sundararajan, 2014: 102). Nevertheless it is not one thing, easy to pinpoint. For ‘typically [it]
is not a momentary state, and qualitatively different experiences may come and go during an
episode’ (Averill & Sundararajan, 2014: 102). Moments in time and space to achieve solitude are
necessarily context contingent. In other words, when we approach solitude as topic for schooling
and education we can expect what Batchelor (2020: i) describes as its ‘fluid’ character to
determine our engagement. Paradoxically we can also expect the unexpected: some children feel
most included in schools when by themselves and some most alienated when included (Stern,
2011: 9).

The Status of Solitude in Schooling

Because schools have for long been known for forms of punishment, with authoritarianism, still
rife and corporal punishment alas still common around the world (Harber, 2004), solitude, which
can be used to chastise or control if enforced and not chosen, has languished within this issue:
that it is punitive. As Coplan and Bowker (2014b: 3) point out,

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solitude can be differentially characterized along the full range of a continuum from a form
of punishment (e.g., time-outs for children, solitary confinement for prisoners) to a less than
ideal context (e.g., no man is an island, one is the loneliest number, misery loves company),
all the way to a desirable state (e.g., taking time for oneself, needing your space or alone
time).

School-linked solitude is multiple in kind: ‘aloneness in all its variety – from solitude to loneliness’
(Stern, 2014: 15). The place of solitude in schooling is, one could suggest, always as some kind of
calming element. Nevertheless solitude is, interestingly, an agitator. This is because in schooling
it occurs in the face of tacit and overt oppositions:

in a society that has strong beliefs in the importance of cooperation, collaboration, and
caregiving, it is likely that the majority of individuals who adhere to the cultural ethos would
begin to think unpleasant thoughts about the noninteracting minority. They may think of
solitary individuals as displaying unacceptable, discomfiting behavior; they may begin to feel
negatively about them. (Coplan & Bowker, 2014a: xiv)

To be in solitude in a school is to stand up, whatever the reaction, for difference. This is not
blind obedience as so commonly demanded in schooling (Harber, 2008). It is, therefore, political
resistance.

Solitude as Educational Actor

While it is the case that the calm aspects of taking time in solitude have meditative qualities,
qualities which lend themselves to learning better (Erricker & Erricker, 2001), something we
might imagine schools would be pleased to embrace, it is also true that taking time for solitude
goes against the schooling grain. Apart from the ‘time-out’ of busy school agendas for achievement
the key element here is that real solitude is a product of choice – something many authors point to
as a requirement if it is to be positive, although Koch (1994) makes an exception for some stories
linked to prisoners who grow into their solitude with positivity (nevertheless we could posit that
at some point in their incarceration they were moved to choose their solitary circumstances, as
did Robinson Crusoe). This is the same principle relevant to silence as a positive experience: that
there should be consent to be in silence for it ‘to bring forth benefits’ (Lees, 2012). So too there
should be consent in, with and for solitude.
A person is seen, in solitude as ‘willing a disengagement . . . A person’s experience [of
solitude] . . . involves intentionality’ (Stern & Walejko, 2019: 108, emphasis in original). Averill
and Sundararajan are very clear: ‘What tips the balance between positive experiences of solitude
and immoderate loneliness? This question can be answered in one word: choice. What we call
authentic solitude is typically based on a decision to be alone’ (Averill & Sundararajan, 2014: 91,
emphasis added). Such authenticity could also be applied to the serendipitous entrance into the
pleasure of aloneness. Of course to choose is to choose in a context: ‘Choice is not something that
suddenly occurs within the mind or brain of a person. Choices have histories, they involve a self
who chooses, they are sensitive to circumstances, and they lead to consequences. In short, behind
every choice is a story’ (Averill & Sundararajan, 2014: 92). In a school context the power to
choose – the story to choose – is limited due to the often undemocratic nature of the environment

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and the possible modes of control employed to ensure children’s obedience to staff power (Gore,
2004; Harber, 2004, 2009b; Lewis, 2010).
Creating a solitudinous mood involves ‘designing’ one’s own cognitive environment. This
might not be the one provided by the school – thus a form of rejection of the school is needed to
be in place: ‘authentic solitude unfolds in a mental space or designer environment that is distinct
from the physical and social realities of everyday life’ (Averill & Sundararajan, 2014: 100). On
the other hand the very behaviour of standing apart from others in some way could be deemed
a rejection of the ‘community’ (Stern, 2009) of the school. Stern outlines that for solitude to
be appreciated a particular school ethos is required and part of this comes from ‘magnanimous
leadership’ that does not view standing apart as rejection (Stern, 2014).
The fact is that schooling at present, according to a common design, does not have room or
make room for solitude in the school day – and cannot do so. With positive solitude’s almost
absolute requirement for choice to be embedded this would require wholesale school change
and a new culture of interpersonal dynamics such as found outside of mainstream schooling,
in democratic school environments (Fielding, 2013). In most schools there is still so little
voice for children (Maddern, 2009; Sillin, 2005) that solitude cannot be chosen; it can only be
allowed.
To stand apart in solitude with its creative potential for original thought is to rebel against
schooling manipulations of selfhood. Where schools knowingly or unknowingly (due to the
hidden curriculum) inculcate values not in the best interests of students (or staff) (Bowles &
Gintis, 1976; Rutter et al., 1979), solitude can be a ‘negative freedom’ (escape from social
forces) and a personal-political act of removal and opposition to the assumption that schooling
(education) is ‘good’ (Flint & Peim, 2012; Peim, 2012). As Stern and Walejko (2019) point out,
solitude offers self-realization towards becoming ‘more real with “reality” necessarily implying
community . . . and the wider world’. Instead of the ‘messages’ given by the school, through
solitude a child can rise above these to find the truth of who they really are in the world and what
the world truly, authentically is. This is a powerful aspect of solitude which in a too-often toxic
schooling (Harber, 2009a) context ought to be accorded its due as a cleansing agent. Given the
multiple manipulations of schools as agents of political agendas ‘to output – a generic economic
methodology of government’ (Ball, 2013: 42) using ‘games of truth and practices of power’ (Ball,
2013: 44), this would mean solitude is also a protector.

No One Is Alone in Education/No One Is Alone in Solitude

Stern, developing work inspired by the philosopher of the personal John Macmurray, points out
that in many senses schooling as a system acts as ‘busy sociable learning communities’ (Stern,
2014: 1, 2001). Proximity and sight of school-based others – their faces, their eyes, their smiles
or frowns, words and exchanges – make meaning for children in terms of who matters and who
is close to them personally. Dewey spoke forcefully of the ‘school as a form of community life
. . . school as a form of social life’ (Dewey, 1964). All told, many thinkers have considered that
schools are important for their contribution to human life in offering togetherness and for this to
be thoroughly educational. Many schools do good work in this respect and offer many children an
enjoyable, fruitful experience of education and crucially, company of a positive kind. Schooling
is personal, not just political.

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Nevertheless it is an undeniable fact that schools, as a daily experience, are well known to
involve forms of personal disaster: bullying and exclusions (Bloom, 2009; Clark, 2018; Oliver &
Kandappa, 2003; Walton, 2005). In fact bullying is a particular inter-dynamic problem: ‘In terms
of the sociological study of bullying, the most fundamental finding so far is that bullying is widely
prevalent among school students’ (Yoneyama & Naito, 2003: 316). This situation is often not the
fault of individuals but of the school as institution (Carlen et al., 1992; Harber, 2009a; Pilkington
& Piersel, 1991; Yoneyama & Naito, 2003). In such conditions being able to stand apart is in fact
a preventative measure for stress caused by relational dysfunction and being ‘push[ed] together
all the time’ (Stern, 2014: 13) for when ‘individuals are compelled to relate to each other in a
group without being able to keep comfortable distance from each other’ relationships between
them can develop in negative and violent ways (Yoneyama & Naito, 2003: 328).

Solitude as Otherness

In such a thorough-going context of togetherness as the school, to be apart then, at all, acts as a
state of occasional otherness. Otherness is a construct found particularly strongly fabricated in
schooling settings ‘based on the traditional, non-democratic paradigm of education’ (Yoneyama &
Naito, 2003: 317):

education is one of the most important agents in constructing ‘otherness’ . . . School
environments, social interactions of teachers and students in and out of school, teaching
learning processes, student-teacher relationships, the nature and contents of subjects, text
books (regarding contents, naming, exemplification, historical and cultural contents or their
representations for certain groups), language usage, etc. are important factors in the process
of constructing otherness. (Mengstie, 2011: 11)

Thus, it can be posited that being apart from others during schooling is other. Whatever form being
alone takes it is, perhaps, sometimes, in a school, an artificial, context dependent form. In schools,
there is not the freedom involved in creation of a ‘fluid’ concept of solitude as Batchelor suggests
‘ranging from the depths of loneliness to the saint’s mystic rapture’ (Batchelor, 2020: i). Instead
a concept of being apart from others is a priori in place as a seeming reaction to the norm of
the community, or, for those few with the capacity, some might achieve positive solitude without
reference to the norm; or indeed – as with some boarding school experience – as a result of the mere
impossibility of constant supervision. Only with profound changes to schooling and its functionality
can enstasy in schools (see Stern, 2014) be achieved as a cultural norm, without paying the price of
solitude as ‘exiting’ (see Hirschman, 1970) community or the panopticon of supervision.
It is nevertheless the case that this very otherness is a boon if allowed to be so. As Averill and
Sundararajan note ‘solitude presents a challenge to be responsible to one’s self’ (2014: 93), which
is a way of saying that one is valuing one’s uniqueness and individuality. This, itself, is something
educational in essence (Biesta, 2006).

Solitude and Technology

The relationship between solitude and technology is paradoxical. On the one hand technology
brings people together, yet it also creates false togetherness leading to loneliness. In respect

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of technology as a connector ‘social media environments may produce a form of solitude that
results in both social and emotional reclusiveness, which in turn nurtures loneliness . . . virtually
simulated companionship does not prevent people from feeling isolated, solitary, or lonely’
(Hippler, 2017: 268).
Regarding enjoying solitude in and through technology I would posit a distinction between
solitudinous busyness which is mostly what happens with technology, and solitude as an
experience of enstasy. The first is one working alone in some way – for business or pleasure – with
the internet or machines as companion. Alone at the computer this can be enjoyable ‘solitude’
but only solitude because the companion is a machine. Also, one is connected. The second is
solitude as communion with the offline world of self, nature, the reality of being-enmeshed
in other (despite not being with others). As far as quality of experience goes the first is easy,
possibly morally and emotionally shallow and indeed no solitude at all. The second is difficult
yet this type alone has inherent potential for profound experience. Where technology plays its
part in ‘solitude’ it is also the version with the most danger: issues connected to coding and other
technological manipulations affect thinking, behaviours and feelings (Williamson, 2015). Those
offline, once again, are protecting themselves from the influence of others in choosing solitude.
In recent times some level of awareness and dissatisfaction with constant connection has
begun, with some urging people to switch off from social media and devices (Lanier, 2018) but
a new peril of loneliness linked to technology and solitude occurs: ‘for those who still see the
rainbow arching over the town while everyone else is buried in their phones, life in the real world
can feel lonely’ (Monbiot, 2017). As Monbiot rightly states – and in this respect the relevance is
for school children accessing online worlds outside of school time – without experience of the
real world we have no compass for moral behaviours and ‘the political, social and environmental
consequences are currently beyond reckoning’ (Monbiot, 2017), which means that offline solitude
– the real world – is protective, needed and cannot be ignored. The world depends on it because
‘the emergence of these new media has drastically altered the landscape of human experience’
(Hippler, 2017: 259). We need to find ourselves (again? – does this depend on one’s age?) and
offline solitude is the way to do so. But we ought not to underestimate the challenge:
In the wake of the digital and technological revolution, with its side effects of permanent
availability and connectedness, spending time alone has become increasingly difficult. Ever
since the introduction of the internet, emailing, and cell phones, people feel the pressure to
be available around the clock . . . privacy and aloneness have come to be rare goods in our
contemporary society. (Hippler, 2017: 261)
As Coplan and Bowker point out the future of solitude is indeed in question: ‘whether any of us
will ever truly be alone in the future’, given the fact that ‘rapidly evolving technological advances
intend to connect all of us – all of the time . . . It is certain that our relationship with solitude
will necessarily evolve in the digital age’ (Coplan & Bowker, 2014b: 11). However, the choice
to be alone remains. For now, at least. It is an important element of a human life that schools can
promote, that they can teach about and for which skills can be taught (Thomas, 2017).
This pedagogic call for information in schools about solitude in a world where ‘the distinction
between “alone” and “together” has become hopelessly blurry’ (Neyfakh, 2011) and authentic
and self-chosen solitude is becoming harder to reach and enjoy (Hippler, 2017: 266) occurs as
education is increasingly online. Schools may begin to morph into a less distinct form with the rise

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of technology. The 2020 ‘Covid-19’ global pandemic crisis opened that portal of online possibility
wider than ever before. Yet education progressively admits autodidactism via the internet (Mitra
et al., 2016), which is a trend towards solitude, albeit with others via content at least, whereas
being really alone (without online activity) is then trending away. This is happening at the same
time that (in America as one example indicative of wider trends) ‘27% of all households’ live
alone (Averill & Sundararajan, 2014: 106). Due to the rise of usage of the internet, societies are
clearly not coping well with the idea of ‘alone’ as a positive experience. Few choose to be alone
yet, in reality, many are. Technology is a seeming modern salve for this difficulty but it is also
a peril. Our children need to be taught the double-edged sword of technology as it relates to
selfhood, truth, concentration faculty and knowledge. They need to understand there is such a
thing as ‘productive solitude’ as a product of digital minimalization (Newport, 2019: 126).

Solitude and Alternative Education

It is to be noted that exiting schools to enter alternative spaces is possible in many ways. At the
initially negative end of the spectrum of exit there is school refusal. In Japan this is known as an
extreme phenomena called ‘tokokyohi’, involving students sequestering themselves hermit-like
in their rooms for extended periods. Very interestingly for discussion of solitude and its powers,
research points to such periods of aloneness as enabling some of these students to return to
schooling (which previously was a torture) refreshed and bold enough to be unbothered by the
oft-times violent atmosphere of dysfunctional relations they previously could not cope with:
While taking substantial time off school and staying mostly at home in a self-imposed state of
isolation, students usually go through a long and hard process of self-doubt and self-questioning.
During this stage, they re-evaluate who they are, what they make of school as well as their
absence from school. After spending several months in this state, troubled by anxiety and somatic
symptoms, many come to feel that what used to be seen as a matter of ill-health is actually a
matter of choice. Thus, in the third stage of tokokyohi, students gradually come to terms with
their absence from school as well as with themselves . . . In the student discourse, what comes in
the final [forth] stage of tokokyohi is the discovery of selfhood, on the one hand, and the critical
reappraisal of school, on the other. What ‘heals’ them is their sense of empowerment, which
stems from the fact that they can position themselves in the social environment in a new light,
as an individual who has a clearer sense of subjectivity. (Yoneyama, 2000: 89–90)
This connects with Vincent’s discussion of Zimmerman on solitude who suggests:
The key criterion for distinguishing between beneficial and malign withdrawal was the
capacity to manage the transition between the two states. Solitude for self-recollection was
acceptable if the individual possessed the strength of mind to take the gains from the period of
reflection and rejoin the fray with an enhanced sense of purpose. (Vincent, 2020: 15)
In schools the scene is complex for solitude as we see earlier. One could feasibly suggest that
outside of schools solitude is easier: ‘Being alone embraces restorative and recuperative qualities’
(Hippler, 2017: 260) but the environment required – in an education context – is then not that of
a mainstream school. It would be of an other type of education.
In home education we see ‘restorative and recuperative qualities’ (Hippler, 2017: 260)
occurring in the form of pedagogy transformed from school-based pressures to conform and

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perform, to home-provided freedoms to play and learn, combined in personalized ways. In de-
or un-schooled versions of home educating (freedom to self-design a curriculum according to
individual pace and taste) children find that while family life involves closeness also ‘children
and teens enjoy the freedom from family that unschooling may provide. He [Peter Gray] states
that it is natural to see children, and particularly older children, want to spend time away from
their families’ (Riley, 2020: 106). This leads to outcomes where children report confidence as
alone, for example, ‘As an adult, I see how strongly my independence and self-reliance were
built during those years, especially with the traveling I did alone’ (Riley, 2020: 115). Riley does,
however, mention that some unschoolers ‘wished they had more access to unschooled peers
growing up’ (Riley, 2020: 113).
While in schools – and educational research linked to schools – solitude is treated as a subject
to edge towards carefully, seemingly with what I would call a ‘polite approach’, what we find in
the alternative education scene is a more robust outlet for emotions about the need for solitude
wherever and whenever necessary. John Gatto embodies the spirit of the anger felt by many in
alternative education towards the restrictions on personal needs and freedoms schooling imposes:
As it is, we currently drown students in low-level busy work, shoving them together in forced
associations which teach them to hate other people, not love them. We subject them to the
filthiest, most pornographic regimens of constant surveillance and ranking so they never
experience the solitude and reflection necessary to become a whole man or woman. (Gatto,
2005: 340)
Llewellyn’s book on ‘teenage liberation’ through homeschooling also outlines the general value
in alternative education for time alone. In the section entitled ‘Note to Parents’ she prefaces it
with the following quote: ‘Respect the child. Be not too much his parent. Trespass not on his
solitude. – Ralph Waldo Emerson’ (Llewellyn, 1998: 24).
Solitude in a schooling context is in difficulty compared to the situation in spaces beyond
the school. Despite work to attempt to raise its profile for and in schools and children by a
few thinkers (e.g. Byrnes, 2001; Galanaki, 2005; Lees, 2012, 2013b, 2016a; Senechal, 2012;
Stern, 2011, 2014, 2017; Stern & Walejko, 2019; Thomas, 2017) and to investigate childhood and
educationally relevant forms of negative and positive experience of being alone (e.g. Galanaki,
2013, 2008; Oakley, 2020; Rotenberg & Hymel, 1999), the machinery of schooling – or as Peim
terms it the ‘ontotheology’ (Peim, 2012) – does not care about solitude for children during their
school experience. Home education and other alternative settings – defined here as ‘education
spaces that deliberately differentiate themselves from “mainstream” schools’ (Kraftl, 2016: 117) –
do care, as work across the spectrum of alternative education around the world shows (see Lees &
Noddings, 2016).

Spaces of the School for Solitude

The school is for people (Stern, 2009, 2012, 2018). In this sense a school which does not offer a
space for being in solitude is a school blind to people because solitude is ‘a fundamental human
experience’ (Coplan & Bowker, 2014a; Galanaki, 2014: 71).
Some enlightened schools pay architectural heed to the desire to take oneself away by providing
deliberate ‘corners’ for positive solitude planned into the design of the building (Montgomery &
Hope, 2016). Most such schools do so to offer quiet space for meditative techniques of silence,

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rather than specifically to be fruitfully alone. These schools have, often, a religious element to
underpin the value attributed to silence-based solitude, such as with Quaker schools (Lees, 2012;
Newton, 2016). To do this the school ethos attends to the child in a particular way, cognisant of
the benefits of silence and its solitudes. Some teachers have also tried to carve out psychological
space for solitude in classrooms and playgrounds (Alerby, 2018; von Wright, 2009).

Conclusion

There is a human right to solitude. How do we know when such a right is written nowhere? The
answer is found earlier when we consider the damage done by missing out on the positivity the
experience of being happily alone can offer. What is a human right is that which is inalienable
and undeniable to us as humans, such as a right to a family or to liberty. The right to follow one’s
everyday inclinations for solitude is surely commonplace and undeniable? Yet two perspectives
on staring out the window in schools – as a real example but also as a metonymic sign – suggest
schools do not provide anything close to everyday freedoms of this kind, let alone acknowledge a
human right. Noddings states, ‘So often when a child looks out the window, we say she’s off task’,
yet ‘she may be on the biggest task of her life’ (Noddings, 1999). This denotes a right to think
right and personal thoughts. Melser suggests what is occurring is something humanly significant:
‘thinking may be a kind of action, something the person actively does’ (Melser, 2004: 3).
Lees states, ‘Staring [out the window] at the tree might be an educational action, concomitant
with the premise-promise of the school to educate a person from a state of relative ignorance to a
state of relative enhanced knowledge’ (Lees, 2016a: 4). Hardly a domain in which schools should
interfere? The second perspective is that the school has no authority to stop the child staring out
the window. To do so is entirely outside its remit as educational. However there is as yet no such
right for the mind to resist pretend authority in education:
discussing rights in education is fraught with difficulties. Other rights considered in education,
such as autonomy . . . access to special needs provision, medicalization of children or parental
choice are all highly contentious areas of debate and policy-making (e.g., Coppock, 2002).
Technically speaking, what kind of right (see Wenar, 2011) would a ‘mind right’ be for
education if it were valuable? (Lees, 2016a: 15)
The answer which concludes this chapter redefines solitude in schooling from an event of
removing oneself to be alone to an inalienable necessity for human health and sane, beneficial
education. We need a new kind of right to protect this necessity, such as that proposed by Ezer,
linked to dignity, as a safety mechanism (Ezer, 2004). Gray highlights the abject lack of any real
or functioning rights for children in schooling, undramatically labelling schools ‘prisons’ (as has
Meighan, 2004), with a blurred line between law and justice when it comes to coercing children
physically and socially in the name of education (Gray, 2019). Given the backlog or negligence
for basic rights for children, is a ‘mind right’ far down the list of priorities and the to-do list?
If our mind is the source of our dignity, sense-making and orientation in the world, as well
as the source of our educational power and engagement in learning, we need to protect it with
urgency. If we do not the world is mad, unhinged, precariously rational and full of destructive
drama cycles (Karpman, 1968), without positive alternatives. The mind’s dignity demands
protection from outside forces that fail to pay such dignity heed. A mind right would be the right
that gave solitude in schools status, place and curricular function. It would protect children from

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invasion of their inner life by teachers, parents and others for, as Row (2019) laments in the
context of technological surveillance of children’s inner lives, ‘But I want to ask: Who is speaking
up, today, for a young person’s right to a private life, to secrets, unshared thoughts, unmonitored
conversations and relationships?’
The type of right which touches on the right to think thoughts in peace and privacy and be with
these thoughts alone – undisturbed – is educational: ‘“mind rights” are a space of escape from a
sickening infilling of identified spaces’ (Lees, 2016: 16). A solitude of the mind as a right offers
a chance to concentrate (Senechal, 2012) and the seeking and finding of healthy counterfactuals
(Gopnik, 2009). Such a right leads to wisdom in the face of growing global insanity. Solitude in
schooling is a human right of the mind.

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 3

Solitude Practices in the Context of

Catholic Education

Michael T. Buchanan

Introduction

Stemming from the primal existence of human beings, the survival of the species has depended
on social interaction. Cities and social structures are shaped around human contact and
collaboration, to the point where isolation from others has in many circumstances been viewed
as negative. However, according to Long et al., (2003), too much sociality can be stressful and
oppressive to the point where relief is sought through solitude. Schools are often referred to as
learning communities where people are educated through socio-dialogical interaction with each
other. A communal approach to learning aligns with the perception that humans are one of the
most social species inhabiting this planet. The human brain has adapted for living in large groups
to the extent that feeling socially connected increases a state of happiness, whereas feelings of
disconnection increase a sense of depression. Solitude has been described as a state of being
alone – either by oneself or, if in the presence of others, without any social interaction. Solitude
in the school context has often been associated with disciplinary strategies such as detention or
suspension, which foster negative connotations about being alone. Approaches to solitude in
learning communities can contribute to students’ and teachers’ experiences of disconnection but
it can also contribute to a sense of connection. A recent study on religious education leadership
within the context of Catholic education, which is responsible for the education of one-fifth of
Australia’s diverse student population, identified the need for ongoing planned opportunities
for solitude for religious education leaders, teachers and students at all levels of schooling
(Buchanan, 2019). This chapter draws on the insights generated by this study to illustrate the
importance of solitude practices in Catholic education. It commences with an overview of
broad insights gleaned from the existing body of literature concerning social understandings of
solitude. It then proceeds to consider experiences of solitude encountered within the Catholic
tradition and education. The research design underpinning the religious education leadership
investigation is outlined, as it provided the impetus for this examination of solitude practices. The
study revealed a need for positive practices of solitude to support individuals (leaders, teachers
 Solitude Practices in Catholic Education

and students) in the organization of their thoughts, in their reflection on past actions, as well as in
their preparation for future educational and social encounters.

Broad Insights Pertaining to Social Understandings of Solitude

Solitude is regarded as a state of being alone without social interaction (Burger, 1995). A person
can be alone in the presence of others, such as when dining alone in a restaurant, or one can be
physically alone by oneself. While surrounded by other people, individuals can maintain a sense
of solitude by refraining from interacting with others (Senechal, 2012). In some circumstances
the absence of social interaction can be by choice, while in other circumstances it can be the
result of an expectation. For example, while a student is participating in a traditional written
examination the student would be required to not interact with other examination candidates.
Alternatively, a person may go to a café and engage in a solitude practice such as reading a book,
thus choosing to refrain from socially interacting with other people around them. People can be
alone without social interaction by being physically isolated from other people. For example,
a person might choose to go on a long-distance run or go surfing by themselves in a remote
seaside area. Traditionally there are social circumstances where the absence of social interaction
is enforced upon an individual and time spent alone in these circumstances is often regarded as
a negative experience. An example of enforced isolation is solitary confinement which is often
included as a punishment within criminal justice systems (solitary confinement) as well as within
families (children required to spend time alone in their bedroom as punishment). According to
Burger (1995) the positive aspects of a lack of social interaction are commonly referred to as
solitude while the negative experiences are commonly referred to as isolation. This distinction
suggests that individuals seek solitude, whereas isolation is a state that is imposed on individuals.
Because we are social beings, experiences of enforced solitude (generally viewed as isolation)
cause people to view aloneness as a negative experience. People are socially conditioned since
childhood to fear being alone, and teachers in many schooling systems around the world have
played their part in cementing this attitude, through the application of discipline techniques
such as time outs and detention (Galanaki, 2005). Schools are communities that often attempt to
avoid loneliness by fostering relationships where learning is encountered through conversations
or dialogue (Stern, 2016). Student engagement is encountered in settings that place significant
emphasis on group work and collaboration (Stern, 2014). If students are disciplined by removing
them from these opportunities, they develop negative connotations about being alone (Fonseca,
2014). Schools need to avoid practices that contribute to socially conditioning individuals to
regard an absence of social interaction as a negative experience. Schools and teachers could
begin by providing students with opportunities to distinguish between concepts such as solitude,
isolation, aloneness and loneliness (Galanaki, 2004). There are many opportunities in schools
to engage in solitude practices in ways that foster human growth and dismantle the negative
connotations associated with the absence of social interaction (Piirto, 2010). Opportunities for
prayer, retreats and pastoral care are some examples implemented in the context of Catholic
education.
Solitude is a fundamental requirement in enabling children to connect with their inner self
(Galanaki, 2004). It requires one to keep company with oneself and it is this duality of oneself
with oneself, in solitude, that makes thinking a true activity for personal growth, because the
individual is both the one who asks and the one who answers (Arendt, 1978). Viewed in this

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light, opportunities for solitude can foster personal growth forms of self-improvement in ways
that contribute to an individual’s well-being and can also contribute to their ability to develop –
intellectually, spiritually, emotionally and creatively (Burger, 1995). School leaders and teachers
could be encouraged to promote opportunities for students to engage in positive experiences of
solitude practices, because pupils who spend a moderate amount of time by themselves appear to
be better adjusted than those who spend relatively little time alone (Larson, 1990). For more than
half a century solitude or privacy has been acknowledged as a key characteristic of self-actualized
individuals and therefore it is vital that students engage in positive solitude practices for their own
development and for the advancement of society (Maslow, 1970).
The benefits arising from student engagement in positive experiences of solitude practices in
schools are relatively unnoticed and rarely practised. Burger observes that this is reflected
in research practice: ‘perhaps because of the widespread recognition of the benefits of social
interaction, most of the research on solitude has examined the negative consequences that
solitude has on one's psychological functioning and well-being’ (Burger, 1995: 87). However,
in recent times a body of scholarly literature has developed that explores the benefits of solitude
and its relevance to teaching and learning (Buchanan, 2019; Cain, 2012; Dembling, 2012;
Stern, 2016, 2014, 2009). It has been argued that schools are characterized by personal relations
which are expressed through dialogue and therefore in need of opportunities for solitude, if
they are to be effective learning communities (Stern, 2016). By nurturing positive solitude
practices within the classroom, it is possible to foster positive socialization of students in a way
that enables them to engage with other members of the dialogical learning communities (Stern,
2014). An educational study involving primary school children (aged seven or eight) indicated
that student experiences of inclusion in the classroom can be enhanced through solitude
practices. This qualitative study asked children, ‘when do you feel most included in school?’
and some children responded by saying, ‘when I’m left alone, to work on my own’ (Stern,
2009: 49). Occasions for solitude in the classroom offer an opportunity for students to connect
to their inner self and enables ideas to be explored in ways that could lead to academic and
personal growth (Dembling, 2012). It also allows for ‘a periodic opportunity to organise one’s
thoughts, reflect on past actions and future plans, and prepare for future social encounters’
(Burger, 1995: 88). Solitude within and beyond the classroom is a significant vehicle to foster
creativity and independent thought (Cain, 2012).
Solitude can help children and young people – and adults – to go beyond the immediate,
intensely sociable, present company in school, to meet and be in dialogue with historical
characters, fictional people, physical objects, the distant, ineffable, or as yet unborn. (Stern,
2016: 442)
Teachers who are committed to the formation of young people as creative and independent
thinkers need to explore the potential to enhance individual creativity by structuring opportunities
for students to engage in positive experiences of solitude in school. The potential to engage
in solitude practices within diverse learning communities also includes enabling opportunities
within Catholic education, which is the focus of this chapter. While considering the benefits
of positive solitude practices within the growing body of literature, Catholic schooling systems
around the world could be encouraged to draw from the rich experiences of solitude practices
encountered within the Catholic tradition.

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Experiences of Solitude Encountered within the Catholic Tradition

Within various religious traditions, solitude has often been associated with beneficial experiences,
particularly in relation to creativity, wisdom and spiritual growth, as evidenced by several
religious leaders such as Moses, Jesus, Buddha and Muhammad, who have spent time in solitude
(Long et al., 2003). Within the Christian tradition Jesus constantly sought solitude and withdrew
from people, daily life activities and the demands of his ministry to nurture his ongoing intimate
relationship with God which enabled him to grow in compassion, wisdom and power (Gaultiere,
2016). Consequently, within the Catholic tradition, solitude has been practised for centuries and
regarded as a vehicle for intimate communication that enables one to become closer to God and
self (Durà-Vilà & Leavey, 2017). Many monastic religious orders have practised solitude over the
centuries, including the Order of Saint Augustine, the Carthusian Order and the Cistercian Order,
to name a few. The practice of monasticism can be traced back to the third century where desert
monastic communities modelled a life of solitude based on the Desert Mothers and Fathers such
as Anthony the Great (c. 251–356) who lived primarily in the Scetes desert of Egypt (Petrakis,
2011). The solitude practices reflected in monasticism have been adopted and adapted over the
centuries by many religious congregations and are still considered to be a significant condition
for spiritual growth (Pope Paul VI, 1965).
Many Catholic religious congregations in the twenty-first century do not live monastic lives
and are in close contact with society with many members of these congregations holding positions
in professional fields such as education, health services, law, administration and social services.
While their lives are not lived in solitude, Melia’s (2002) qualitative research study of sisters from
three religious congregations found that these sisters sought opportunities for solitude despite
living lives working in the community. As these sisters moved closer to retirement age, their
engagement in solitude practices increased. Prayer featured as a key positive solitude experience
that they regarded as a social activity because it enabled them to feel connected with others (past
and present) and to God. This study also revealed that by engaging in solitude practices such
as prayer, these women became more fully aware of who they were as individuals and they felt
connected ‘to the community in which they live, as well as to the wider world’ (Melia, 2002: 47).
The tradition of engaging in solitude practices such as prayer and retreats was common among
the female and male religious congregations that established Catholic schools and educational
institutions in Australia throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. By the latter part of
the twentieth century the Catholic tradition of prayer, worship and retreats was a prominent and
distinguishing feature of the religious education offerings in Catholic schools across Australia
and evidenced by planned opportunities for school leaders, teachers and students to engage in
these practices (Rossiter, 2016). However, these practices in Catholic schools are distinguishable
in that they are practised in communal settings rather than in solitude as traditionally encountered
by members of religious congregations (Pickering, 2006; Rossiter, 2016). While the Congregation
for Catholic Education (CCE) has consistently maintained that religious education within the
context of Catholic education is committed to the integral formation of the human person (CCE,
2009, 1977), the potential to foster personal growth by providing opportunities for solitude is
not fully realized within some Catholic schools. This is also despite the findings of an earlier
study exploring the spirituality of young Australians and the implications for education, which
recommended that allowances for silence, solitude and contemplation become a scheduled

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feature of the school timetable (de Souza, 2003). An investigation pertaining to religious
education leadership, which is the focus of this chapter, identified the need for ongoing planned
opportunities for solitude for religious education leaders, teachers and students at all levels
of schooling. Within the context of Catholic education, the participants involved in this study
suggested that solitude practices should form part of a school’s religious education offerings.
Prior to reporting on the participants’ perceptions of solitude practices a brief overview of the
research design is outlined.

Overview of the Research Design

The research into religious education leadership, which revealed the need for planned opportunities
for solitude practices within the context of Catholic education, was commissioned by the director
of Catholic Education in the Diocese of Sale, Victoria, Australia. There are approximately forty-
four primary and secondary schools in the diocese, and the aim of the research was to identify
ways to foster and promote the Catholic identity of the school through leading, teaching and
learning in religious education. The expertise and perspectives of fifty key stakeholders, which
included members of the Clergy responsible for schools in the diocese, members of the Catholic
Education Office Executive, Religious Education Leaders, School Principals and Deputy
Principals and those leading or aspiring to leadership in religious education, were sought through
participation in in-depth unstructured interviews.
The research was founded upon the epistemological foundation of constructivism which holds
that reality is constructed through human interaction in which meanings are shared in dialogue
and new knowledge is developed (Crotty, 1998). A theoretical perspective that complements
constructivism is interpretivism and, because the study sought to capture the realities and
meanings of individuals closely associated with learning and teaching in religious education,
symbolic interactionism was an appropriate interpretivist paradigm to guide this investigation
(Gouldner, 1970). Symbolic interactionism is based on the premise that the self consists of two
key components: the ‘I’ and the ‘Me’. Bowers emphasized that ‘the Me component is the reflector’
(1989: 36–7). According to the theory of symbolic interactionism, everyone consists of multiple
selves or multiple Me’s and therefore ‘who I am depends on which Me is experienced as the most
salient at the time’ (Bowers, 1989: 37). In-depth unstructured interviews were undertaken to get
access to the insights that cannot be read or observed by the researcher (Minichiello et al., 2008).
The adoption of an unstructured interview method aimed to encourage the most salient Me in
each of the participants to be their professional role within Catholic education.
The use of unstructured interviews was the gateway for constructing knowledge of how
the participants understood their world (Kvale, 1996). The interviews were audio-recorded
and transcribed. The transcripts were drawn upon to verify that what the researcher heard was
consistent with what the participant had stated, thus enabling a clear distinction between the
perceptions of the researcher and the participants (Clandinin & Connelly, 1994). Drawing on
approaches of classic grounded theory, a process of constant comparison was adopted (Strauss
& Glaser, 1967). After each interview, transcripts were produced and analysed using the constant
comparison process to identify emerging themes. The emerging themes were progressively
shared with each new participant. This procedure enabled ongoing opportunities for participants
to comment upon, critique and clarify data and thus contribute to the consolidation of emergent

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themes (Strauss & Glaser, 1967). The process of constant comparison provides an inbuilt
mechanism for the categories of data to be cross-checked and verified (Dick, 2007). Several
categories of data emerge from this study and many in relation to religious education leadership
have been published elsewhere (see Buchanan, 2019). However, this chapter explores another
key finding arising from the study, which is concerned with opportunities for planned solitude
practices in the light of the goals of Catholic education.

Solitude Practices and the Goals of Catholic Education

A key finding of this study into leadership in religious education was the importance of providing
opportunities for solitude for leaders, teachers and students involved in religious education. This
is consistent with the goals of Catholic education. These goals are reflected in the post-conciliar
documents from the CCE (2009, 1977). Miller’s (2006) examination of these documents identified
five significant goals and the achievement of these goals within Catholic schools could be aided
with the inclusion of positive solitude practices. The first goal commits Catholic education to the
formation of the whole person, to enable them to become good citizens committed to living in
right relationships with their neighbour and God. The second goal characterizes schools as places
that promote human dignity and human rights. The third goal holds that schools are communities
for human persons that foster values of teamwork, cooperation and interaction. The fourth goal
emphasizes a Catholic world view directed towards the growth of the whole person and fosters
love, wisdom and truth. The fifth goal aims to sustain schools as places of authentic Catholicity
and requires the commitment from teachers who understand, accept and model the teachings of
the Catholic Church. Social interaction among students and teachers is a feature of these learning
communities; however, it has been argued that opportunities for solitude are necessary if schools
are to be effective in achieving their goals (Stern, 2016; de Souza, 2003). This chapter reports on
the findings emanating from this study into religious education leadership which identified three
possibilities for solitude practices within the context of Catholic education.
This research found that a key concern echoed by the participants involved in this study was
the need for opportunities for solitude to be available to religious education leaders, teachers
and students. The participants, who were leaders and aspiring leaders in Catholic education,
were invited to make recommendations pertaining to the types of solitude practices that could be
offered. Their recommendations for religious education leaders, teachers and students differed.
The parameters of this chapter do not enable a discussion on all the examples of solitude practices
recommended by the participants. Therefore, the most salient recommendation for each will be
explored.

Solitude, Spiritual Direction and the Religious Education Leader

Leaders in Catholic schools are generally more skilled and confident in leading the educational
dimensions rather than the religious or faith dimensions associated with their respective roles
(Buchanan & Chapman, 2014; Chapman & Buchanan, 2012). While the participants involved in this
study acknowledged the religious education leaders’ contribution to publicly leading the religious
or faith dimensions expressed within the school, they noted the challenges associated with doing
so in the Australia context; where public expressions of religion or faith are not the norm (Hudson,
2016; see also Buchanan, 2020). The following excerpts from various interview transcripts, which
are representative of those who participated in this study, provide insights into these challenges.

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We expect religious education leaders to share their faith with the entire school and this does
take its toll on them. We need to make sure that we do not spiritually bankrupt the religious
education leader, especially during challenging times. Religious education leaders should have
the opportunity to take time out and reflect and to see a spiritual director at least once a month
or three times a term. It should be compulsory because they can’t keep giving spiritually
without being nourished. (Participant 15)
Participant 15 reflects the salient view emanating from the collection of the participants’ interview
transcripts and suggests that while religious education leaders rely on personal social interaction
to communicate matters of faith and religion with all members of the school community, they
need opportunities for solitude to enrich their ability to lead in this way.
When there is a grief in the school community or in the lives of individual families at the
school it is quite often the religious education leader who is sought. This must take its toll on
them. Religious education leaders give so much spiritual support to so many members of the
school community; but who is supporting them? Who supports them when their own faith is
challenged? They need time out to contemplate and to be supported. (Participant 32)
Schools are dynamic communities where life happens amid the core business of formal education,
and Participant 32 captures one of many similar examples shared by other participants. In such
circumstances, in the context of Catholic schools, the participants indicated that the religious
education leader was regarded as a key support figure for members of the community. The
insights from this study reveal the centrality of the role of the religious education leader as one
that leads and gives public expression to the religious and faith dimension of the school. The
participants indicated that the role takes its toll on religious education leaders and that they need
to be supported and reignited. The aim of this section of the chapter is to explore the potential
support that religious education leaders might gain from engaging in solitude practices and
spiritual direction.
It has been argued in the existing body of scholarly literature that effective social interaction
within the context of community participation can be enhanced by the opportunity to engage
in periods of solitude (Long et al., 2003). The participants in this study indicated that religious
education leaders in Catholic schools need to draw from their personal faith and religious
experiences to lead the religious dimension of the school. To do so effectively requires ongoing
self-reflection and spiritual enrichment (Earl, 2005). Opportunities for religious education leaders
to have regular periods of solitude will help to alleviate the toll on their personal and spiritual
reserves because ‘solitude bears the same relation to the mind that sleep does to the body. It
affords it the necessary opportunities for repose and recovery’ (Simms, 1853: 28). Therefore,
it is beneficial for religious education leaders to seek solitude on a regular basis to alleviate the
chance of becoming spiritually bankrupt. Solitude as a spiritual discipline provides the space for
religious education leaders to be alone and to facilitate their own integration of mind, heart and
behaviour (Ault, 2013), thus enabling them to hear God better (Fleming, 2014).
Encountering the divine by engaging in solitude may be considered as a spiritual discipline to
be explored by a religious education leader with the aid of a spiritual director. Spiritual direction
helps people to deepen their relationship with God as meanings are co-authored by directors
and directees in ways that assist the religious education leader to become more attuned to their
own spiritual awareness (Crawley, 2016). The enrichment of the directee’s spiritual life is the

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focus in spiritual direction through a process of discerning the movements of the spirit in the
directee’s life, with the support of a director (Ault, 2013). For the religious education leader in a
Catholic school the opportunity for solitude as a spiritual discipline, as well as spiritual direction,
gives rise to a theological encounter that enables the religious education leader to engage in an
intentional conversation between experience and the religious tradition (Killen & De Beer, 1994).
Within the context of Catholic education, the practice of solitude as a spiritual discipline, as well
as spiritual direction, serves as a theological reflection that enables the religious education leader
to integrate their mind, heart, religion and spirituality in leading the religious dimension of the
school, with wisdom and insight.

Solitude, Imaginative Contemplation and the Religious Education Teacher

Religious education teachers, as individuals and as a teaching community, have the primary
responsibility for creating a Catholic school climate that is uniquely Christian. The CCE has
indicated that the key factor that enables a Catholic school to achieve its educational goals is
the teacher. In fact, the Congregation for Catholic Education claims that the extent to which the
Catholic school can achieve its goals depends chiefly on the teacher (CCE, 1977). Consequently,
the CCE pays special attention to the formation and professionalism of the religious education
teacher stating:
The religion teacher is the key role, the vital component, if the educational goals of the school
are to be achieved. But the effectiveness of religious instruction is closely tied to the personal
witness given by the teacher; this witness is what brings the content of the lessons to life.
(CCE, 1990: 96)
For the religious education teacher witness means that the teacher gives testimony to their faith
in Jesus Christ and his gospel in all their thoughts, words and deeds. Witness, in this sense, is not
about proselytising and conversion but about being attentive to the way in which faith permeates
a person’s way of being. As Pope Francis stated, ‘Christian witness is done with three things:
words, the heart and the hands’ (Pope Francis, 2017). Furthermore, in addition of being capable
of giving witness within the context of the school community, the Congregation for Catholic
Education indicates that the religious education teacher must undertake cultural, professional and
pedagogical training (CCE, 1990).
In many educational settings various approaches to religious education have downplayed and at
times excluded the role of the religious education teacher as witness (Jackson, 2004). The participants
involved in this study were concerned that many teachers in Catholic schools were not confident in
their understanding of the Catholic faith tradition and that this impacted on their potential to model
for their students what it means to be a Christian witness. The participants involved in this study
noted that this was a considerable challenge for teachers of religious education.
Teachers sometimes struggle with teaching religious education and they need a religious
education leader who is knowledgeable, competent and supportive. They need someone that
they can look to as a role model. They need someone who will enable them to reflect on their
own potential to be an effective religious education teacher and role model. (Participant 8)
The ability to find and employ fully formed religious education teachers was a concern shared
by most of participants involved in this study. They perceived that if schools are to achieve their

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goals, then as a Christian community, they need to place more emphasis on the formation of their
religious education teachers.
The school community under the direction of the religious education leader needs to create
space for teachers to reflect on their vocation in the light of the Catholic faith tradition. They
must take responsibility for the ongoing formation of teachers so that they can live out their
vocation as Christian educators with confidence. At the present and into the future we’re going
to need really knowledgeable religious education teachers who are committed to the Catholic
faith. If they are not committed the students will see right through them. (Participant 27)
The view of the participants aligns with that of the Congregation for Catholic Education who
also emphasized that the school and its leaders must take responsibility for the formation of their
teachers (CCE, 1982). A practical formation strategy repeatedly recommended by the participants
involved the application of a solitude practice that they felt needed to be regular and ongoing.
We need to offer teachers systematic and ongoing formation that allows them to encounter
our rich faith tradition in an intimate way. They need time alone to reflect on themselves
as religious educators in the light of the gospels and the Catholic tradition. The religious
education leader could make this possible by providing opportunities to engage in imaginative
contemplation. (Participant 4)
Imaginative contemplation as a solitude practice provides opportunities for religious education
teachers to nurture their spiritual growth, creativity and wisdom (Long et al, 2003). Within the
context of religious education, the practice of imaginative contemplation of Scripture has been
undertaken to support the professional learning and formation of religious education teachers
(Di Sipio, 2019). It enables teachers to consider their own life stories with those represented in
Scripture in a way that fosters personal connection with biblical characters and events (Gallagher,
2001). Imaginative contemplation can be an effective solitude practice that enables a religious
education teacher to move beyond the present in a way that invites them to explore their capacity
for intuitive knowledge, expanded consciousness, unconditional compassion for self and others,
appreciation for beauty and creative fulfilment (Coburn et al., 2012; Stern, 2016). The conscious
awareness of an individual’s knowing and connection to the religious tradition may be heightened
by encountering ways of knowing beyond or in addition to academia (Wessels, 2015). Imaginative
contemplation encountered through solitude offers individual the opportunity to wrestle with
their inner self and to examine the influence their own context and preconceptions have on
their encounter with Scripture and thereby to act as a point of reference from which religiously
motivated dialogue can be initiated (Di Sipio, 2019). Imaginative contemplation allows for
a greater scope of problem solving and innovation, and it can assist with the engagement of
dialogue where the religious education teacher is imbued with a deep awareness of their self
before an encounter with the other can occur (Castelli, 2012).
Experiences of imaginative contemplation among religious education teachers in a Catholic
school, in Australia, was explored in a pilot study by Di Sipio (2019). The participants in Di Sipio’s
study met on a weekly basis for the duration of a school term (ten weeks). Initially the religious
education teachers participated in a professional learning session where they were taught basic
skills pertaining to imaginative contemplation. Then, at the commencement of each week, they
were given a passage from Scripture and were invited to find some time each day to contemplate

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the passage in solitude. At the end of the week the religious education teachers met as a small
group and shared their contemplations or encounters with the Scripture passage. At the end of the
ten-week period Di Sipio interviewed the participants who revealed several insights resulting from
the opportunity to engage in this solitude practice. Di Sipio (2019) found that the participants
in the study became more aware of the richness of solitude and silence in enabling them to
engage in deep reflection of the Scripture passages in relation to their own lives and the Catholic
tradition. The religious education teachers felt that the insights they had gained enhanced their
own personal relationship with God and gave them the confidence to share their relationship with
their colleagues. Furthermore, contemplating Scripture through a process of solitude, silence and
sharing provided the impetus for the religious education teachers to create opportunities for their
own students to encounter God through Scripture in the religious education classroom. They also
felt more assured of their ability to lead Scripture-based classroom discussions and to dialogue
with students about their own insights. The participants involved in the religious education
leadership research believed that opportunities for religious education teachers to engage in the
solitude practice of imaginative contemplation should be facilitated by the religious education
leader. They felt that the expertise of the religious education leaders could be drawn upon to
enable religious education teachers to contemplate passages from Scripture in meaningful ways.

Solitude, the Examen and Religious Education Students

A key aim of the religious education leader research was to identify key responsibilities associated
with the role. The participants, who were senior leaders in the diocese with expertise in religious
education, conveyed insights pertaining to the role of religious education leadership that promoted
opportunities for the spiritual growth of the students. The participants perceived the role as one of
senior leadership in Catholic schools, with a specific mandate to enable the religious dimension
of the school to offer each student the opportunity to grow spiritually. This perceived mandate
aligns with the goals of Catholic education in that it contributes to the formation of the whole
person (CCE, 1982). The following insight from a participant captures a prominent view shared
by the participants.
The religious education leader has a role that is crucial because it demands leadership at every
level. All leadership actions should contribute to enriching the spiritual lives of all students.
It is important that students have opportunities for getting in touch with their inner self. This
should not be left to chance. It should be built into the program. (Participant 9)
While the role of the religious education leader is perceived as contributing to the formation
of the whole person, the participants believed that this might be achieved by structuring quiet
reflection times in solitude.
Schools are busy places. Teachers and students are going from one activity to another and we
seem to be ticking off the lists of daily activities, undertaken by the students, all the time. We
need to slow the pace down and to enable the students to stop and to reflect on what they have
been doing. Religious education leaders could play a key role in ensuring that reflection time
is structured into the daily program. (Participant 32)
For some years many Catholic schools, underpinned by Ignatian education philosophies around
the world, have structured into the school day an opportunity for students to engage in a solitude

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practice which is aimed at contributing to the formation of the whole person (Tetlow, 2008).
This is achieved through the daily practice of St Ignatius of Loyola’s Examen (Cline, 2018).
Adaptations of the daily examen are constantly evolving. One adaptation, facilitated by the
religious education teacher, allocated five minutes at the end of the school day where students
refrain from social interaction with those around them and enter into a state of solitude to enable
them to listen to their inner voice. In the classroom the students are invited to take these five
minutes, to close their eyes and maintain silence as they undergo three steps. The first step invites
them to review their day noting the highs and lows; the second step invites the students to face the
low points of the day; the third step invites students to consider what they would do to alleviate
the low points. At the end of step three students are invited, as a classroom community, to offer
a form of gratitude for and insights or wisdom gained. This invitation has been divided into two
additional steps in Manney’s (2011) account of the daily examen, and is appropriate when a
significant amount of time can be devoted to the daily examen (Manney, 2011).
Within the school context the participants in this study suggested that religious education
leaders could introduce the daily examen as a daily practice at the end of the school day. To do
so would involve the religious education leader facilitating a professional learning seminar for
religious education teachers to enable them to take on the role of facilitating the daily examen
in the classroom. The practice of the daily examen is a solitude practice that is accessible to all
members of the Catholic school community and not just students who are practising Catholics.
According to Cline (2018) all students in Catholic school, including those who identify as being
other than Catholic, can benefit from the practices of a daily examen. The introduction of this
solitude practice in the form of a daily examen is not limited to populations of students educated
in Catholic schools in the Ignatian tradition. It has the potential to be accessible to all students in
all Catholic schools. Studies have revealed that this simple solitude practice has contributed to
the formation of the whole person by enabling students to reflect on the realities encountered in
their daily lives (Boehner, 2012).

Conclusion

Human beings live in societies primarily geared towards social interaction. Learning communities,
which are reflected in an array of schooling systems throughout the world, are geared towards
working in groups and in collaboration with others (Stern, 2014). While social interaction is
necessary for the survival of human beings and their communities, opportunities for solitude are
also necessary (Long et al., 2003). The quality and depth of social interaction has the potential to
be enriched by those who engage in solitude practices, because doing so enhances personal growth
by enabling individuals to clarify their thoughts and connect with their inner self (Galanaki,
2004). Within the context of education there has been a growth in scholarship that acknowledges
experiences of solitude and the benefits of the inclusion of solitude practices for students and the
learning community (Cain, 2012; Dembling, 2012; Galanaki, 2005; Stern, 2016). The benefits
of solitude practices are not exclusive to Catholic education and consideration of the inclusion
of various solitude practices would be of interest in any learning community committed to the
professional and personal growth of students, teachers and school leaders. The implementation
of solitude practices in schools is not a one-size-fits-all process. While the solitude practice of a
daily examen might be adapted for students across various schooling systems, the implementation

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of a solitude practice such as spiritual direction may not be relevant to school leadership in non-
faith-based schools. However, the practice of professional reflection and mentoring might be
appropriate.
In relation to Catholic education, the religious dimension of the school plays a significant
part in aiding the school in achieving the goals of Catholic education, which are primarily
concerned with the integral formation of the human person (Tetlow, 2008). This research study
supports the view that religious education leaders have a significant role to play in helping
Catholic schools to achieve these goals by taking responsibility for structuring opportunities for
ongoing experiences of positive solitude practices for themselves as religious education leaders,
for the teachers and for the entire student body. To fulfil the goal of sustaining schools as places
of authentic Catholicity the religious education leaders need to create possibilities to encounter
solitude as a spiritual discipline and as a lead into spiritual direction. The religious education
teachers could engage in the solitude practice of imaginative contemplation to aid their own
personal growth and to foster learning communities that promote human dignity and human
rights through teamwork, cooperation and interaction in line with the attainment of two other
goals of Catholic education (goals two and three). Religious education students could benefit
from engaging in a daily examen as a means for self-reflection that fosters personal and spiritual
growth, which are key to the attainment of the first goal of Catholic education: the formation
of the whole person. These solitude practices have been introduced in many Catholic schools
throughout Australia, but it would not be common to find all three offerings occurring in one
school at any given time. It is recommended that schools within the diocese (and beyond), under
the direction of their respective religious education leaders, undertake to develop and implement
these three solitude practices. Doing so will orient Catholic schools towards fulfilling the fifth
goal of Catholic education by promoting a Catholic world view that contributes to the growth
of the whole person in a way that fosters love, wisdom and truth. It is also recommended that a
large-scale qualitative study be undertaken to gather empirical evidence on the benefits of these
solitude practices in relation to the achievement of the goals of Catholic education.

Acknowledgements

The research which informed this chapter was funded by the Catholic Education Office Sale.
Special recognition is given to the executive director of the Catholic Education Office Sale,
Maria Kirkwood, who supported and encouraged the research. Thank you also to the senior
officers of the Catholic Education Office Sale, as well as the Clergy, and leaders in schools who
participated in this study.

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 4

Solitude in Nature

Amanda Fulford

Introduction

This chapter considers what it might mean to experience solitude in nature through the work of
two writers: the nineteenth-century American philosopher, essayist and naturalist Henry David
Thoreau, and Anna (Nan) Shepherd, the twentieth-century author and poet. The chapter considers
the life that both these writers spent, often (though not always) alone in nature. But their works
are not easily understood as self-help texts for ‘getting away from it all’ and spending time in
the outdoors alone to de-stress. Nor are their works appeals to live some kind of hermit-like
existence alone in nature. Rather, both books are richly poetic, deeply philosophical accounts. The
perspective that both Thoreau and Shepherd offer is one that turns away from many of the ideas
that advocate the benefits of being alone – without human others – in the outdoors. It is rather
that it is through the practice of solitude that we are opened up to the possibilities of society with
Nature herself. This radically shifts our understanding of what is meant by solitude (commonly,
as the state or situation of being alone), and opens up a richer understanding developed through
ideas of engagement, disengagement, solitariness and communion.

Solitude in Nature

In July 1845, just eight years after graduating from Harvard, a young Henry David Thoreau
moved to live in a cabin he built himself on the shores of Walden Pond in Concord, Massachusetts.
There, he began work on the manuscript of one of his well-known works, A Week on the Concord
and Merrimack Rivers (1849/2004), and a year later, to begin to write his arguably most famous
work, Walden (1854/1999). For the next seventeen years, until his death in May 1862, he lived
and worked surrounded by some of America’s most celebrated writers and thinkers of the period:
Ralph Waldo Emerson, William Ellery Channing, Nathaniel Hawthorne and Louisa May Alcott.
Thoreau’s thinking and his writing were forged together with a group of prominent New England
intellectuals, and in a movement that became known as Transcendentalism. But Thoreau’s oeuvre
is difficult to categorize; it is part autobiography, and yet at the same time a body of work hugely
rich in documenting and surveying the natural environment of rural New England. But Walden,
 Solitude in Nature

together with Thoreau’s vast journal entries, his correspondence, and his lectures and essays are
also deeply poetic and philosophical works. Indeed, Stanley Cavell – whose (1981) work The
Senses of Walden is a profound and evocative reading of Thoreau’s most famous work – calls it a
‘scripture . . . a sacred text’ (Cavell, 1981: 14).
Just over a century after Thoreau’s death, the most celebrated work of another author was
published. Born in 1893, Anna (Nan) Shepherd was a Scottish writer, poet and teacher who
published three novels and a poetry collection titled In the Cairngorms during a period of intensive
writing and creativity in the period between 1928 and 1933. The manuscript of her seminal
mountain memoir, The Living Mountain, however, was kept in a draw for over four decades until
its eventual publication in 1977. Shepherd spent forty-one years working as a lecturer in English
at a College of Education in Aberdeen in Scotland. She was a keen gardener, but her great love
was walking on the Cairngorm Mountains in Scotland. This short volume, The Living Mountain,
documents Shepherd’s life spent walking in the Cairngorm hills and exploring them in rich and
evocative detail in the various seasons. As with Thoreau, Shepherd’s work is similarly difficult to
describe. In his introduction to the volume, Robert Macfarlane writes:
The Living Mountain is a formidably difficult book to describe. A celebratory prose-poem?
A geo-poetic quest? A place-paean? A philosophical enquiry into the nature of knowledge?
. . . None of these descriptions quite fits the whole, though it is all of these things in part
(1977/2011: xiv).
What is remarkable about Shepherd’s The Living Mountain and Thoreau’s Walden is that
despite the obvious geographical, temporal, contextual and cultural differences, there are some
remarkable lines of connection between these two works. This is perhaps most clearly seen in the
way that they think not only about solitude and silence, but also the place of Nature1 in exploring
both the idea and the practices of both. As might be expected given Cavell’s reading of Thoreau
and Macfarlane of Shepherd, both concepts are richly connoted and replete with meaning in their
respective works. Cavell reminds us of what it is to read Walden when he quotes from the chapter
titled ‘Reading’: ‘We must laboriously seek the meaning of each word and line, conjecturing a
larger sense than common use permits out of what wisdom and valour and generosity we have’
(Cavell, 1981: 4). In what follows, this chapter will explore ideas of solitude and silence in
nature – and what it might mean for us to be in solitude in nature – through a detailed reading of
passages from Thoreau’s Walden and Shepherd’s The Living Mountain. Such readings will disrupt
some of the more common interpretations of these writers’ works, and will open up ideas of how
an engagement with Nature illuminates the concepts of solitude and sociability. It will also show
how in Thoreau and Shepherd, solitude is less an absence than a form of presence and revealing
that challenges the very basis of our commonly held views of solitude.

Thoreau and Shepherd: Alone in Nature?

Thoreau famously opens his work Walden with the words: ‘When I wrote the following pages, or
rather the bulk of them, I lived alone, in the woods, a mile from any neighbor, in a house which
I had built myself, on the shore of Walden Pond, in Concord, Massachusetts’ (1854/1999: 5).
That this is not just an isolated statement to which we should give little more than passing
consideration is suggested by the fact that chapter 5 is titled ‘Solitude’. It is also a thread running
through his whole body of work. In his 1862 essay, ‘Walking’, Thoreau writes: ‘In the desert,

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pure air and solitude compensate for want of moisture and fertility’ (1862/2017: 40). Such is
his want of solitude that to be deprived of it gives him feeling of asphyxia. Yet contrasted with
this is the sense of the re-creation of the self that is realized when he is in the woods, a place
that he describes as his sanctum sanctorum (1862/2017: 40). These sentiments are expressed
not only in his public writings but also in his private correspondence. In a letter to his mother,
Cynthia, he pens the following words: ‘I want a whole continent to breathe in, and a good deal of
solitude and silence, such as all Wall Street cannot buy’ (Harding & Bode, 1958: 100). Thoreau’s
commentators have also been keen to point out the necessity of solitude to his life. Bradford
Torrey, in his ‘Introduction’ to Thoreau’s journals, writes this: ‘“I am all without and in sight,”
said Montaigne, “born for society and friendship.” So was not Thoreau. He was all within, born
for contemplation and solitude’ (1906: §xxiii).
But perhaps these quotations, powerfully illustrative as they are of a man who purposefully
sought out solitude, are not easily understood as suggesting a preference for a hermit style of
life, devoid of companionship and of society. As Cavell notes, ‘The drift of Walden is not that
we should go off and be alone; the drift is that we are alone and that we are never alone’ (1981:
80). That Walden is rather concerned with themes of hospitality and with one’s neighbours
and visitors is suggested by the titles of several of the chapters: ‘Visitors’, ‘Brute Neighbors’,
‘Housewarming’ and ‘Former Inhabitants and Winter Visitors’. These chapters are concerned not
only with human and animal visitors to his hut on the shores of Walden Pond and the surrounding
woods, but also with the hospitality of ideas. Thoreau iteratively draws his readers’ attention to
the unfamiliar: to the wisdom of the Bhagavad-Gita, to Hindu and Persian poetry, and to Celtic
and Scandinavian mythology. These ideas of the arrival, and welcoming of the unfamiliar and
the foreign, are perhaps best illustrated in Thoreau’s account, in the chapter ‘Sounds’, of the
coming of the railway to Concord. He writes that ‘The Fitchburg Railroad touches the pond
about a hundred rods south of where I dwell’ (1854/1999: 105). And it is as a result of his daily
experience of the rail cars passing so close to his cabin, bringing not only travellers but also
freight from around the world, that he reflects: ‘I am reminded of foreign parts, of coral reefs,
and of Indian oceans, and tropical climes, and the extent of the globe. I feel more like a citizen
of the world’ (1854/1999: 109).
So it is not quite right to equate Thoreau’s preference for solitude with an aversion to
society and a rejection of hospitality. Indeed, his famous aphorism in Walden rejects just such
a dichotomy: ‘I had three chairs in my house; one for solitude, two for friendship, three for
society’ (1854/1999: 127). Moreover, his close friend Ellery Channing, spoke of Thoreau’s ‘fine
social qualities’ (Torrey, 1906: §xxviii). While much might be made of Thoreau’s claim that he
lived apart from his neighbours, a mile from Concord, he also writes that ‘My nearest neighbor
is a mile distant, and no house is visible from any place but the hill-tops within half a mile of
my own’ (1854/1999: 119). He recounts knowing when visitors had been to his hut as, when he
returned, he found visitors’ cards, bunches of flowers, evidence of their presence in footprints,
the disturbed undergrowth and traces of pipe smoke in the air (1854/1999: 118). It might seem
as if there are some contradictions here, even that Thoreau does not know what he thinks, or is
hypocritical. This is perhaps best seen when he writes: ‘I have a great deal of company in my
house; especially in the morning, when nobody calls’ (1854/1999: 125).
So does Thoreau crave solitude, or not? His sense of asphyxia in society stands in stark
contrast to his assertion that ‘I have never felt lonesome, or in the least depressed by a sense of

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solitude, but once, and that was a few weeks after I came to the woods, for an hour, I doubted if
the near neighbourhood of man was not essential to a serene and healthy life. To be alone was
something unpleasant’ (1854/1999: 120). Thoreau certainly has his critics who claim that his plea
to ‘Simplify, simplify’ (1854/1999: 84) fits uneasily with his lifestyle (Schulz, 2015), and further,
that his political writings are riven with radical inconsistency (St Jean, 1998). His claim that ‘I
had more visitors while I lived in the woods than at any other period in my life’ (1854/1999:
130) may be hyperbolic, but it suggests something important: that solitude for Thoreau is not
understood simply as a lack of contact, as being alone.
Just as Thoreau’s time at Walden Pond can, at least in some senses, be thought of as an account
of his time spent alone in nature, we can argue similarly in respect of Shepherd’s The Living
Mountain. But just as this is not quite right in Thoreau’s case, the same can be said of Shepherd.
It is not as if she sought solitude relentlessly above all else; For Shepherd, it was not solitude in
the mountains that she craved; rather, it was the friendship and company of the mountains. Her
purpose in walking in the mountains was ‘merely to be with the mountain as one visits a friend,
with no intention but to be with him’ (1977/2011: 15). As Macfarlane says in his ‘Introduction’
to Shepherd’s work, we might think of her book not as an account of acquaintance with (human)
others but rather as ‘the true mark of a long acquaintance with a single place’ (1977/2011: xxiv).
It is easily with a book such as The Living Mountain to become engrossed – as a reader – in
the astonishing beauty and persistence of the description and imagery. It is visceral and seductive.
What we might miss in a reading that (rightly) opens our imaginations such that we feel ourselves
walking on the same mountains, is the way that Shepherd lightly and nimbly moves between
pronouns such that the reader almost misses whether she is describing a solitary walk or one with
a companion. It is as if this is of no import (to her account at least). She writes: ‘I first saw it on
a cloudless day of early July. We had started at dawn, crossed Cairn Gorm about nine o’clock,
and made our way down by the Saddle to the lower end of the loch’ (1977/2011: 12 italics mine).
The attentive reader might pick up that Shepherd is not walking alone from this; but it is easy
to miss. A few lines later, she continues: ‘I motioned to my companion who was a step behind,
and she came . . . I waded slowly back into the shallow water. There was nothing that seemed
worth saying. My spirit was as naked as my body. It was one of the most defenceless moments
of my life’ (1977/2011: 13). What is striking is that her companion is never named; it is as if this
detail – at this precise moment in time – is unimportant. It is rather that her relationship with
the loch is what is brought into sharp perspective. It is not that Shepherd must walk alone, that
her preference is for solitariness understood as the absence of human company. Her choice of
walking companion is rather one who allows her to engage fully with the mountain:
The presence of another person does not detract from, but enhances, the silence, if the other
is the right sort of hill companion. The perfect hill companion is the one whose identity is for
the time being merged into that of the mountains, as you feel your own to be (1977/2011: 14).
Though a living ‘mile from Concord’ and away from his neighbours (1854/1999: 119), Walden
shows us – perhaps paradoxically – that Thoreau did not always seek solitariness over society. The
same can be said of Shepherd. She writes of sitting in Old Sandy Mackenzie’s cottage, with Mrs
Mackenzie, a place where she claims to have ‘passed some of the happiest moments of my life’
(1977/2011: 38). She writes of her fellow hill-lovers, James Downie, and Maggie Gruer whom
she describes as ‘bred of the bone of the mountain’ (p. 85). She recalls meeting two young railway

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workers who had come from Manchester during their one week of leave to try to photograph the
golden eagle, and talking to them about when to try the ascent of Ben MacDhui (1977/2011:
63), and she herself seeks out an old shepherd in Galloway to seek advice on the ascent of
Merrick. Some of these relationships are borne of the necessity of a kind of camaraderie that is
needed simply to survive in the harsh environment of the Cairngorms in winter, and Shepherd
writes poignantly of the death of two boys on Coire Cas (1977/2011: 39). But just as we see
Thoreau pursuing opportunities to engage with those he meets (such as his friend, the Canadian
woodcutter), while also seeking solitude in nature at his beloved Walden Pond, so Shepherd both
seizes opportunities to be with others, yet also to be apart from them:
I had driven to Derry Lodge one perfect morning in June with two gentlemen who, having
arrived there, were bent on returning at one to Braemar, when a car came up with four others,
obviously setting out for Ben MacDhui. In a flash I had accosted them to ask if I might share
their car back to Braemar in the evening: my intention was to go up, the rag and bob-tail of
their company, keeping them in sight but not joining myself to them (1977/–2011: 78).
But it is clear that being alone in the mountains is synonymous with a kind of joy – even
ecstasy. This is seen in her delight in venturing out at dawn one July to find ‘an empty hill’,
but of later counting more than 100 people streaming down the mountain (1977/2011: 39). In
the chapter titled ‘Life: Man’, she begins by writing of walking all day and seeing no-one – of
hearing no living sound. If the reader was in any doubt as to whether this was an experience
to be relished or avoided, she then describes a moment of what we might call transcendence,
when she realized that she was perfectly ‘alone in the universe with a few blocks of red granite’
(1977/2011: 79).

Solitude as Solitariness?

What this close attention to some sections of Walden and The Living Mountain have shown is
that we cannot easily read Thoreau and Shepherd as advocating a kind of solitary life lived in
nature. Their accounts disrupt the idea of solitude as being in a location – here, nature – without
the company of others (humans). While both writers chose solitariness in the natural environment
during the course of their lives, their accounts do not show that nature is the axiomatic place for
an experience of solitude, or even that one is dependent on the other, and that being in nature
allowed them to be alone. The particular perspective that both Thoreau and Shepherd offer is
rather that it is in the practice of solitude that we are opened up to the possibilities of society with
Nature. This radically shifts our understanding of what is meant by solitude (commonly, as the
state or situation of being alone).
In Thoreau we find something like the anthropomorphizing of Nature. In describing Nature as
Walden Pond’s ‘elderly Dame’, he describes her as dwelling in his neighbourhood; and of allowing
him to walk among her herb gardens. For Thoreau, ‘She runs back farther than mythology, and
she can tell me the original of every fable, and on what fact everyone is founded, for the incidents
occurred when she was young’ (1854/1999: 125). He continues in Walden:
I enjoy the friendship of the seasons . . . Every little pine needle expanded and swelled with
sympathy and befriended me. I was so distinctly made aware of the presence of something
kindred to me, even in scenes which we are accustomed to call wild and dreary, and also that

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the nearest blood to me and humanist was not a person nor a villager, that I thought no place
could ever be strange to me again (1854/1999: 120).

These are no isolated, bucolic comments; the idea of the society of Nature is rather a strong
leitmotif throughout Thoreau’s oeuvre, as evidenced in the following lines:

In the midst of a gentle rain while these thoughts prevailed, I was suddenly sensible of such
sweet and beneficent society in Nature, in the very pattering of the drops, and in every
sound and sight around my house, and infinite and unaccountable friendliness all at once
like an atmosphere sustaining me, as made the fancied advantages of human neighbourhood
insignificant, and I have never thought of them since (1854/1999: 120).

But there is something further in Thoreau’s account which necessitates a profound shift in our
understanding of solitude; this comes from how he perceives what it means to experience the
solitude of Nature. Thoreau writes:

I find it wholesome to be alone the greater part of the time. To be in company, even with the
best, is soon wearisome and dissipating. I love to be alone. I never found the companion that
was so companionable as solitude. We are for the most part more lonely when we go abroad
among men than when we stay in our chambers (1854/1999: 123).

The implication of Thoreau’s claim that solitude is in and of itself a ‘companion’ profoundly
disrupts any idea that we can ‘escape’ to Nature as a way of realizing a need to be alone and of
achieving solitariness.
Nature is also Shepherd’s constant companion; in this sense, though she walks alone (often
without a fellow hiker), her lack of solitariness comes from her association with Nature (in that
Nature becomes her associate). Coming to know the mountain is, for her, a lifelong task; as she
writes in the closing lines of The Living Mountain, ‘Knowing another is endless’ (1977/2011: 108).
It requires the devotion and fidelity required to sustain a friendship. But just as the problem of
knowing another has been a long-standing point of discussion in philosophy of mind, so Shepherd
writes of the difficulty of knowing the mountain: ‘One never quite knows the mountain, nor
oneself in relation to it’ (1977/2011: 1). On the mountain, Shepherd finds that the conversation
of human walking companions leaves her feeling ‘weary and dispirited, because the hill did not
speak’ (1977/2011: 14). As she stands in the silence of a plateau, she becomes aware that the
silence is not complete: ‘Water is speaking’, she writes (1977/2011: 22). Solitude in Nature can
never be an experience only of solitariness for Shepherd, because of the society of Nature that the
Cairngorms afford. The title of Shepherd’s volume (The Living Mountain) suggests that she finds
in the society of Nature a friend. Just as we experience the moods of a living friend (when angry,
anxious, joyous or bored), so Shepherd shows how she lives with the mountains in their moods:
through the bitter cold and desolation of the ice in winter, to the exuberance and flamboyance
of the mountains’ summer life. Solitude cannot only mean solitariness for Shepherd because
of the society of Nature which affords here not only knowledge of the mountain’s life but also
of her own. As she writes: ‘To know Being, this is the final grace accorded from the mountain’
(1977/2011: 108).

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Disengagement, Encounter and Revealing

Our lives in the twenty-first century are increasingly marked by a global connectedness to others;
we live in ever-larger cities which operate twenty-four hours a day, and we seem increasingly
unable to disconnect from our digital devices. Perhaps we should not be surprised, then, that
there has been a growth in courses, self-help books and – paradoxically in digital applications
– that seek to help us to find respite, to take time for ourselves and to disconnect. Many of the
ways in which we are encouraged to find space away from the incessant busyness of our work
lives and the pressures of our daily routines with family involve spending some time alone in
the outdoors. It is as if there is something particularly beneficial – almost therapeutic – about a
solitary experience of the hills, the lakes or the forest. As Thoreau wrote in his journal: ‘There is
nothing so sanative, so poetic, as a walk in the woods or fields . . . Nothing so inspires me and
excites such serene and profitable thought’ (Torrey, 1906: 208). But there is a danger here that we
can fall into an unhelpful romanticizing of such experiences of nature and to over-emphasize the
physical, cognitive and psychological benefits of time spend in nature.
The works of Thoreau and of Shepherd afford us a rather different way of thinking about what
solitary experiences in nature might offer. Thoreau recounts the times that he spent resting in the
shade after a morning of planting his crops, in what he describes as ‘a very secluded and shaded
spot (1854/1999: 205). Here, he saw the wood-cock, the turtledove and the red squirrel, all in
their natural habitats, but experienced them in the mode of encounter. Thoreau describes this
experience of encounter as a kind of revealing, a kind of Heideggerian aletheia or ‘unconcealing’
(Heidegger, 1972: 70). It was as if, through these solitary experiences, nature disclosed itself to
Thoreau; he writes: ‘You need only sit still long enough in some attractive spot in the woods that
all its inhabitants may exhibit themselves to you by turns’ (1854/1999: 205). These moments
of solitude offered Thoreau a different way of seeing the inhabitants of the woods that he
encountered on a daily basis. This same shift in perspective is also what Shepherd experienced,
even after a lifetime of walking in the Cairngorms. She writes of seeing the water – the most
common of substances in the Scottish hills – and of the colours in it that she had not perceived
before: ‘It is green like the water of winter skies, but lucent, clear like aquamarines, without the
vivid brilliance of glacier water . . . Sometimes the Quoich waterfalls have violet playing through
the green, and the pouring water spouts and bubbles into a violet froth’ (1977/2011: 24–5).
For both Shepherd and Thoreau, to encounter nature in solitude – to experience its unconcealing
– requires a shift in perspective. This is not only a metaphorical shift; rather, it is a physical one.
Shepherd writes of how, on one September day, walking alone in the hills, she saw from an
entirely different perspective, Loch Corrie of the Loch (a body of water very familiar to her).
She writes: ‘This changing of focus in the eye, moving the eye itself when looking at things that
do not move, deepens one’s sense of outer reality . . . By so simple a matter too, as altering the
position of one’s head, a different kind of world may be made to appear’ (1977/2011: 10–11). In
Thoreau we find this same idea richly detailed. Thoreau – a man who worked as Concord’s town
surveyor (Chrua, 2012) – writes throughout his journal of ‘perambulating the lines’ (see Journal
Volume 3, 17 September 1851). This, like seeing the water on the Cairngorms, was Thoreau’s
daily, usually routine, work. But in his essay ‘Walking’, he recalls of seeing a fellow surveyor
deep in conversation with his client. Shifting his perspective away from the measurement of the
bounds, Thoreau describes a transcendent experience of nature: ‘[The] worldly miser [was] with

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a surveyor looking after his bounds, while heaven had taken place around him, and he did not
see the angels going to and fro, but was looking for an old post-hole in the midst of paradise’
(1862/2017: 53).

Communion, Presence and Attention

A cursory reading of either Thoreau or of Shepherd might suggest that they are proponents of
the outdoor life, champions of a highly individualistic life lived close to nature, or even solitary
figures, chronicling and advocating for the natural world. On one level, this reading is not entirely
wrong. But a closer attention to their texts seems to disrupt any easy understanding of their
works solely in these terms. Two problems arise here that unsettle the idea profoundly, captured
succinctly in the title of this chapter, of ‘Solitude in Nature’. First, for both Thoreau and for
Shepherd, solitude is a richly nuanced concept that – paradoxically – is not understood primarily
as a state of solitariness, or of being along (without the company of human others). Second, being
‘in nature’ is not just a matter of physical location (of being at Walden Pond or in the Cairngorms,
or anywhere else). How Thoreau and Shepherd understand being alone in nature leads us rather
to a somewhat new understanding of solitude, one marked by a kind of communion and presence
that comes from an attentiveness to one’s surroundings.
While it is clear that neither Thoreau nor Shepherd was alone during their time spent in
nature (accompanied as they were by fellow hill climbers, wood and ice cutters, and friends
and acquaintances from local villages), they were in solitude in nature. This sounds absurd only
if we see solitude primarily as an ‘absence of’ something or someone. However, for Thoreau
and Shepherd, solitude is not an experience of solitariness, nor of loneliness; as Thoreau writes:
‘Solitude is not measured by the miles of space that intervene between man and his fellows’
(1854/1999: 123). Solitude is better understood in terms of communion; it is concerned with
ways of being with (com) the oneness (unus) of nature and of sharing fellowship with it. Of
course, there are sacramental overtones here that remind us of the Christian fellowship of the
sharing of bread and wine. But the kind of communion with Nature (and here the capitalization
is deliberate) is one characterized not by participation with human others in a shared rite, but by
communion with Nature itself. As Bradford Torrey writes in his ‘Introduction’ to the 1906 edition
of Thoreau’s journals, their pages are full of ‘entries describing hours of serene communion
with nature.’ 2 Such communion does not just happen because one is in the natural environment;
there is nothing ‘magical’ as such about nature that opens up the possibilities of communion.
Communion rather requires of us a deliberate act of attention to what is around us. As Thoreau
writes in his journal entry for 2 February 1841: ‘The instant of communion is when, for the least
point of time, we cease to oscillate, and coincide in rest by as fine a point as a star pierces the
firmament.’
To commune, then, requires the exercise of attention. We see this beautifully illustrated in the
richness and detail of the quotidian observations made by both Shepherd and Thoreau. These
passages amply illustrate the point; it is through attentiveness to one’s surroundings that we are
brought into communion with them:
The shadows on snow are of course blue. But where snow is blown into ripples, the shadowed
undercut potion can look quite green. A snow sky is often pure green, not only at sunrise or
sunset, but all day; and a snow-green sky looks greener in reflection, either in water or from

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windows, than it seems in reality. Against such a sky, a snow-covered hill may look purplish,
as though washed in blaeberry. On the other hand, before a fresh snowfall, whole lengths of
snowy hill may appear a golden green (Shepherd, 1977/2011: 34).
All our Concord waters have two colors at least; one when viewed at a distance, and another,
more proper, close at hand. The first depends more on the light, and follows the sky. In clear
weather, in summer, they appear blue at a little distance, especially if agitated, and at a great
distance all appear alike. In stormy weather they are sometimes of a dark slate color . . .
Looking directly down into our waters from a boat, they are seen to be of very different colors.
Walden is blue at one time and green at another, even from the same point of view. Lying
between the earth and the heavens, it partakes of the color of both. Viewed from a hill-top it
reflects the color of the sky; but near at hand it is of a yellowish tint next the shore where you
can see the sand, then a light green, which gradually deepens to a uniform dark green in the
body of the pond. In some lights, viewed even from a hill-top, it is of a vivid green next the
shore. Some have referred this to the reflection of the verdure; but it is equally green there
against the railroad sand-bank, and in the spring, before the leaves are expanded, and it may be
simply the result of the prevailing blue mixed with the yellow of the sand. Such is the color of
its iris (Thoreau, 1854/1999: 159–60).
If the works of Thoreau and Shepherd show us that solitude in nature can be understood as a form
of communion, they also open up the possibility of recognizing this as a form of bringing things
to presence through our encounter with them. Shepherd writes of this in terms of the necessity of
being with the hills over a lifetime, of resisting the race to the summit (a habit among walkers that
she failed to understand) and instead of letting the mountains reveal things to her – of allowing
them come into presence: ‘So I looked slowly across the Coire Loch, and began to understand
that haste can do nothing with these hills. I know when I had looked for a long time that I had
hardly begun to see’ (1977/2011: 11).

On the Possibility of Solitude (in Nature)

To read Thoreau and Shepherd as offering a perspective on solitude in nature that sees it in
terms of forms of communion that bring things into presence is not to give a normative account.
Both writers chose their particular ways of living: for Thoreau, it was a two-year period lived
mainly alone, but not far from his neighbours, surveying the neighbourhoods of rural New
England; for Shepherd, it was a simple life, much of it spent walking alone, or with friends in
her beloved Cairngorms. Both were meticulous in observing and recording the natural world as
they encountered it. But neither would advocate that we must do exactly the same. Their solitude
in nature is not a model for ours; they are not projects that they would wish for us to replicate.
Their individual accounts (narratives) are a form of accounting for themselves to the world, and
they are also calls for their readers to give their own accounts. Indeed, Thoreau writes this on the
opening page of Walden: ‘I, on my side, require every writer, first or last, a simple and sincere
account of his own life, and not merely what he has heard of other men’s lives’ (1854/1999: 5–6).
Cavell makes the same point in his reading of Walden. He writes:
Of course, alone is where he [Thoreau] wants us. That was his point of origin, and it is to be
our point of departure for this experiment, this book of travels, this adventure ‘to explore the

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private sea, the Atlantic and Pacific Ocean of one’s being alone’ (xviii, 2): he attracts us so
that we put ourselves on this spot, and then turns us around and so loses us (Cavell, 1981: 50).
How, then, are we to find out own solitude in nature; what are our own points of departure for
own experiments? Perhaps the difficulty of answering this question is part of the point; we must
find them ourselves. But where to find them; what do we mean by ‘nature’? This raises a further
question: Thoreau and Shepherd had nature full blown on their doorsteps. But for many of us
living in burgeoning cities of millions of inhabitants, where is even green space, let alone nature
in the midst of concrete? But perhaps this is not an insurmountable problem as it might seem,
yet it starts with another paradox: Can solitude in nature be experienced away from our beloved
forests, lakes and areas of outstanding national beauty? Can we experience it in urban locations
instead – in the so-called concrete jungles? If solitude is understood as communion with one’s
surroundings that fosters a particular kind of engagement and attention that brings the ordinary
into presence such that we see things in a new way, then why not?
In 2013, Jan Masschelein and his colleague Win Cuyvers took a number of master’s students
to Athens. In resisting the perhaps obvious educative potential of taking the students to see iconic
locations such as the Parthenon or Acropolis (perhaps this was the equivalent of Shepherd’s
dismissing the aim always to reach the summit of the mountain), they simply walked along
arbitrary paths, regarding attentively (with its etymological connotations of devoting oneself to
something) what they saw (factories, shopping malls, closed hospitals, etc.). Such practices were
‘not primarily about becoming conscious or aware but about becoming attentive’ (Masschelein,
2019: 191). They were ‘practices of attention, investigation and entanglement’ (Masschelein,
2019).
Being outdoors afforded the students a different way of encountering and engaging with the
world. For Masschelein, this kind of encounter ‘cut[s] through or get[s] rid of intentions (both
of the city and of the one who walks) and thus allows attention to emerge’ (2019: 200). Such
entanglement with the environment (be it Walden Pond, the Cairngorms, Athens, or anywhere
else) opens up the possibilities for solitude. ‘Attention’ writes, Masschelein, ‘is lack of intention
. . . [it] entails the suspension of judgement and implies a kind of waiting’ (2019: 48). We see
this clearly in Thoreau’s sitting quietly in the woods while all its inhabitants exhibited themselves
to him in turn, and in Shepherd’s changing the focus of her eye to catch a glimpse of a different
world. It is Thoreau himself, reflecting in an essay on ‘Sound and Silence’, who perhaps best
summarizes these possibilities for solitude (not) in nature, and that offers his readers hope for
solitude and silence in the ordinariness of our lives:
We go about to find Solitude and Silence, as though they dwelt only in distant glens and the
depths of the forest, venturing out from these fastnesses at midnight. Silence was, say we,
before ever the world was, as if creation had displaced her, and were not her visible framework
and foil. It is only favorite dells that she deigns to frequent, and we dream not that she is then
imported into them when we wend thither . . . [But] where man is, there is Silence . . . Silence
is the communing of a conscious soul with itself. If the soul attend for a moment to its own
infinity, then and there is silence. She is audible to all men, at all times, in all places, and if we
will we may always hearken to her admonitions.3

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Working Solitude

The Value of Wilderness Time for Leaders and

Would-be Leaders

David Weir

Introduction

Solitude is defined by the Oxford English Dictionary (OED, 2005) as ‘the state of being or living
alone; seclusion; solitariness’, but in this chapter we use a more limited definition as ‘solitude
connotes a state of separation without the close company of others for a period away from the
diurnal world of human society’, leaving aside any aspects of motive or length of the period.
In this chapter we ask whether such a separation may have special value in the development of
leaders. Much contemporary teaching in management and business focuses on performance and
lays aside reflection as a subsidiary, even an unnecessary, activity. The argument in this chapter
is that without solitude it is hard for leadership capabilities to emerge.
This chapter reviews the various ways in which ‘leadership’ has been used in business and
management education, especially in those specialized institutions that are called business
schools. It has developed from studies of actual, historically situated, people who have been noted
for their apparent skills in leading others. Attributes of actual people are, therefore, introduced
into what is often a de-personalized generalized capability, the performance of which can be
taught in business schools – where even the characteristic of ‘authenticity’ has to be reinvented
as something that can be transmitted in a classroom. This skill set or set of performances can
be helpfully reimagined as comprising both cognitive and spiritual dimensions and thus into
metaphors of ‘brain’ and ‘soul’.
This leadership may require to be applied in a range of differing contexts and thus situational
and intermittent, so that what counts as good performance in one context may not be as beneficial
in another. So those who wish to be recognized as leaders must be capable of mastering more than
one style. The successful application of the appropriate style to map into varying situations needs
 Working Solitude

to be demonstrated by the ‘agility’ needed to counter the requisite variety that swiftly evolving
issues present.
This variety of leadership generates points of articulation at which situations morph from
one state to another, sometimes sharply, and behaviours need to change their intensity and
colouring. These liminalities suggest the need for a buffering zone in which individuals
review experienced situations and critically consider alternatives without the need for the
presence of others. This is what we call solitude. The chapter then illustrates the value of
the solitary state by reconsidering one celebrated transition, that of Jesus Christ, as his
life course moved from a physical, communal and familial normality towards a necessary
re-emergence as a being approaching through death a new order of being in the specific
locus of the wilderness.
Organizations can also use solitude to develop new skills and potentials in which quiet
appreciation takes time to enforce the calm latency that may need to be called upon when the
organization faces wicked problems. Just as actors and public speakers can benefit from the
Alexander technique in which the body while appearing to the outsider to be immobile is in
fact unlearning long-standing practices of distorting the relation of neck, torso and spine and
becoming able to set about settling more comfortably into its own skin.
The chapter then considers the value of creating opportunities for learning from the experience
of a wilderness version of solitude in management and leadership development programmes.
Research in neuroscience confirms the ability of mental processes to require a state of being left
alone, unmonitored and unnoticed to build latent capability, not merely to recuperate but to try
out, to practice, to tempt the whole person into new possibilities, emergent states of possibility
in the solitude where time permits appreciation of the immediacy of the present where the whole
person is quietly learning how to dance the orange.

Leadership in Organizations

For President Dwight Eisenhower, leadership is ‘the art of getting someone else to do something
you want done because he wants to do it’. The verb ‘do’ is repeated three times, for action is
the defining trope of leadership in Western writing (Bruch & Ghoshal, 2004). Current UK
prime minister Johnson rallies his faithful with the injunction ‘Get it done!’ Nike exhorts us to
‘Just do it’. Action is here prioritized over reflection, privileging a concentration on short-term
results.
The massive contemporary literature (Northouse, 2003; Jackson & Parry, 2007) offers no
easy answers for students of leadership (Heifetz, 1994). Both the cognitive capabilities of a good
manager (mind) and the inspirational virtues of a good leader (soul) are portrayed as needed at
the apex of complex organizations (Hickman, 1990), for the manager requires the competences
of ability to use the power and logic of the rational mind, to cautiously evaluate the dangers,
scrutinize performance and control outcomes. The leader uses the power of intuition and logic of
the heart, senses opportunity, focuses on long-term results, creates visions, searches for potential,
seeks the intangible, inspires and pursues dreams (Hickman, 1990). Many writers follow Zaleznik
(1977, 2001, 2004) in seeing fundamental difference between the roles of ‘manager’ and ‘leader’.
This chapter considers the significance of the practice of solitude for those who work in either
role at a senior level.

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Arguably sheer intelligence as in natural raw brain power or the cognitive abilities measured
in intelligence tests as IQ may not always be an essential prerequisite of excellent leadership in
action. The most successful British military leader of the twentieth century, Bernard Montgomery,
was never thought to be intelligent in that way as he was one of the first to admit (Montgomery,
1961; Weir, 2013). Moreover this example also hints that the terms ‘manager’ and ‘leader’ do not
necessarily denote distinct and non-contiguous types of activity for among those who have turned
out to be successful as leaders are many who have first excelled at the apparently more pedestrian
tasks of management.
Adair (2010) distinguishes three interrelated fields of the task, the team and the individual.
Weber (1947) identified leaders as traditional, bureaucratic and charismatic corresponding to
three types of legitimate authority in organizations: the traditional, the rational-legal and the
charismatic. However, charisma accrues from more than possession of certain traits, character
virtues or competences or even consistent delivery of results. Hard work may constitute a stronger
virtue in leaders than ability (Hu et al., 2020). Etzioni (1964), in a sophisticated version of Weber’s
typology, relates types of leaders to the organizational requirements of three types of authority
appropriate to utilitarian, normative and coercive organizations. Lewin (1939) distinguished
leadership styles in the authoritarian leader who rules autocratically, participative leadership
with a democratic style and the delegative leadership of the laissez-faire leader. Likert (1967,
1976) specified four types of leaders: the exploitative-authoritative, the benevolent–autocratic,
the consultative and the democratic.
Hersey and Blanchard (1969) relate types of leadership to stages of organizational maturity
finding that different leadership behaviours bring success when related to the matching stages
of organizational growth. In early stages the leader can tell subordinates what to do because they
lack the specific skills required for the job in hand, as skills develop, the leader tries to sell the
required behaviours because individuals are more able to do the task; later, the leader can call
on subordinates to participate in decision-making as they are experienced and able but lack the
confidence or the willingness, and finally one can delegate to individuals who are experienced
at the task and comfortable with their own ability to do it well. Hersey and Blanchard’s approach
realistically notes that leadership must appreciate the variety of differing situations to be met
and dealt with, and thus adapt to the variety and difficulty of the problems to be solved and
performances/outcomes achieved. This variety in complex systems creates a necessity for a
matching complementarity of response mechanisms (Ashby, 1956, 1958).
Vroom (1973) identifies leadership as tailoring the appropriate response to the nature of the
problem facing the organization and its leader. Hackman (1996) emphasizes the importance of
communication; Covey (1992) describes principle-centred leadership, Greenleaf (2002) introduces
servant-leadership (van de Bunt-Kokhuis, 2011) and Block, (1991) of political capability. Other
leadership models have referenced cultural dimensions including Eastern philosophies (Dreher,
1996), English cricket (Brearley (2001)), Chinese general Sun Tzu (MacNeilly & MacNeilly,
2012), Genghis Khan (Man, 2010) and Star Trek (Wess & Ross, 1995).
In MENA (Middle East and North Africa) cultures, the diwan is the locus of an autocratic–
consultative type of leadership that seems absent from Western leadership styles (Weir, 2010).
Followers are important and leaders who fail to achieve group or organizational goals risk losing
the support or endorsement of their followers (Giessner & Knippenberg, 2008): in sport this is
noted as ‘losing the dressing-room’.

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A widely used distinction in leadership development is that between the transactional leader
who can successfully run and operate a complex system and the transformational leader with
qualities that enable the organization to change direction (Bass, 1990). An even simpler model
is that of ‘runners’ and ‘starters’ identified by Nevil Shute Norway, the bestselling novelist,
entrepreneur and aeronautical engineer (Shute, 1954).
Leaders need creativity in dealing with ill-defined problems (Mumford & Connelly, 1991;
Giessner & Knippenberg, 2008). Leadership may be moderated by concern for sustainability
and respect for the interaction of the organization with its environment in the ecosystem (Bennis,
1994). The action-learning approach focuses on how leadership skills may be learned in practice
in real-life situations (Pedler et al., 2010). Deresiewicz dissociates his notion of leadership from
the conventional discourse of ‘kissing up to the people above you, kicking down to the people
below you, pleasing your teachers, pleasing your superiors, picking a powerful mentor and riding
his coattails until it’s time to stab him in the back, jumping through hoops’. He generalizes this
failure to a wider societal failure of leadership saying ‘for too long we have been training leaders
who . . . think about how to get things done, but not whether they’re worth doing in the first place’
(Deresiewicz, 2010).
Agility is often recognized as a sign of the good leader, and General George Patton advised
leaders never to tell people how to do things: ‘Tell them what to do, and they will surprise you
with their ingenuity’ (Rigby et al., 2016: 1).
Wicked problems (Churchman, 1967; Rittel & Webber, 1973) are those that have no obvious
solution available in the current repertory of the organization. In ‘wicked’ problems the problem
is not understood until after the formulation of a solution. Wicked solutions have no stopping
rule, and these solutions tend not to be clearly right or wrong, and every wicked problem is
essentially unique in some aspect (Conklin, 2006). Emotional intelligence (EI) (Salovey & Meyer,
1990), popularized by Goleman (1996), comprises five elements: self-awareness, self-control,
motivation, empathy and social skills of managing relationships and building networks (Goleman
et al., 2003). It is claimed that leaders who possess EI are happier (Carmeli, 2003), more satisfied
in their job (Hasankhoyi, 2006) and more successful (Busso, 2003). EI centres on the abilities
not only to know oneself but also to learn to understand others, listening and looking out for their
signals. It does not mean just feeling happy or confident in one’s own abilities (Ovens, 2015), but
exemplifies awareness (Gottman, 2011) and understanding the role of emotions in framing and
securing decisions (Gottman et al., 1997).
The trope of authenticity has entered leadership debates (Gardner et al., 2011). It is claimed
that authentic leaders are committed to self-improvement, self-awareness, self-discipline, driven
by mission, and being inspirational (Gavin, 2019) and offer leadership that is physical, emotional,
digital and spiritual (Jones, 2017), though in the eyes of some not always moral (Sendjaya et al.,
2016).
The central paradigms in contemporary organization development and executive training are
still those of managing in a team setting and of continual attention to the explicit outcomes of
‘productive time’, characterized in terms of measurables that evaluate performances as outcomes of
controllable organizational processes. This is what business schools usually teach and contemporary
organizations are expected to practise (Jones, 1997). In this model, every activity should be planned
to be explicit, communicable, to a great extent standardized, time-bound and controlled according
to definite parameters. Each activity should be formalized and, wherever possible, quantified, so

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that it may be compared with others and made conformable, then benchmarked according to ‘best
practice’ which guarantees consistent outcomes and predictable reward systems.
However, the implicit paradox for leaders is that as these efficient systems become ossified,
the special role of leaders must focus on how to bring about change; transformation is more
highly rated than transaction, ignoring the likelihood that the opportunity to offer transformation
may only occur through mastery of transaction.
Covey’s Seven Habits (Covey, 1989) are ‘Be Proactive. . . . Begin with the End in Mind. Put
First Things First. Think Win/Win. Seek First to Understand, Then to Be Understood. Synergize’.
These are similar rules to those of the quality improvement and Kaizen approaches (Haimes &
Schneiter, 1986; Deming, 1982; Imai, 1986).
The ‘learning organization’ (Senge, 1990) involves a team-based systems-driven methodology to
critique the previous ‘solutions’ from which the perceived ‘problems’ of today have emerged. Senge
identifies several aspects of mindsets that disturb and cloud our and weaken our judgement in normal
organizational life. Among these are the following beliefs – ‘I am my position,’ ‘the enemy is out
there’ – and Senge identifies the consequential damaging misunderstandings as ‘the illusion of taking
charge’, ‘the fixation on events’, ‘the parable of the boiling from’, ‘the delusion of learning from
experience’ and ‘the myth of the management team’.
The dimensions of cognition and emotion are both essential to effective organizational
leadership and knowledge of and capacity to use various styles appropriately to the situation,
information available and understanding of the competences of followers and clients can be
consolidated in performances that display good judgement (Spender, 1989).
The massive literature of leadership available for students of organizational and business
institutions as taught in business schools worldwide seems to agree only on one understanding;
that is that wherever leadership is manifest, it always implicates the work of others. So it is a fair
comment to enquire where solitude can fit into this framing if leaders are always and everywhere
bound into structures and locked into interaction with their teams and judged by the outcomes of
their collective endeavours.

Solitude as a Weakness or a Negative Performance

Here then, we must escape the organizational framework and find the individual. First it
becomes evident that solitude is not on the whole a highly regarded experience in contemporary
organizational life, and our tropes of solitude tend to be negative while those who exempt
themselves from the busyness of postmodern life are seen negatively as ‘loners’.
Maybe it covers a hidden secret (Sarstedt, 1969) perhaps bopping to a different drum
(Nesmith, 1965; Ronstadt, 1967) or an inner loneliness (Sedaka, 1972), but it seems that Solitude
is a state that offends against social normality. The experience of the solitary during the Covid-19
lockdown is characterized as an inevitable problem leading probably to mental health concerns,
rather than as an opportunity for reflection and re-basing proposed action. This trope is that if
you are on your own, you are without, you have lost something, you are diminished, something
essential to your social being has been lost and it may not be recoverable. If you’re alone, you’re
‘going down’, and maybe it’s your fault, so don’t be alone: be with others; being alone is social
failure. Thus Covid-19 restrictions are claimed to produce mental health concerns as a predictable
side effect of the solitary state.

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One of the most infamous TV advertisements of the early days of TV advertising in the UK
was ‘You’re never alone with a Strand’: still quoted in marketing texts as the way not to do it
because nobody wants to identify with a lonely man on a damp late night street corner with only
a cigarette for solace (Campaign, 2011). This solitary may imply that one has something to hide,
a tainted story that should not be revealed, perhaps a source of shame. Why is that person alone?
What have they done wrong? Why do they deserve the punishment of isolation?

The Value of Solitude

If those who choose or seek the benefits of the solitary state are to be more positively represented,
we can seek exemplars. Scott Walker was an iconic representative of a strain in 1960s pop music,
a lone dark figure with a deep sonorous bass voice complaining that ‘the sun ain’t gonna shine
any more’ and Scott Engel (his real name) admitted that ‘Solitude is like a drug for me: I crave
it’ (Engel).
Emily Dickinson wrote more gnomically of ‘a soul admitted to itself’ (Dickinson, 1976),
implying a critique of the self that exists in society but has never yet admitted its true nature,
suggesting that each individual really is all alone and that the understanding of the implications
and the inwardness of this understanding that a ‘finite infinity’ may only be attained in a state
of solitude. In Walden, Thoreau understood this reflexivity as ‘a certain doubleness by which I
can stand as remote from myself as from another . . . conscious of the presence and criticism of
a part of me’ (Thoreau, 1854: 93). This reflexivity implies a more positive aspect of solitude and
Kerouac writes, ‘No man should go through life without once experiencing healthy, even bored
solitude in the wilderness, finding himself depending solely on himself and thereby learning his
true and hidden strength’ (Kerouac, 1960).
Churchill saw value in this emergent strength claiming that ‘solitary trees, if they grow at all,
grow strong: and a boy deprived of a father’s care often develops, if he escape the perils of youth,
an independence and a vigour of thought which may restore in after life the heavy loss of early
days’ (Churchill, 1899).
Solitude may be seen as a chance to confront who you (really) are (Crane, 2017) and perhaps as
the foundational state of being human (Merton, 1975). Weil claimed that ‘to wish to escape from
solitude would be cowardice’ (Weil, 2002: 121). Storr’s Solitude quotes from Gibbon’s claim that
‘conversation enriches the understanding, but solitude is the school of genius’ (Storr, 1988: ix).
The value of solitude is increasingly recognized in leadership and management training, and
there are opportunities in current programmes for taking time out, escaping from the organizational
setting to explore self and others in horse riding, trail finding, experiencing the wilderness as an
opportunity to re-establish contact with a lost ‘real self’ and subsequently benefit from this new
knowledge in later encounters in the ‘real world’.
But these are still action-based encounters, taking place in a strange wilderness environment,
though ‘wilderness’ itself is by no means a transparent concept, even for wilderness park
management (Hollenhorst & Jones, 2001). There is now a whole industry, much of it excellent
and useful of one-on-one leadership coaching. One development programme aimed at aspirant
leaders offers these benefits of being on one’s own:

to see the World as an Introvert. Know the 13 Rules for Being Alone And Being Happy About
It. Understand you’re good enough all by yourself. Value others’ opinions, but value your

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own more. Learn to be an observer. Close your eyes in a dark room and appreciate the silence.
Learn how to talk to yourself. Cherish every interaction. (Riskology, 2020)

These proposed benefits are not limited to executive training: it is claimed in a study of
schoolchildren that ‘the benefits of solitude . . . include enhanced creativity, meta-cognition,
mindfulness, and student success . . . solitude is an important facet of a child’s development and
success in school’ (Chan, 2006).
Where may the benefits of this solitude be found in our complex, strongly interconnected
contemporary societies? If not available inside the rat race then it might require somehow leaving
the habitus of community bonds and going somewhere else. What kind of place might that be?
For a classic example let us return to a classic example, that of the biblical Jesus and his time in
the ‘wilderness’.

In the Wilderness

The trope of ‘solitary’ is often presented in the context of ‘the wilderness’. In popular reportage,
it sometimes refers to a sportsperson who has been in the side, then falls out of favour and is then
recalled after they have ‘served their time’. Sometimes it is used of politicians who fall out of
favour, for instance of Churchill in the 1930s, out of power, office or influence. Nonetheless in
what his biographers call his ‘wilderness years’, Churchill relaxed, learned to paint rather well
and enjoyed the Côte d’Azur, not obviously a depressing place.
‘Wilderness’ is a trope occurring 300 times in the Bible, which relates that after Jesus was baptized
by John the Baptist, he then fasted for forty days and nights in the Judaean desert, the region described
in the sacred texts as ‘the wilderness’. This term then connotes an important place in the Judaeo-
Christian Weltanschauung. It appears Jesus went there by choice, and his ancestor David had also
spent time in the wilderness, so Jesus was fulfilling a prophecy and following an understood practice.
During this time, it is written that Satan appeared to Jesus and tried to tempt him. Jesus having refused
each temptation, Satan then departed and Jesus returned to Galilee to begin his ministry. Jesus went
into the wilderness for forty days and was tempted there.
It is no part of this chapter’s argument to enter areas of controversy on subjects about which
one is ignorant but I have been to Qumran and seen what is claimed to have been a holy place
of the Essenes. It is a wild old place on a cliff above the Dead Sea, a few miles from the River
Jordan: the surrounding apparent wasteland is hot and dry most of the time.
There is solid testimony about the Essenes in Josephus (Mason, 2008) and Pliny the Elder
(Vermes, 1979). They were a part of the Jewish community who held strong beliefs centring
around ritual purification, and withdrawal away from organized society into the desert; they
advocated taking vows of virtual poverty and living lives of piety and celibacy (Mason, 2008).
Essene lives were characterized by the absence of personal property and money, a belief in
communality, cleanliness and strict observance of the holy day of Sabbath. The wilderness
experience in Essene philosophy centres around a need to simplify one’s life, to remove the
tedious and harmful, wasteful accretions of society behind when one re-emerges, purged and
cleansed, ready to focus on the future job in hand.
The etymology of ‘temptation’, the Greek word peirazo, does not originally imply the
allurement of all the cities in the world but comes from similar roots as verbs meaning to try out

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or to practice for future us. The noun πειρασμός is an almost exclusively biblical word, meaning
trial or test, but also temptation (to evil). In classical Greek (as certified by Liddell and Scott) the
verb πειράζω is used, first in the sense of ‘to attempt’, ‘ to practice’ and then in the meaning of
‘to try, to test’, sometimes ‘to change’.
This wilderness is a place where one can learn new ways and groove better methods. Jesus
in the wilderness prepared for the ‘ultimate test’. In listening to the wilderness and becoming
available for its small sounds, he trained, interrogated himself, his motives and his capabilities. He
thus became stronger through constant self-criticism derived from self-interrogation leading to a
clarification of purpose and an intensive attention to becoming more able to cope. He needed to
be by himself to be able to do this. The result was a re-creation and intensification of his physical,
mental and spiritual strength. This aspect of the values of solitude speaks to the formation of the
capacities of leadership. In the following section we essay some of the benefits of the wilderness
experience that may become available after the return to society.

Solitude as an Opportunity to Create Latent Capability

Long identifies three types of solitude, inner directed, characterised by self discovery and inner
peace, outer-directed characterised by intimacy and spirituality and the negativity of loneliness
Weil (1997). London: Routledge. In complex behavioural systems the power of ‘latency’ can
be created and maintained in the uniqueness of solitude. This experience of leaving the regular
external disciplines of ordinary society behind frees the self from learned obligation so as to
become available for another kind of learning that depends on internal drivers and relies on
renewed and relearned personal strengths of character and reflexive understanding. This becomes
a dormant strength, built up in body and mind to be ready, latent for the test that comes after the
wilderness.
This learning requires solitude where one may reflect on belief and behaviour and learn new
ways and try to groove better methods. Thoreau’s friend and landlord, Emerson, wanted to protect
would-be leaders from too much exposure to the contamination of the ideas of others, writing,
‘he who should inspire and lead his race must be defended from travelling with the souls of other
men, from living, breathing, reading, and writing in the daily, time-worn yoke of their opinions’
(Emerson, 1872: 397).
So Deresiewicz explains that vision by itself is not enough: the leader has to be a thinker
because it is only by thinking that solutions are arrived at. This brings us back to Thoreau and the
nature of his ‘deliberation’, based on focussing, concentrating, playing with alternatives, reading
and re-reading. Solitude is an opportunity for close reading, introspection, the concentration of
focused work. Much current interest in the literature seems to centre on recuperative solitude
where what has been lost may be regained, rather than on investment solitude where the object
is the creation of added value not easily obtainable in other ways. In investment decisions
improvement emerges from rigorous consideration and evaluation of alternatives.
School teachers who use solitude in classroom experience note ‘greater connection to their
inner self, which heightens their ability to become more self-aware, and also lead students to
become more contemplative, reflective, and critical in their thinking’ (Chan, 2016: 61). This
requires ‘the open mind, open heart and open will’ (Scharmer & Kaufer, 2013), where deep
listening enables access to an inner world of sensations, feeling and impression (Scharmer,

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2007), of potentials (Bohm, 1980, 1996), in a way not accessed from ‘the rational mind’ required
by Scharmer and Kaufer as they invite would-be leaders to learn from the future (Rant, 2018), a
world of in-formation (László, 2004).
This kind of practice is best done on one’s own in a safe environment. Supporting evidence for
the need for solitude to improve evaluation of alternatives comes from research in neuroscience,
where ‘you make meaning of what’s going on and connect it to self and identity and integrate
knowledge together into coherent narratives  – these kinds of processes only happen when you’re
not focused on some in-the-moment activity, depriving the brain of free time stifles its ability to
complete this unconscious work’ (Heid, 2018). In these deeper reflective states the brain becomes
freed from the constant stimulation of relentless activity.
The brain is plastic and changes through learning. In latent periods both positive additions
to brain structure and displacement or release of unused synapses can occur through a process
of pruning where some neural connections are reinforced and some decay (NRC, 2000). These
additions and prunings occur most comfortably in the solitude of latent periods where less overt
brain performance is occurring. These structural changes alter the functional organization of
the brain, as learning organizes and reorganizes the living connections. Neural development is a
biologically driven evolving and unfolding process.
Quiet time and space for solitude is a necessary foundation of restructuring without which
the brain does not become fully experienced. Latent learning has been a recognized term of
art in psychological theory (Skinner, 1950; Tolman, 1948) as ‘a form of learning that occurs
without any obvious reinforcement of the behavior or associations that are learned’ (Cole,
1953).
Techniques of mindfulness do not reflect purely cognitive work but involve the whole body, not
just the rational cognition routines. A relevant illustration comes from the Alexander technique
(2021) which stresses the need to unlearn bad postural habits that ultimately cripple the whole
person into abnormal functionality. Actors need to be free to create the personal space to inhabit
new roles. The learning becomes patterned into revised ways of normal experience. This kind of
whole-body learning does not have to be recognized or performed immediately but can remain
latent until there is a need or opportunity to demonstrate it (Lieberman, 1990).

Concluding Thoughts

Current thinking about management and leadership prioritizes action, but before doing anything
it is always wise to think about the action contemplated and after action it is important to reflect,
review and think about the reality of what has happened. ‘Satan’ encountered by Jesus in the
wilderness and reported in the Bible emerged from his inner introspection and critique.
Thoreau communed continuously with himself, noting, ‘I never found the companion that was
so companionable as solitude’ (Thoreau, 1854: 93), participating in ‘the indescribable innocence
and beneficence of Nature’ (Thoreau, 1854: 95) where ‘a man thinking or working is always alone
let him be where he will’ (Thoreau, 1854: 93). Nature is the ‘other’ in his solitude from whom
would come the opportunity for his learning. Solitude is processual and emergent, as Bachelard
notes: ‘It is better to live in a state of impermanence than in one of finality’ (Bachelard, 1994: 61).
Solitude is in many respects a cultural state and being in another culture entails respect for that
culture and also for oneself. In the ‘symmetric’ epistemology of Latour (Latour, 1993), ‘knowing

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is no longer a way of representing the unknown but of interacting with it, i.e. a way of creating
rather than contemplating, reflecting, or communicating’ (Chandler & Reid, 2020: 9). The ability
to profit from solitude depends, therefore, on listening skills, but not with the rational, cognitive
ear alone. In my case, I sometimes find refuge in a more or less conscious dissociation from the
brain-numbing torture of the unnecessary meeting by slipping out of the tepid water of forced
assembly into the clearer streams of creative separation. My release is in poetry, but everyone has
their own thing. In this state I do not write poems but poems come to me taking advantage of my
state of latent availability.
A wilderness experience creates the opportunity to recapitulate, reframe and re-comprehend
the action from a different perspective, the product of reflexive thought occurring in willed
solitude. In these experiences rational economistic cognition melds with other modes of thought,
reflective, aesthetic, non verbal and sometimes passionate or engaged. Cogito ergo sum is a mis-
apprehension of the lived experience of critical and engaged reflection. Sum. Warts and all. Get
used to it. You are much better than the alternative. Thinking about it is optional.
One does not have to be in a physical wilderness to actually be in a spiritual one. Inhabiting
that wilderness creates an opportunity to reach into something that would otherwise be neglected
and to become latently available for other experiences and alternative mindsets. In positively
turning off the learned involvement in unnecessary social clutter, one’s unconscious self relaxes
and permits other types of learning to occur and potential, latency, to re-form.
Reflection is indeed the starting point for many consultancy programmes and one such
proposes that ‘managers may too easily allow “doing” to drive out “thinking” and “thinking”
might miss out on the clues provided by feelings and intuition. By bringing conscious awareness
into the moment, the result will be more informed, effective action for the future’ (Coaching
Ourselves, 2020). This recuperative solitude is where what has been lost may be regained, rather
than on the creation of added value where productive solitude provides the opportunity to create
new resource. Latency is the outcome of investment solitude. Leaders need to develop the strength
that can only be derived from the experience of being alone and of what can be learned from that.
This is a strength of the Mind in the Body that can be built and be ready, latent, competent for the
Test that will inevitably succeed the Wilderness.
The ineffable Drucker noted that ‘to manage others one has to manage oneself’ (Drucker,
1999), and in solitude aspirant leaders learn to ‘Lead Yourself First’ (Kethledge & Erwin, 2017)
by considering one’s own fallibility: on your own for it is provocative and threatening to self and
others when done publicly. Senior executives sometimes need to be alone, in their own space, to
be cool in their own skin, consider alternatives and be silent to allow them to listen to the voice
of the tempter and engage internally with that voice. In apparently doing nothing their system
is building resilience. Solitude is the place to think carefully about those for whom the leader is
responsible, what their call to us is, reflecting on and reworking how we have responded to them
and what we have made of their evidences to us.
This new way of working is installed into whole-body experience. Indeed it is sometimes
inappropriately described as ‘instinctive’ whereas it more legitimately indicates that what seems
to be instinctual is in fact a learned set of responses. It takes time to sink in because surmising
even partially how one must look to others is discomfiting, so learning to hear one’s own new
voice in solitude protects both oneself and others. We need solitude so that we can do the
phenomenological work that Taylor advises: ‘Phenomenology is not a program of description in

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the sense that going on will reveal more; it’s a form of argument in which you replace bad views
with better views’ (Beaulieu, 2009).
This work is reflexive in reviewing the experience of self and in provisionally engaging in
seeking understanding of others, and of the Other more generally. But this reflexivity can also
be considered and if necessary challenged here (Lynch, 2000). Resilience itself and its complex
origins can be sought and critiqued (Chandler & Reid, 2020). This evaluative process requires
time and Levinas cautions that the processes of introspection may never be completed because
the unravelling of the lineaments of the other are always incomplete (Wyschogrod, 1995), but
nonetheless contribute to a deeper understanding, transcending the small, localized intense
presence of self (Macmurray, 1961, 1991).
Solitude may occur as a sudden opportunity for taking a step not necessarily forward but
aside, with no objective nor preferred outcome, no win, no lose, guided only by what Holocaust
survivors have identified as the ‘will to experience life itself ’ (Patti, 2015), to ‘dance the
orange’ in Rilke’s magical terms (Rilke, 1922). Solitude thus comprises an enabling space for
realizing other narratives of events, reconstituted through meditation, for, as Murdoch noted,
a ‘narrative of events may, once under way, offer few opportunities for meditation’ (Murdoch,
1961: 1).
A typical solitude sequence involves, first, resting, withdrawing from the world of action,
dissociating, permitting a decoupling from the present state, introspection, reviewing previous
efforts, replaying the close reading of a situation and one’s role in it, interrogating, reiterating
the peirazo (temptation) of self, motive and alternatives, and, over time, the recognition of
opportunity for a restructuration.
When in an earlier time I was for a period an arbitrator in industrial price negotiations, I have
been faced with a difficult, contentious situation that seems to have no good outcome, I have
asked the protagonists to do this, to ‘go away, think about this, consider what you think is going
to happen anyway, take your time, think about it a lot, then come and tell me what if anything you
want me to do’, quite often the agreed solution has appeared apparently almost out of nowhere,
by doing nothing, taking no action, making no decision. An older colleague who had spent much
of his career as a colonial civil servant in other places among other cultures used to praise the
virtues of what he called ‘the natural effluxion of time’. At that time I thought that perhaps he was
simply trying to evade the necessity of decision. But now I am as old as he was then I reflect that
his stance maybe had more in common with that aspect of the Hippocratic Oath which enjoins
that whatever the medical necessity any intervention should not at any rate make the patient more
sick.
In solitude, with only the presence of the natural world, anxiety usually diminishes and
calmness becomes the default state; this avoids the tensions caused by worrying about the
inaccessible world of action and its apparently irresoluble dilemmas that will bring ‘the priest
and the doctor in their long coats running over the fields’ (Larkin, 1964). Solitude takes time but
it can be a very good use of leadership time. Rushing in to inject urgent action into a mis-analysed
situation before thinking about what one is doing can turn vulnerability into catastrophe.
Leaders are not born agile but they may be made so by experience and training and as much by
developing EI as by superior cognitive abilities (Goleman, 2003), for the role of a leader comes
into prominence when wicked problems have to be faced. Those who must work as leaders with
others in a busy world require complete absence from diurnal stimuli in order to consider what it

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is they can authentically offer the situation and those for whom they are responsible. They need to
walk in the skin of other life forms to appreciate the opportunities available to them as leaders and
as members of the human and natural communities. They can also learn from that glorious failure
Don Quixote who ‘reminds us that if we trust only when trust is warranted, love only when love is
returned, learn only when learning is valuable, we abandon an essential feature of our humanness’
(March & Augier, 2004).
In conclusion, we argue that organizations should add into their repertory of leadership
development, opportunities for solitude, whether in the form of sabbaticals, wilderness time or
simply in free space to enable the reviewing, rehearsing and consolidating the capabilities that
are best formed in solitary experience. These need not be expensive or far-reaching in terms
of external voyaging and new sensations, for, as Perry reminds us, ‘restriction is a gift to the
creative’ (Perry, 2020). But if there comes a call in an emergency or when the organization is
facing wicked problems encountered under unexpected circumstances demanding new calls on
inner strength, it is necessary for there to be inner resources to be called upon.
As leaders we need to make decisions with confidence because if both our cognitive and
affective sense agree that if it feels right, it may well be right. Leaders learn to trust their feelings,
their whole-body intuition that is not innate but has been learned and consolidated in solitary
experience. If Damasio is right, emotions fire before cognitions and maybe this new learning
reinstates Skinner’s behaviourism somewhat because it seems not simply reactive because stimuli
initially drive the affective response sequence. When we say after we have heard, considered and
tried in the sense of the temptation of peirazo of a something, maybe a sidestep, a step over, a neat
mental move or even not saying anything at all this time, that this has ‘become second nature’ we
are reporting correctly on solitary learning.
In confronting the gate of the Abbey of Theleme that enjoins Fay ce que vouldras (‘do what
you want’), Rabelais claims that it is right for the good leader to do what he or she thinks best
‘because the good person will do the right thing’. This lesson is best learned in solitude. For
reflection is needed to understand that leadership is not an action thing: it is a being thing. After
long training, experience and critical reflection, good leadership becomes a habit of honest
people. This sense of rightness and wrongness needs solitude to create, learn and own. Emerson
wrote, ‘what lies behind you and what lies in front of you, pales in comparison to what lies inside
of you.’ This needs to be sought in solitude.

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 6

The Politics of Solitude

Henrieta Șerban and Aleksander Cywiński

Introduction

To what extent is solitude important in political theory? Machiavelli’s Prince (Machiavelli, 1975)
is a representative of solitude at the top, a political model of solitude from and suspicion towards
‘the people’, and of separation between the leader and the people. However, this contrasts with
‘historical being’ proposed by the Romanian philosopher Blaga, which, like Arendt’s concept
of vita activa (with liberal, republican and democratic meanings), does not leave much room
for solitude in the public sphere and political action. The centrality of respect for democracy
(Honneth) and that of communication, rationality and pragmatism for democracy (Habermas)
are similarly related to togetherness in democracy, minimalizing, in our view, the place and role
of solitude in political reality. Yet solitude has at least two important contributions to make to
political theory. One concerns the relationship of the individual to the larger political unity, such
as the isolated leader opposing the people as described by Machiavelli, or the isolated individuals
brought together in the state as described by Hobbes. The second contributes to descriptions at
the macro-political level of solitude and togetherness of large-scale political units themselves,
such as the ‘active’ current policy of North Korea, which aims at isolating the state. A ‘passive’
macro-political solitude model involves a state being isolated by other states, such as the UN
policy towards South Africa during the apartheid era.
This chapter brings together the political solitude of individuals and that of states, that is the
micro-, meso- and macro-political issues of solitude.

The Politics of Solitude and Fear

The investigation of solitude in a political key starts from the sociopolitical meanings of self-
decided solitude, on the one hand, and loneliness and marginalizing estrangement, on the other
hand. These are the two defining extremes for the scope, the structures, the functions and the
current values of the quality of togetherness, in various political contexts and perspectives
(Șerban, 2020). Solitude can be a state of choice, while loneliness is negative, originating in
misunderstanding, discontent, failure, rejection and/or sufferance (Șerban, 2020). Solitude can
 The Politics of Solitude

strengthen the sense of self, worth and belonging, through personal introspection, meditation and
imagination restoration, and through the constitution of hope and projects. Thus, solitude can
generate stamina and contentment for sociopolitical individuals and their contributions to the
creativity, projects and actions of common political relevance.
Hobbes interprets the solitude of a person in the state of nature as the greatest of all evils, as
‘solitary, poor, nasty brutish and short’ (Hobbes, 1965: 97). Solitary comes first, as if it is the
first worst thing Hobbes can think of when he explains to the others why the state of nature is
not something to maintain. Even though ‘solitary’ is merely one term among others, referring
to the worst things people have to face in nature without the benefits brought about by society
and government (by commonwealth) it is still an obstacle to any kind of well-being. It is not
accidental that he chooses to call the sociopolitical organization a ‘commonwealth’, even though
it is also a ‘Leviathan’. The commonwealth is a rather fortunate state of ordered, predictable
and regulated communion: something to seek for in all human assemblies. Commonwealth, as
a common state of fairly well-being for the people sharing a common territory, is something
that we absolutely cannot find in a state of nature where terror and worries are the only things
one could expect. Indeed, a Hobbesian commonwealth is also a Leviathan, but not as much
because it is a monstrous contraption with many faces and one body, as because it is powerful,
both efficient and long-lasting, despite its artificiality, with full capacity to bring order and
civilizing law where there was wilderness. Therefore, solitude should be feared as an open-
ended situation that can only bring harm to the weak and terrified human being; and solitude
should be resolved by a human communion under law, contract and authority. In De cive
we find

That it is true indeed, that to Man, by nature, or as Man, that is, as soone as he is born, Solitude
is an enemy [our emphasis]; for Infants have need of others to help them to live, and those of
riper years to help them to live well, wherefore I deny not that men (even nature compelling)
desire to come together. (Hobbes, 1949: 21)

The solitude in the state of nature is, in fact, for Hobbes, estrangement. The state of nature
itself is for Hobbes a state of war, impossible communion and estrangement which brings about
‘slaughter, solitude and the want of all things’. Leviathan brings to the people peace, common law
and civilization, allowing people to be people.
For Hobbes, the founder of modern political philosophy, solitude is estrangement, especially
since people are bad from nature (although the nuance here is that, logically, in the state of nature,
people are just wild things in a wilderness: what else could they be?). For the founder of modern
political science, Machiavelli, a certain political distancing is power; people are undetermined by
nature, but capable of adapting to political situations. Political situations may be as challenging
as nature is many times.

Machiavelli, on the contrary, suggests that from nature man is neither definitively good, nor
entirely bad, and, in fact, these characterizations are rather inadequate in relation to nature;
they could be evoked only in relation to man as social being, id est with political man. They
concern the public aspect and not the private one of the human being. There is not a natural
inclination toward good or toward the evil; greed, fear, cowardice etc. are but answers to social
(political) situations. All the political art of the prince is summed up in the understanding

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of this fact and in the manoeuvring of the political situations in agreement with this truth.
(Goian, 2017: 28)
Machiavelli, like Hobbes, identifies the presence and importance of fear in society, and for
Machiavelli, only power and the self-protective insulation of the powerful person can be the
answer. There is no privileged position in society, the leader is a particularly lonesome character,
a genuine target of envy and evil from all sides. Machiavelli’s Prince is a representative of
solitude at the top, a political model of solitude and suspicion towards ‘the people’. The Prince
is also a model of a daring separation between the leader and the people: a tragic example of
‘fear management’, placing the fearful security of the position of the ruler at the core of politics.
In this interpretation of Machiavelli, solitude and its permanent anxious aura of loneliness are
characteristic for the Prince (and any leader). The exercise of power is, for the main part, the
preservation of power, which means projecting intensely the very fear of the crowds that the
leader needs to govern and maintain in awe.

Political Solitude and Marginalization

Solitude signals power, or is an index of power: a luxury. The powerful and the affluent of this
world set up physical and symbolic distances against the other, which sometimes secure the
desired solitude and other times establish loneliness at the top. As the Machiavellian prince, the
rich and powerful may just choose to be feared and avoided, not loved, for safety reasons. On the
other hand, loneliness is the hallmark of alienation and marginalization, signalling the situation
in the outskirts of community (Șerban, 2020; Manolache & Șerban, 2010). People experience
solitude and loneliness. Both solitude and loneliness are influenced by the echoes of relationships
sustaining the subjective experiences that form one’s life. In Mapping marginality (Manolache
& Șerban, 2010) we approach the fluid and changing multiple aspects of the marginal reality.
There is also a fluid metaphorical capital of marginality with ethical implications for the quality
of sociality, for the scope and the relation of majorities to the secondary – the others, such
as the ‘second sex’, the radically different of all genders, the humiliated, the stigmatized, the
disempowered, the misfits, the hoarders, the agoraphobic, the various wanderers, the flâneurs,
the ‘ghosts’ of our worlds.
The many faces of marginality generate the faces of loneliness. There is a complex unforeseeable
interplay between success and marginality, especially in open and democratic capitalist societies.
Marginality is an exile within society but also – potentially – a fountain of creative and changing
civilizational resources (Șerban, 2020). However, one may notice immediately, there are no
guarantees: this is for the most part the Romantic vision of marginality and, for the other part,
the democratic dream of inclusiveness, ‘the American dream’. But it is rare: there is nothing truly
Romantic about poverty, famine, inequality and the disempowerment and helplessness that come
along with these subjective experiences. The marginality and estrangement generated by illness,
old age, famine, poverty, disrespect and disempowerment are the Hobbesian shortcomings of
the contemporary European (Western and worldwide) Leviathan. Marginality is, at its best, a
potential for affirmation, a refreshing factor in civil society, in culture, in ethics, and a means of
achieving a wider, surprising, more inclusive and resourceful vision of community. Technological
advances may contribute to greater knowledge, or to a greater insulation of people at the top.
Contemporary ‘Princes’ might have decided already that they enjoy and need to protect their

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endearing ‘loneliness’ at the top, but may be challenged by marginal hackers of either terrorist or
‘Robin Hood’ type (Șerban, 2020).
As lonely and fearful one may get at the top, there is more fear and loneliness at the other
extreme of an orderly society. The solitary position of the fearful and feared prince contrasts with
Blaga’s philosophy of the individual facing existence as creator of history (Blaga, 1983). It is a
vision of the human being taking a creative, active and knowledge-oriented stand in front of the
all-encompassing mystery of existence. Human historicism pulls people out of their solitudes
and into action. This way, every human being is ‘at the top’ of the world by their awareness,
understanding, vision and actions. Every individual contributes with a historical vision, plan
and/or responsibility that they may or may not fully acknowledge. For Blaga, the human being is
destined to acquire knowledge and confront the tremendous all-encompassing force of mystery,
through thought and philosophy, inspiration and creativity (Blaga, 1983; Botez et al., 2017).
We can best understand human solitude if we recognize that true meaning is personal. Personal
experience enriches solitude, the solitude in which each human being recognizes that they bear
a specific responsibility. Each person is alone in the face of the mysteries of life and death, and
the mysteries of eternity and transcendence and the paradoxical understanding of human destiny
as ‘an irreversibility of our daily death’ (Cioran, 1933: 243). ‘[T]he great intuitions take place in
solitude and darkness’ (Cioran, 1933: 163), in introspection, and Cioran continues to note that
loneliness is the opposite of sociability, which brings us in meditation closer to the bitter truth
of loneliness, as a sentence to misery (Cioran, 1933). Being alone is as if one is situated on a
mountain top (Cioran, 1933: 243), while being lonely is as if one is situated on the edge
Meditation on solitude cannot fall far from the meditation on the human condition. Hannah
Arendt’s concept of vita activa interprets the human condition within liberal, republican or
democratic meanings, and does not leave much room for solitude in the public sphere and
political action. In Arendt’s view, ‘No human life, not even the life of the hermit [our emphasis]
in nature’s wilderness, is possible without a world which directly or indirectly testifies to the
presence of other human beings’ (Arendt, 1958: 22). Work, science, art and even entertainment
(albeit produced alone) have something that is owed to the others and implications for the others.
Thinking itself is both a solitary and a conversational process,
in the dialogue between ‘me and myself’ (erne emauto) in which Plato apparently saw the
essence of thought. To be in solitude means to be with one’s self, and thinking, therefore,
though it may be the most solitary of all activities, is never altogether without a partner and
without company. (Arendt, 1958: 76)
In a sense, a person is never alone and solitude is relationship-laden. Yet contemporary societies,
even the democratic ones, provide many examples of loneliness by marginalization, generated
mainly by disrespect, leading to alienation. Honneth interprets democracy as the best chance
against alienating individualism, against deficient cooperation and disrespect, following the
pragmatist philosopher Dewey, in his conception of democracy as a form of reflexive cooperation,
which cultivates a form of ethical individualism which sustains the life of community. Democracy
is therefore the only alternative to a lonely political system. According to Honneth, this is an
individualism of ‘freedom, responsibility and initiative, oriented toward an ethical ideal, not one
of crime’ (Honneth, 2007: 224). Such democratic individualism allows social cooperation as an
ethical reply of one individual for the other, thus avoiding the over-ethicized republicanism and

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the barren, solely procedural regime. The diversity of individualism is like a correspondence of
the work division at the level of justice, at the level of organization, at the level of culture at the
level of ethics and so on, bringing a lively breath into the ethical and sociopolitical democratic
exchanges (Honneth, 2007: 235). As a consequence of this ethical division, in Honneth’s view,
we have in democracy a different but ‘symmetrical’ respect for the other individuals based on
recognized value in other individuals and on a ‘pattern of recognition represented by respect and
mutual validation’ (Honneth, 2007: 238).
Cooperation is based on mutual respect, which is always the most efficient measure against
alienation, marginalization and loneliness. On this path a post-traditional society is established
by the opening of a ‘horizon where the individual competition for social respect is freed from
the traditional shadow of grief and it is undisrupted by the experiences of disrespect’ (Honneth,
2007: 261). Cooperation is a golden road towards solidarity and the opposite of loneliness,
marginalization and estrangement. The universal pragmatics designed by Habermas and often
criticized for being ideal represents an indication of the possibility that a softer understanding
of universality as something meaningful for the many and something worth endeavouring to
approximate may pull towards togetherness most of the people, out of their loneliness and
estrangement. Concentrating on discourse and interaction, ignoring both the right to intimacy and
the dire realities of marginalization it is decisively the contribution of Habermas to emphasize
that democracy without a vivid and interactive public sphere loses all meaning. The (capitalist)
state should better relate to new forms of contestation and new social movements. It is the merit
of Habermas that now we are thinking about democracy as ‘substantive democracy’, a direct
result from the ‘participation of citizens in the formation of the political will’. Discourse and
reflexive discursive interaction influence the manner we relate to the public sphere and democratic
institutions, too (Habermas, 1975: 32). Nowadays, we cultivate discursive rationality ensuring the
continuation of cooperation, sociality and solidarity despite the crises facing people during the
current times. Eventually, reflexive discursive interaction leads citizens to the clarification and
acceptance of law (Habermas, 1996: 110) and, in our understanding, it is law which keeps people
further together within a horizon of universality. Solitude maintains a substantive personal sphere,
but it is merely a relative opposite of sociality rather than a source of (or form of) marginalization.
Solitude may be empowering, while loneliness, marginalization and estrangement are
alienating and disempowering. The social distancing imposed by the Covid-19 pandemics does
not make things easier or better; however, it may lead to new rituals of togetherness and to some
renewed appreciation of the others. Within the offline actual sociopolitical realm, solitude is the
sociopolitical luxury and not just a meditative prerequisite. Sociopolitical solitude is enjoyed
and vindicated by the free and active individual claiming a right to privacy and intimacy. The
sophistication required by social distancing, especially while working and living with the family
within the same enclosed spaces, might just be too much to bear all of the sudden. The former
distinctions – private and public, work and spare time – collapse. Mostly, our daily lives are
relocated online, and gain a chaotic quality. Online avenues are closing in on the individual
almost aggressively, and it remains to be decided if these may bring genuine relief in a difficult
situation. Phone calls gain frequency and meaning, and video calls claim a larger part of people’s
lives. Would all this chaos imported into the social distancing solitude prove to be chaordic,1
generating a new order of things? Interpretation and discursiveness infuse the re-signified
sociality and the re-signified solitudes. For the time being, during the confusion and strain of the

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times of pandemic, marginality and estrangement are accentuated. The pandemic is truly a world
changing game. Many relations might be tested beyond repair. Anxiety, alienation and suicide
may well increase.

The Macro-politics of Solitude

A macro-political approach explores solitude and togetherness of large-scale political units. This
approach, that is combining solitude with the idea of a nation-state, is an alternative approach
to contrasting the structural (represented by the state) and agency (represented by the individual
person). It ‘is possible to argue that not only individuals but also collective entities can be said to
“act” and therefore to exercise creative agency in shaping social life’ (Giddens & Sutton, 2014:
54). The state as the subject of activities is present in several acts of international law, such as the
United Nations Article 3: ‘The original Members of the United Nations shall be the states.’ State
parties are members of the international society according to the concept of Bull (2002). Each
state is one of the ‘independent political communities each of which possesses a government
and asserts sovereignty in relation to a particular portion of the earth’s surface and a particular
segment of the human population’ (Bull, 2002: 8). Lamb and Robertson-Snape describe the state
as ‘the main unit of political and social organization in the contemporary world’ (2017: 282), and
states are described as the optimal form of organizing the redistribution of goods in the current
capitalist economic model (Wallerstein, 2000).
In this approach the politics of solitude occurs in two model types: an active and a passive
model. An active model is based on the state isolating itself. Examples of such process are the
construction of the Great Wall of China, US international policy in the nineteenth century, Brexit,
the policy of Albania during the communist era, the current policy of North Korea, Bhutan’s
policy of restricting entry to the country and the various policies of closing borders because
of an epidemiological threat. Nowadays, although isolation cannot be complete, nevertheless,
there can still be significant consequences. The geographical position of a state (as in the case of
Bhutan) may influence the isolation process. It can also be said that islands have a predisposition
to isolation (Pitcairn, New Zealand, has financial restrictions for those who want to settle, Great
Britain in the context of Brexit). Neutral countries (e.g. Switzerland) also pursue an active politics
of solitude – skilfully balancing on the international arena so as not to get involved, in particular
militarily or politically.
The passive model of political solitude involves the state being isolated by others. Examples
include the past, the blockade of Great Britain imposed by Napoleon, the UN policy towards
apartheid South Africa, the political isolation of Taiwan, inconsistent international community
policy towards Iran and the current policy towards North Korea. The macro-politics of solitude
can be defined as activities performed by states, aimed at isolating themselves or other states from
the international community (i.e. with respect to other states or international organizations), and
thus creating a distance. Due to the fact that this solitude influences the functioning of individuals
(psychological aspect) and communities (sociological aspect), it is not only an issue belonging
to political science. Macro-political solitude can also affect education, as closure may affect
opportunities to learn and the content of such learning.
In deciding on the usefulness of ‘solitude’ in the context of politics, it is necessary to define
relationships with other concepts such as isolationism and separatism, and thus demonstrate the

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legitimacy of using the term ‘solitude’. ‘Isolationism’ is a political science term that describes the
state of separation that seeks to be strictly separated from the rest of the world, while maintaining
power (Scruton, 2007: 350; Piano & Olton, 1988: 390–1). The background of isolationism lies
in a lack of fear of invasion, a conviction of the uselessness of alliances aimed at defending
borders, economic self-sufficiency, strong power (authoritarian or decisive majority) urging
in this direction and, finally, favourable geographical conditions (Griffiths et al., 2007: 177).
‘Separatism’ means a kind of radicalism in the pursuit of secession of part of the territory from the
state, not the state as a whole from the international community (Scruton, 2007: 628). Separatism
is sometimes a result of ethnic tensions that occur in the state (Hale, 2015). I suggest using the
term ‘solitude’ as the one whose proposed range of meaning in terms of politics is the widest. To
better present the functioning of the politics of solitude and its presence in the international arena,
some of the aforementioned examples of states can be revisited. Fear (states fearing states) and
marginalization (states marginalizing states), discussed earlier in this chapter, will also be woven
into this. These are useful categories to better describe macro-scale political solitude. When we
find that the macro-politics of solitude can be defined as activities performed by states, aimed
at isolating themselves or other states from the international community (with respect to other
states or international organizations), and thus creating a distance, in the background, fear and/
or marginalization of varying severity must appear, making political solitude a phenomenon that
has a real impact on the inhabitants of the countries that experience it. Including these elements
in the concept of the macro-politics of solitude is a recognition of the human factor that makes
it possible to distinguish the politics of solitude from other processes in the international arena.
The macro-politics of solitude described earlier – active and passive – is a ‘laboratory’
model; it plays an explanatory role. At a macro-political level, states as well as individuals and
communities can experience solitude – either positively chosen or negatively imposed by others.
There can be positive or negative impacts of such solitude, in terms of human rights (Cywiński,
2020: 233), as determined by international law such as the United Nations Universal Declaration
of Human Rights (1948). Hence, we can talk about:
●● the positive-active politics of solitude, when the state chooses solitude to strengthen respect
for human rights (not only at home but also in other states);
●● the negative-active politics of solitude, when the state chooses solitude, but thus negatively
influences respect for human rights (also in other states);
●● the positive passive politics of solitude, when the solitude of the state results from the
activity of another state or group of states and it is done for the benefit of respecting human
rights;
●● the negative-passive politics of solitude, when the solitude of the state results from the
activity of another state or group of states, and as a result human rights are violated.
The aforementioned divisions, due to the complexity of the world around us, does not exhaust
all potential variants. First of all, we can talk about a qualitative dimension, and here the
differentiating factor is the level of fear or marginalization accompanying the phenomenon. The
means used by actors on the international stage also have a qualitative nature, that is, economic,
military, diplomatic, climate and environmental. We should also mention the situation of
forgetfulness (in the case of passive solitude politics), something that can be described in the
sentence often attributed to Winston Churchill: ‘History is written by the victors.’ This is due to

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the absence of international public discourse. The result of deliberate, planned politics, in which
state institutions pursue what George Orwell called ‘Unpersoning’ of the individual (Orwell,
1949), the equivalent of which in macro-political terms would be ‘Unstating’ a state. Moreover, it
is necessary to indicate the chains of connections between states. It is these chains of connections
that reveal the complexity of the processes most fully and show that different types of situations
can coexist – from the simplest, in which two countries break diplomatic relations, to the highly
complex, in which several dozen countries take part and we observe both an active and a passive
model, in all sorts of variations.
The intensification of the aforementioned factors – fear, marginalization and forgetfulness –
combined with the means (economic, military, diplomatic, climate and environmental) used by
actors on the international arena and the complexity of the chains of positive or negative influence,
cause people experience good or bad consequences of the politics of solitude. Extreme examples
can occur during humanitarian crises, which are, unfortunately and surprising, all too frequent in
today’s globalized world. An excellent example of the complexity of the contemporary politics of
solitude is the case in which the Russian plays the leading role. By marginalizing and arousing
fear, Russia applies the negative-passive politics of solitude towards Georgia or Ukraine, treating
these countries as belonging to its sphere of influence, to justify such actions. At the same time,
Russia itself is experiencing this type of policy from countries that have imposed an economic
embargo on it from the European Union and the United States. Additionally, Russia supports
Belarus economically, thanks to which Belarus can pursue a negative-active politics of solitude
towards the EU. Russia is engaging in the conflict in the Middle East on the side of the Syrian
authorities, prolonging the state in which the country is experiencing a passive solitude policy on
the part of the EU and the United States. In the background of this conflict (also treating Yemen as
the arena of operations), Saudi Arabia and Iran, regional powers wishing to isolate the other side,
are playing their game. So far, Saudi Arabia seems to have been more successful and, being allied
with Israel, influences the solitude of Iran. This advantage is a consequence of the importance of
superpowers supporting individual countries. The United States, which is in alliance with Saudi
Arabia, is currently conducting activities directed at the passive policy of solitude towards Iran,
which Russia is unable to effectively protect it against. Nevertheless, Iran has had some success,
as it has managed to combine economic cooperation with Qatar, for which Qatar pays in terms of
the politics of solitude from its former allies (including the United Arab Emirates).
Russia mainly uses its military potential coupled with diplomatic efforts to pursue its politic
of solitude. China, which uses mainly economic and diplomatic pressure, is acting differently
at present. This can be seen in Taiwan, a country towards which, despite its strong economic
situation, China is pursuing an effective passive solitude policy. At the same time, China is unable
to realistically pursue solitude politics towards Japan, which, despite the recession that has lasted
for years, is still a global economic power – which prevents China from dominating this part of
Asia. In the past, the Middle Kingdom, through military conquest, led Tibet to isolation (absorbing
it at the same time). At present, China continues this policy towards the legal government of this
country in exile. China’s solitude politics can also serve as an example of memory erasure. Both
Tibet and Taiwan are the components of the so-called Three Ts, or China’s Biggest Taboos, topics
that cannot be talked about (the last of these topics are the events of Tiananmen Square).
The United States, world gendarme, currently the most powerful country in the world, is
fighting to maintain this position. The main rival is China. Under President Donald Trump, the

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United States has declared its withdrawal from such intense international engagement. This means
an active politics of solitude. At the same time, as mentioned earlier, the United States decides
or co-decides on the solitude of many countries (the example of Iraq from the era of Saddam
Hussein, and now Iran). The power of the United States manifests itself in the fact that it can
pursue a politics of solitude in the military, economic and diplomatic spheres. The relationship
with Cuba is an excellent example. The United States seems to be the heir to the former colonial
empires: Great Britain and France, which, although they were the precursors of democracy, used
far undemocratic solutions in their conquests in Africa and Asia. Hence, the negative-passive
politic of solitude may be described as a new form of colonialism, for example in South America,
if it results in exploitation or the further deepening of economic disparities.
The concept of the macro-politics of solitude is not a search for conspiracy theories, in the
sense of who actually rules the world, but only an attempt to provide an approximate description
of what is happening there. Perhaps the simplest test of whether a state is a world empire is its
agency to force the politics of solitude against another state without any consequences for itself
in the international arena. The category of solitude is useful when trying to grasp the essence of
processes taking place in relations between states. Indeed, this category complements the often-
used term ‘alliance’, the opposite of solitude. The macro-politics of solitude makes it possible to
fully describe the relationship between states or coalitions of states.

Conclusion

Solitude is a human personal right and a relative political trump. Loneliness and estrangement
are also political, raising questions that address our commitment to sociality, solidarity and
togetherness, and emphasize the social contexts and sensitivities to marginality. The discourse
carried out in solitude (and in estrangement) with oneself and with others is evident in all types
of solitude. Social distancing might be the most important challenge to both the symbolic and
the praxis of sociality, democracy and togetherness. Currently, togetherness is undertaking new
shapes and modes, under our very eyes.
How does solitude apply to large-scale political issues? A pragmatic approach distinguishes
solitude from isolationism and separatism in international relations. The opportunity to consider
‘solitude’ as a significant concept in macro-political studies means that some of the issues raised
in micro- and meso-political analysis can inform the state-level analysis. Fear and sociality, at an
international level, are as significant as they are at the personal level. Democratic and personal
approaches may – to an extent – be able to overcome some solitude problems.

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 7

The Art, Music and Literature of Solitude

Julian Stern

Introduction

Why might we look to art, music and literature, as well as to research-based, ‘scientific’, work for
insights into solitude and other forms of aloneness? One reason is that art itself can be thought
of as solitudinous. While art, like science, can be an intensely social process, there is also a
solitudinous, often lonely, character to so much art and to so much research, that they can both
illuminate solitude. For Peters, a work of art has the attribute of ‘essential solitude’, which in
turn leaves the artist as ‘lonely’ (Peters, 2013: 34). Research too, and all forms of learning, have
their solitudes, with Piaget describing the child as (often) learning as a lone scientist, typically
responding to new circumstances as a scientist does, by trial and error (Piaget, 1950: 104).
A second reason for using art alongside conventional research to explore solitude is that
art and research seem to involve similar processes. One of the most established definitions
of research, provided by the UK’s main research funding body, says ‘research is defined as a
process of investigation leading to new insights, effectively shared’ (DfENI, 2019: 90). The
‘investigation’ involved in creating a painting or novel or symphony may differ from, and may
be less systematic than, the investigation carried out by researchers, but it is still a reasonable
description of how artists come to be in a position to create. A number of artists have respectable
careers as conventional researchers – with da Vinci (painter and scientist) and Sartre (novelist
and philosopher) as two good examples of art and research feeding each other. But artists who
are not investigators in those ‘scientific’ ways are still investigating before and while creating,
surely? And artists are rightly praised for their ‘insights’, in visual arts, quite straightforwardly
their ‘sight’, their ‘way of seeing’ (as described of Hockney1). The final element of the definition
of research, that the insights should be ‘effectively shared’, is in general much better done by
artists than it is by conventional researchers. So art and research have many qualities in common.
There is a third, more personal, reason for using art and literature to explore solitude. When
thinking about solitude, many people, myself included, find more insights in the arts than in the
conventional research literature. There are numerous topics, especially those that are ‘odd’ or
somewhat ineffable, that conventional researchers find difficult to describe. Solitude, along with
The Bloomsbury Handbook of Solitude, Silence and Loneliness

silence and loneliness, has such a character. For my own research on solitude and loneliness in
schools (Stern, 2014), I could find very little conventional research on the topic: one professionally
oriented book from the 1970s (Robert, 1974), and barely another mention. Yet there were plenty
of artistic and literary resources on which to draw, including materials written for young children.
I am not the only person to go to the arts to explore the topic, having been ‘failed’ by conventional
research. Perrin, in a philosophical account of classical and modern solitude, says that ‘if there
exists a whole litteratura perennis on solitude, it has no philosophia’ (Perrin, 2020: 15). He finds
some philosophy on the topic, but claims that Arendt makes the ‘only truly conceptual distinction
in philosophy on the subject of solitude – between loneliness, isolation and solitude first during
the [nineteen] fifties’ (Perrin, 2020: 17). Like Perrin, I found many artistic and literary insights
into solitude and loneliness, in art directed at children as much as at adults, and much less in the
conventional research literature.
For these three reasons, especially, I have written this exploration of solitude in literature,
music and art,2 seeing the artists as themselves researchers, investigating solitude (through their
lives and their arts), developing original insights and communicating those insights. In their own
right, and when compared with the research of conventional ‘scientific’ researchers, the artists
distinctively reflect and influence the societies in which they work, and their continuing influence
is significant. This chapter is divided into pre-Romantic, Romantic and post-Romantic arts (even
if the boundaries are inevitably fuzzy), as it is in the Romantic period that solitude and other
forms of aloneness seem to play the most central roles. In all three periods, I follow Murdoch,
herself a good example of artist-researcher as a novelist and philosopher, who says that ‘[a]rt
gives a clear sense to many ideas which seem more puzzling when we meet with them elsewhere,
and it is a clue to what happens elsewhere’ (Murdoch, 2014: 84–5).

Pre-Romantic Solitude: Exile and Ecstasy

In the pre-Romantic period, there are ancient and medieval accounts of exile, solitude and
wandering, and there is an increasing recognition of the need for solitude in an ever-more
connected economic and social world. In consequence, two themes related to solitude are
described as characteristic of a great deal of pre-Romanic art: exile and ecstasy. Forms of exile
are typically unpleasant, of course, with rejection from a community as dangerous in ancient
and medieval societies as the worst of modern-day refugee crises. Ecstasies and other ‘quieter’
forms of solitude3 are often chosen, and are often – but certainly not always – experienced
positively.
Starting with the Roman writer Ovid (Publius Ovidius Naso, 43 BCE–c. 18 CE), a writer
so brilliant and so well connected that his works on love and on mythology were not only
enormously popular in his own day but also remain popular today. As Feeney describes him, ‘he
was unquestionably the most famous poet in the empire’:

Rome was his oyster, and his poetry took the metropolis as inspiration and subject. His love
poetry brought a cool passion to bear on the sophisticated life of the city, with its classy
courtesans and new imperial pomp; his Metamorphoses . . . made Rome the magnet that
tugged all Greek mythology and art towards itself as the new centre of the world. (Feeney,
2006: 13)

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At the high point of his fame, the Emperor Augustus exiles him to Tomis on the Black Sea (now
Constanța in Romania), on the edge of the empire, away from family, friends, and the culture
of the empire’s capital. It is not entirely clear why Ovid was exiled, although he assumes it
is some offence taken at something he wrote, but Ovid spent the remaining decade of his life
in Tomis and, the writer that he was, he created a body of exile literature (the Tristia and the
Black Sea Letters) that – 2,000 years later – remains in print, exactly as he would have wanted.
‘Look at me’, he says in Tristia (Ovid, 2005: 52–3), ‘I’ve lost my home, the two of you, my
country, / they’ve stripped me of all they could take, / yet my talent remains my joy, my constant
companion: / over this, [Augustus] Caesar could have no rights.’ He writes with confidence that
‘[w]hen I’m gone, my fame will endure.’ Making the most of his exile, he also writes eloquently,
bitterly, about his experience in Tomis. As well as missing his family, he misses being in ‘society’,
and the information he would be picking up from public events: ‘in this distant exile / I miss all
such public rejoicing: only vague / rumours get this far’ (Ovid, 2005: 67, from Tristia).
Ovid’s constant complaint is the exile itself, and Augustus as its cause – although he is
understandably careful not to anger Augustus again. Green, in his introduction to the books, notes
references ‘not only to sickness, senility and lassitude, but also to sloth, depression, accidie: the
fact that writing has become a mere wearisome chore to kill time’ (Ovid, 2005: xxxiii). Ovid’s
writings from exile, he says,
offer an extraordinary paradigm of the fantasies and obsessions that bedevil every reluctant
exile: loving evocations of the lost homeland, the personification of letters that are sent to walk
the dear familiar streets denied to their writer, the constant parade – and exaggeration – of
present horrors, spring here contrasted with spring there . . ., the wistful recall of lost pleasures
once taken for granted, the slow growth of paranoia and hypochondria, the neurotic nagging at
indifferent friends, the grinding exacerbation of slow and empty time, the fear of and longing
for death. (Green, in Ovid, 2005: xxxvi–xxxvii)
Green even notes how Ovid’s exilic situation is newly relevant since the twentieth century when
[e]xile has once more become, as it was in Augustus’s day, if not a universal condition . . ., at
least an all-too-familiar risk . . . [due to t]he ruthless demands of two world wars and, worse,
a variety of totalitarian ideologies, [which] have made the exile, the stateless person, the
refugee, the dépaysé, a common feature of our social awareness. (Green, in Ovid, 2005: xiv)
The punishment of Ovid was relatively ‘comfortable’, a ‘relegation’ that allowed him to correspond
with family, rather than full isolation – and more comfortable, of course, than a death sentence,
even if it is ‘a living death’ (Ovid, 2005: 85, from Tristia). He admits to these being ‘snivelling
poems’, and to the irony of being regarded as barbarian by barbarians: ‘Here, I’m the barbarian,
understood by no one, / and these stupid peasants mock my Latin speech, / slander me to my face
with impunity, on occasion / (I suspect) laugh at my exile’ (Ovid, 2005: 100, from Tristia). The
final line hints at the paranoia mentioned by Green, and stressed by Szynkaruk (2020) in her
account of Ovid’s experience as close to modern forms of loneliness. But exilic literature since
Ovid has tended to focus on what Green describes as loss of the pleasures of home, combined
with bitterness, accidie (or depression, or sloth), and the fear of and longing for death, and not
loneliness as we now understand it. This is seen in the Anglo-Saxon poem Wanderer (from the
ninth or tenth century), which describes how the wanderer ‘sat apart’ (Hamer, 1970: 181). The

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poet complains how ‘fate is relentless’ (Hamer, 1970: 175), and asks the Lord to ‘[c]omfort my
loneliness, tempt me with pleasures’ (Hamer, 1970: 177). The word ‘loneliness’ in that line is a
translation of the Anglo-Saxon ‘freondleasne’, elsewhere translated to the etymologically closer
‘friendless’ or ‘friendlessness’. Exile is once again a bitter and depressing separation from loved
people and places. And yet ‘no man may be wise before / He’s lived his share of winters in the
world’ (Hamer, 1970: 183). For Chaucer in the fourteenth century, solitude was best represented
by the ‘exile’ to death. The dying Arcita in the Knight’s Tale asks, ‘What is this world? what asketh
men to have? / Now with his love, now in his colde grave / Allone, withouten any compaignye’
(Chaucer, 1992: 74).
Shakespeare, one of the first writers to use the word ‘lonely’, still uses it to refer to exile.
Coriolanus comforts his mother before leaving for exile, saying, ‘I’ll do well yet’, even though
‘I go alone, / Like to a lonely dragon, that his fen / Makes fear’d and talk’d of more than seen’
(Coriolanus, IV​.i​ii). Yet in other plays, Shakespeare does indeed seem to create a modern sense
of loneliness. Forms of solitude that are not simply painful places away from loved ones, but
accompanied by complex emotions such as loneliness, seemed to develop considerably in the
early seventeenth century. Dumm describes Cordelia, King Lear’s ‘principled’ daughter, as
seeking ‘a new way out of her family’s drama of counterfeit love, a way into a sense of autonomy,
which she tries to find through her attempt to establish a reasonable, rational, thoughtful division
of love’. But as she is refused this by her father (and has no mother), she ‘becomes the first lonely
self’ (Dumm, 2008: 13–14). ‘For Cordelia’, he says, ‘loneliness becomes a way of life’ and so
‘[s]he is . . . our first modern person’ (Dumm, 2008: 14). Shakespeare therefore looks back at
the exilic literature of the ancients, in Coriolanus, and forward to the post-Romantic literature
of self-judging loneliness in King Lear, where Cordelia experiences ‘lonesomeness and longing,
marking a path toward . . . the isolated self of the modern era’ (Dumm, 2008: 15).
Along with accounts of exile in pre-Romantic arts are accounts of solitude as opportunities
for more or less successful experiences of ecstasy. This is the ecstasy commonly described in
religious traditions, the ‘going beyond’ or ‘getting out of oneself’ that is the origin of the word
ecstasy (‘out of place’, OED, 2005). Accounts of visions and prophesies from ‘beyond’ (typically
from God or gods) are common in many religious traditions, especially Jewish, Christian and
Muslim traditions, and these are often described as happening in solitude – in periods spent alone
in exile and in prison (as with Jeremiah), in the desert (as with Jesus), living alone in a cave (as
with St Anthony), meditating in a cave (as with Muhammad) or as a hermit or anchoress (as with
Julian of Norwich). Religious artists describe such scenes, and one of the finest artists of solitude
is Dürer. Working in the early sixteenth century, he pictured Saint Jerome in His Study, the saint
quietly alone in his room (accompanied by a dog, a lion and a skull) absorbed in his theological
writings, with his saintly halo indicating his religious ecstasy. A kind of ‘failed ecstasy’ might
be represented by his Melencolia I. In that picture, the melancholic figure is a winged woman
(an angel?) looking miserably into the distance, suffering perhaps from something like the
accidie also ascribed to Ovid. The central figure is surrounded by workshop tools of an artist of
some kind, and is accompanied only by a similarly disengaged winged cherub. There are many
interpretations of this scene, and no agreement on its symbolism, but the range of interpretations
described by Merback (2017) includes insights into the therapeutic character of the work, the
depression of bereavement, the delayed or frustrated creativity and ‘paralyzing gloom’ of an artist
(Merback, 2017: 138), and a description of the ‘suffering of the artist’ (Merback, 2017: 186).

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Seeing it as a ‘failed’ ecstasy, as an example of the ‘[s]olitude, despair, sadness, and greed’ that
were ‘the melancholic’s birthright’ (Merback, 2017: 138), Dürer’s engraving also looks forward.
To look so miserable and unengaged among all the necessary technologies of creativity: this is a
modern solitude, whether the boredom of wealthy flâneurs in nineteenth-century Paris (Benjamin,
1999: 451), experiencing the ‘boredom [that] waits for death’ (Benjamin, 1999: 101), or the
twenty-first-century people whose technologies leave them ‘interconnected loners’ (O’Sullivan,
2019: 173).
Literary solitude-ecstasies are well represented by Philips’s poem from the middle of the
seventeenth century, O Solitude! My Sweetest Choice (Philips, 1710: 210–25, made famous by a
song setting of Henry Purcell4). This poem, translated from the French poem La Solitude by Saint-
Amant, describes solitude ‘Remote from tumult and from noise’ in a mountainous landscape
which ‘th’ unhappy would invite / To finish all their sorrows here’ (i.e. a place for the suicidal).
And yet it is a place the narrator ‘adore[s]’, as there, she encounters not only the natural world
(pre-empting much Romantic solitude poetry) but also people (from times gone by, as well as
more recent – perhaps suicidal – visitors, and the narrator’s lost lover) and mythical beings (demi-
gods, Naiads, nymphs, Echo, Tritons). Pope’s Ode on Solitude from 1700 is less dramatically
ecstatic, and yet that too seeks an escape, through a quieter death than is envisaged by Philips:
hoping in the end to ‘Steal from the world, and not a stone / Tell where I lie’. Remarkably,
Pope wrote this at the age of twelve, just as his lifelong debilitating illnesses were manifesting
themselves (Pope, 1994: 1).
If Purcell’s musical setting of Philips’s poem made solitude almost fashionable, the solitude
of religious ecstasy is perhaps better represented by later composers such as J. S. Bach. In his St
Matthew Passion, Bach creates one of the great musical silences, an aural/oral solitude. So ist
mein Jesus nun gefangen (‘behold, my Saviour now is taken’) gives an account of Jesus being
taken from the Garden of Gethsemane on the night before his crucifixion. Two voices calmly
express their grief (‘Moon and Stars, / Have for grief the night forsaken’), and the choir bursts in,
furiously asking, ‘Have lightnings and thunders their fury forgotten? / Then open o fathomless pit,
all thy terrors!’ Bach inserts a paused rest for the length of a bar, in between these last two lines.
The silence seems to describe both the forgotten fury of thunder and lightning, and the opening
of the fathomless pit. There are few better examples of the ecstatic power of silence in music,
a remarkably ‘meaningful’ silence in the middle of a fury.5 Similarly, Rondeau refers to Bach’s
Goldberg Variations, written as a cure for insomnia, as ‘an ode to silence’.6 (A century after
Bach, Kierkegaard comments on how the lowing of cattle or the bark of a dog in the countryside
‘belongs to the silence, is in a mysterious and thus in turn silent harmony with the silence; this
increases it’, Kierkegaard, 2000: 335.) Bach’s understanding of different forms of solitude is
perhaps also evidenced in his ability to compose for solo instruments that were rarely – before
or since – given entirely solitary opportunities. The unaccompanied cello suites, and the sonatas
and partitas for solo violin, are distinguished by being written for a solitary performer. And
they also exhibit Bach’s skills in achieving a ‘dense counterpoint and refined harmony’ (Grove
Music Online7) – a multiple-voiced form of music, in contrast to a single melodic voice with or
without accompaniment. A solitary musician with many voices, this is what the literary critic
Bakhtin would later call heteroglossia (raznorečie) (Bakhtin, 1981: 263). That Bach can achieve
the ‘links and interrelationships’, the ‘movement of the theme through different languages and
speech types, its dispersion into the rivulets and droplets of social heteroglossia, its dialogization’

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(Bakhtin, 1981: 263) in pieces for a solo stringed instrument, rather than a novel (as envisaged
by Bakhtin), is an impressive achievement in solitude. The solo violin music was described by
Reichardt in 1805 as ‘perhaps the greatest example in any art of the freedom and certainty with
which a great master can move even when he is in chains’ (Grove Music Online8).
Seeing Bach’s contrapuntal music as solitudinous voices speaking simultaneously, the
twentieth-century Bach specialist Gould created his own solitude trilogy (Gould, 2003). But the
eighteenth century was a highpoint of creative solitude – from Bach to the shipwrecked solitude
described in 1719 by Defoe in Robinson Crusoe (Defoe, 2001), from the poetry of Pope to the
artist Lemoyne’s 1728 picture of Narcissus (absorbed in his solitude by his own image). From
Ovid to Bach, from exile to ecstasy, much of the art of solitude is relearned in the Romantic
period with Romanticism clearly prefigured in the ecstatic art of Blake (such as his famous
picture of Newton, from Europe) towards the end of the eighteenth century.

Romantic Solitude: The Artist and Nature

Romanticism brought an elevated sense of the artist as solitary figure, and of solitude as sought
away from home rather than avoided or imposed by a sentence of exile. Solitude was most
often portrayed as being sought in nature. There were new ways of understanding the artist, and
understanding nature, which went beyond the earlier craft- and service-oriented models of art,
and the nostalgic idealized pastoral scenes of nature – even the troubled pastoral scene described
by Philips. Instead, there were more individualistic accounts of the artist-as-outsider (but not in
literal exile), and more holistic accounts of ‘Nature’ as the whole universe. The natural holism
was influenced in part by philosophies such as that of Spinoza, who wrote in the seventeenth
century of ‘God or nature’, that is ‘the eternal and infinite Being, which we call God or Nature’
(Spinoza, 1955: 188). Eliot, the late-Romantic novelist, was explicitly influenced by Spinoza, and
translated the Ethics (Spinoza, 2020, and see Newton, 1981). But the whole of Romanticism was
touched by the theme of the solitary-artist-in-nature. Here, some examples from literature, visual
arts and music are given of different combinations of the solitary-artist and the artist-in-nature.
One of the most ‘typical’ artistic representations of solitary-artist-in-nature is given by
Wordsworth. He wrote many accounts of solitude, with one of his late poems, The Recluse,
explaining, ‘On Man, on Nature, and on Human Life / Musing in Solitude, I oft perceive / Fair
trains of imagery before me rise’ (Wordsworth, 1994: 755). Most famous of all is his poem The
Daffodils (Wordsworth, 1994: 187), best known as a poem for its use of the word ‘lonely’ (i.e.
‘I wandered lonely as a cloud / That floats on high o’er vales and hills, When all at once I saw
a crowd, / A host of golden daffodils’). Although the word ‘lonely’ was increasingly used in
Romantic poetry and prose, it generally to refer to places in which to find solitude, good or bad,
rather than to an emotion. The Daffodils was clearly a celebration of solitude, not an exploration
of the emotion of loneliness. The poem’s ending, incorporating lines written by the poet’s sister
Dorothy Wordsworth, recalls the daffodils with ‘that inward eye / Which is the bliss of solitude’.
The poem moves from a disengaged aloneness (as the cloud is merely ‘alone’ and is disengaged
not suffering from the emotion later called loneliness) to healthily engaged solitude – engaged,
that is, with thoughts of the flower. It is the value of solitudinously engaging with nature (or
Nature, as the Romantics tended to deem it) that excited the imagination of the poets who were
themselves living through an intense period of urbanization and industrialization. Loneliness

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was used of (‘natural’) places, not people, with Wordsworth writing of lonely yew trees, streams
and primroses (Wordsworth, 1994: 25, 241, and 455). Clare, similarly, writes of a lonely thicket,
glen, lake, tempest, shore, desert and fields (Clare, 2004: 20, 208, 212, 265, 285, 327 and 390,
respectively), and Keats hears the ‘surgy murmurs of the lonely sea’ (Keats, 2007: 41). It is
solitude of which they all write with (Romantic) passion.
More disturbing accounts of solitude come from Hölderlin. As his personal life was
declining into more than three decades of isolation in a state of what would later be described
as schizophrenia, Hölderlin wrote, ‘[t]ell me, is it a blessing or a curse, this loneliness which is
part of my nature and which . . . I am . . . irresistibly driven back into?’ (Hölderlin, 2009: 197,
from a letter dated March 1801). He was describing a more emotional loneliness, and one that
accompanied his increasing solitude. His situation was sometimes described as an archetypal
Romantic withdrawal into silence. This is from Steiner’s account:
By the age of thirty, Hölderlin had accomplished nearly his whole work; a few years later
he entered on a quiet madness which lasted thirty-six years . . . Hölderlin’s silence has been
read not as a negation of his poetry but as, in some sense, its unfolding and its sovereign
logic. The gathering strength of stillness within and between the lines of the poems have been
felt as a primary element of their genius. As empty space is so expressly a part of modern
painting and sculpture, as the silent intervals are so integral to a composition by Webern, so
the void places in Hölderlin’s poems, particularly in the late fragments, seem indispensable
to the completion of the poetic act. His posthumous life in a shell of quiet, similar to that of
Nietzsche, stands for the word’s surpassing of itself, for its realization not in another medium
but in that which is its echoing antithesis and defining negation, silence. (Steiner, 1967:
47–8)
Yet his visitor and friend, the younger poet Waiblinger – one of Hölderlin’s few regular visitors
other than the family that looked after him in his final isolation – described his situation as
‘perdition’ (Waiblinger, 2018: 32), and ‘terrifying’:
I once discovered amongst his papers a terrifying phrase replete with mystery. After honouring
the renown of a list of Greek heroes and the beauty of the realm of gods, he says: ‘Now for the
first time I understand humankind, because I dwell far from it and in solitude’. (Waiblinger,
2018: 58)
The later isolation of Hölderlin’s life is, as Steiner says, connected to his earlier life as a much
more active poet, even if it is an odd interpretation of the situation to describe it as an eloquent
poetic silence. One of his most quoted poems, written in 1799, is The Root of All Evil, which
is just two lines long: ‘Being at one is god-like and good, but human, too human, the mania
/ Which insists there is only the One, one country, one truth and one way’ (Hölderlin, 1990:
139). The attraction of the One, a God-like singularity (like Spinoza’s ‘God or Nature’) and the
danger of the One, this is the tension under which Hölderlin lived, with solitude both an escape
from the One and an escape to the position from which he could see all as One. In his isolated
years, Waiblinger describes Hölderlin’s visit to his home, where the older poet ‘held a particular
fascination for the pantheistic One and All inscribed in giant Greek letters on the wall above my
work desk . . . [and] conversed at length with himself while observing this mysterious inscription
so ponderous with thought’ (Waiblinger, 2018: 50).

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For Taylor, Hölderlin, like his mentor Schiller, represented the belief ‘that the human destiny
was to return to nature at a higher level, having made a synthesis of reason and desire’, as, in
the poet’s words, ‘all things separated come together again’ (Taylor, 1989: 386). In his major
poem Hyperion, Hölderlin describes the hero’s ‘evocation of a lost oneness [that] suggests . . .
we have been torn away from a vital, dynamic order of life coursing through nature, an order
that was known to earlier experience but is now concealed by the detached stance of rational
knowing and reflective awareness’ (Guignon, 2004: 53). Hyperion, for another critic, describes
the hero’s ‘manic-depressive oscillations between nearly hallucinatory states of oneness with
the other – nature, a friend, a lover – and states of complete and utter emptiness and abject
isolation’ (Santner, in Hölderlin, 1990: xxvii). In his later life of isolation, this tension becomes
pathological, as ‘[n]ow he is I and not-I, world and man, first and second person, high or highest’
(Waiblinger, 2018: 64). The solitude of, with, or against Nature, and the solitude of the artist, is
voiced best by Hölderlin himself. In the following, the narrator begins at one with Nature, and
then alone, apart and finally alienated from Nature:
To be one with all that lives! . . . On this height I often stand, my Bellarmin! But an instant of
reflection hurls me down. I reflect, and find myself as I was before – alone, with all the griefs
of mortality, and my heart’s refuge, the world in its eternal oneness, is gone; Nature closes her
arms, and I stand like an alien before her and do not understand her. (Hölderlin, 1990: 4–5,
from Hyperion)
A visual representation of the solitary-artist-in-nature is repeatedly given by Caspar David
Friedrich. The man or woman alone in a landscape, with his or her back to the viewer, is an ideal
Romantic solitude. Titles such as Wanderer above the Sea of Fog (1818) or Woman before the
Setting Sun (1818–20) allow the viewer to identify with the nameless, solitary, figure. According
to Cardinal, ‘[b]y inserting figures into his settings Friedrich seems less intent upon enlivening
them or marking their scale than upon directing the viewer’s gaze towards their metaphysical
dimension’ (Cardinal, in Murray, 2004: 388). Thus, ‘a solitary walker is absorbed by the vast
craggy wilderness around him, his back turned to the viewer and in that way, isolating us too’,
and ‘[b]eing ‘lonely’ in nature, he surrenders to feelings of awe, wonder and terror at its sublime
majesty – all the petty worries of ordinary life, and even a sense of an independent self, ebbing
away’ (Smith, 2015: 2578–2614). Friedrich is more than ‘the painter of stillness’ (Wolf, 2003);
he is the painter of Romantic solitude, the painter, in a sense, of the more optimistic aspect of
Hölderlin’s poetic vision. Later in his life, Friedrich, like Hölderlin, became reclusive, and his
paintings that had during his rather brief marriage become a little more colourful and sometimes
contained more than one person, became more and more dour. The late painting Seashore by
Moonlight (1835), like some of his youthful landscapes, contained no people, and was almost
completely black.
A musical score for this Romantic interpretation of solitude was provided by Friedrich’s and
Hölderlin’s contemporary, Beethoven. Whether his popular image is accurate – a rather wild and
moody unkempt character, an image popularized by portraits such as that of Steiler, isolated as
a result of his temperament as much as his deafness – Beethoven’s music does have many of the
features of Romantic solitude. His ‘nature’ music, such as his sixth (‘Pastoral’) symphony, portrays
the storms of Friedrich, and he set hundreds of folk songs from many countries (Scotland, Wales,
Ireland, England, especially, along with Germany, Sicily, Venice, Spain, Portugal, Denmark,

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Poland, Hungary and Russia), at the height of his powers between 1809 and 1820 – with folk
music being seen in Romanticism as going back to nature. Rosen, describing the ‘Romantic
imagination’, says:
Folk music is always considered a good thing. There is a catch, however: it has to be ‘real’ folk
music, anonymous, evoking not an individual but a communal personality, expressive of the
soil . . . True folk music is produced only by farmers and shepherds; only this can guarantee
its mythical status, its down-to-earth contrast with sophisticated urban music. Folk music, in
fact, is not art but nature. The composer who turns to folk material is like the landscape artist
who paints out of doors: they both reject the artificial for the natural; they start not with what
is invented but with what is given by reality. (Rosen, 1995: 410)
Along with pastoral scenes and the settings of folk music, Beethoven’s late piano sonatas and,
even more, the late string quartets seem to end in the ‘one eternal glowing life’, the oneness
of nature (or God) which are the last words uttered by Hölderlin’s Hyperion. Beethoven’s late
music is a music of such solitude that it can be described as ‘alienated’ (Said, in Barenboim &
Said, 2002: 135), yet it seems to be a solitude of leaving the ordinary life to achieve oneness
with the world, rather than the alienation of exile or even of ecstasy. Beethoven was one of the
earliest musicians to be portrayed as an independent, Romantic, artist, but many others followed.
It was the first half of the nineteenth century that created the image of the musician as creative
artist and loner. The Romantic musician Liszt recognized the dangers of this position, which he
projected back to his earlier Romantic forebears, and in passing created the possibility of a career
as a popular solo (i.e. solitary) performer. Liszt wrote an obituary of his older colleague on the
concert circuit, the violinist-composer Paganini:
As Paganini . . . appeared in public, the world wonderingly looked upon him as a super-being.
The excitement he caused was so unusual, the magic he practiced upon the fantasy of hearer,
so powerful, that they could not satisfy themselves with a natural explanation. (Quoted in
Sennett, 1978: 200, original ellipses)
Liszt himself became just such a charismatic virtuoso performer, remarking, ‘The concert is –
myself’ (quoted in Sennett, 1978: 199). Concert halls were built for these virtuosi to perform in,
with all in the audience concentrating on the performers. These halls contrasted with the smaller
rooms previously used, in which musicians might perform to an audience otherwise occupied
in conversation – rather like cabaret venues or comedy clubs today, where performers are only
part of a bigger social experience. The concert stage became a solitary mountain-top, with the
virtuoso placed there like a Friedrich figure, illuminated by the spotlight while the audience
remains in darkness. A penalty of this solitary-artist role created by Paganini and Liszt was a
potential to fall into solipsism. Liszt’s obituary for Paganini continued:
this man, who created so much enthusiasm, could make no friends among his fellowmen. No
one guessed what was going on in his heart; his own richly blessed life never made another
happy . . . Paganini’s god . . . was never any other than his own gloomy, sad ‘I.’ (Quoted in
Sennett, 1978: 202)
Sad or happy, the musical soloist as charismatic creative performer was born with Paganini and
Liszt, not their twentieth-century successors in classical music or the popular music charismatic

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performers such as Al Jolson, Bessie Smith, Frank Sinatra and onwards to Dusty Springfield and
Freddie Mercury and beyond.
The solitary-artist and the artist-in-nature, sometimes combined (as in Friedrich), sometimes
one (Liszt) or the other (Wordsworth), characterizes much of Romanticism to the extent that it
could be described as the very heart of Romanticism. That is not to say earlier exilic or ecstatic
solitudes were altogether absent, or that later forms of alienation and lonely self-rejection were
not already being rehearsed. Yet the solitude of the Romantics still has a centre of gravity in a
distinctive solitude that was not altogether rejected, but built upon and complemented by other
forms in the post-Romantic period that takes us up to the present day.

Post-Romantic Solitude: Lonesomeness, Alienation and the Rejected Self

As high Romanticism faded, new solitude traditions emerged, both positive and negative. While
pre-Romantic solitude often looked nostalgically back to a pastoral idyll, and Romantic solitude
often lived in a stormy and emotional ‘Nature’, post-Romantic solitude mourned the loss of
nature and the alienation of life in industrial cities. The emotion of loneliness developed further,
and in the United States a parallel ‘lonesome’ tradition also emerged for cowboys, outlaws, and
others in solitude on the ‘frontier’, glimpsed in the poetry of Whitman and Dickinson. Exilic
literature made a comeback, with diasporas missing homelands. Sex and sexuality became more
central to the tradition – from suppressed/oppressed sexualities leading to a sense of isolation,
to the solitary vice surreptitiously celebrated by Larkin (see also Engelberg, 2001: 14–15).
As communication technologies developed – from newspapers and the telephone to cinema,
television and the internet – there was an increase in the sense of the interiority of solitude,
solitude not so much as a place ‘out there’, but a place ‘in here’, contemplative (or dangerous)
spaces and liberating (or terrifying) silences.
Early-nineteenth-century Romantic novels of solitude, such as Frankenstein (Shelley, 1999
[1818]), or a number of the novels of the Brontës (notably Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre or Emily
Brontë’s Wuthering Heights), are powerful accounts of rejection and isolation turning to loneliness
and anger in vividly described ‘natural’ as much as domestic settings. In Jane Eyre (Brontë, 2006
[1847]), some of the pain of lonely solitude is resolved; in Wuthering Heights (Brontë, 2003
[1847]), it is not at all resolved. But later in the century an apparently quieter, domestic, loneliness
was more common. The heroine and her equally lonely husband in Eliot’s Middlemarch (1965
[1871]) are good examples of such inward solitude. But it is Dickinson who writes most eloquently
of the peculiarly complex emotion, referred to as loneliness, that emerges in the second half of the
nineteenth century. Dickinson’s solitudinous way of life is well known. Restricting herself to her
own house and rarely seeing visitors from outside the family, her solitude is richly described. She
notes that the solitude of space or even of death is not as profound as that of a ‘soul admitted to itself’
(Dickinson, 1970: 691). Silence is dreaded because silence is ‘Infinity’ (Dickinson, 1970: 548).
And her distinctive account of solitude is dominated by loneliness and the lonesome. She describes
various forms of loneliness, including ‘another Loneliness’ (Dickinson, 1970: 502), which is closer
to a positive version of solitude than to the negative forms of loneliness. Lewis writes of her poem
as one promoting ‘lonesomeness’, in his ‘plea for recognition of the fecund “lonesomeness” of the
greater American experience’ (Lewis, 2009: xiii). Dickinson describes this loneliness as being the
result of nature or thinking, rather than lack of friends or bad luck, and the people who experience

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it are ‘richer’ (Dickinson, 1970: 502). However, elsewhere, she writes of unambiguously negative
forms of loneliness, full of pity. For example, ‘I tried to think a lonelier Thing’, she writes, such
that the narrator could ‘pity Him’ and ‘Perhaps he – pitied me – ’ (Dickinson, 1970: 260). More
terrifying than pitiable is the loneliness ‘One dare not sound’ (Dickinson, 1970: 379).
Along with Dickinson’s touching on the lonesome, a number of other North American writers
write of the lonesomeness of the American ‘frontier’ (a frontier, that is, only for the newly
arrived populations). That lonesome tradition in literature and music was a more piquant, not
entirely negative and sometimes creative, version of solitude. Whitman writes of ‘where sun-
down shadows lengthen over the limitless and lonesome prairie’ (quoted in Lewis, 2009: 27),
and Twain of Huck Finn’s ‘solid lonesomeness’ (quoted in Lewis, 2009: 54). Lonesome cowboys
ride through countless novels and songs, with lonesomeness only becoming wholly negative in
the twentieth century with Hank Williams’s ‘I’m so lonesome I could cry’ of 1949 (quoted in
Lewis, 2009: 133), which Elvis Presley described as ‘the saddest song I’ve ever heard in my
life’.9 Negatively framed solitude is also described in the words and music of African American
stories of the blues, such as the songs of Robert Johnson, which McGeachy (2006) compares to
the Anglo-Saxon poetry of exile. African American culture is indeed exilic (McGeachy, 2006:
63), with blues music, drawing on West African traditions, being an outpouring of emotions
associated with loss and loneliness specific to the African American situation. ‘[B]lues can be
simulated, but blues feeling cannot, so its exponents contend’ (Grove Music Online10). Lost love
dominates blues lyrics, but the bigger picture is of an old exile, a current oppression and an
unhappy future: ‘Where Spirituals move the group heavenward (and northward), blues songs
move the displaced individual hellward’ (McGeachy, 2006: 87). In the mid-twentieth century,
a British reinterpretation of the blues was composed by Lennon (copyrighted to Lennon and
McCartney), whose Yer Blues11 never mentions the blues in the lyrics, but, instead, complains of
a suicidal loneliness.
Sexuality is a second post-Romantic theme. In the late nineteenth and into the twentieth
centuries, novels were published that focused on the relationship between solitude, loneliness
and sexuality – as exemplified in The Well of Loneliness (Hall, 1982). Hall’s novel is described
by Hennegan as being ‘[j]okingly, and not so jokingly, . . . known as “the Bible of lesbianism”’
(in Hall, 1982: viii). This account of loneliness is described in terms of an ‘unwanted being’
(Hall, 1982: 205), a form of self-rejection. There is a portrayal of an ‘unsatisfactory distinction
between “real” lesbians and “real” women’, and the heroine Stephen ‘wrestles endlessly with
the agonising contradictions it entails’ (Hennegan, in Hall, 1982: xvi). In the novel, Stephen is
an only child, and ‘[i]t is doubtful if any only child is to be envied, for the only child is bound
to become introspective; having no one of its own ilk in whom to confide, it is apt to confide in
itself’ (Hall, 1982: 10). She meets a man called Martin and they talked: ‘His youth met hers and
walked hand in hand with it, so that she knew how utterly lonely her own youth had been before
the coming of Martin’ (Hall, 1982: 94). But this was not to be a sexual partnership. After her
father’s death, Stephen’s mother discovers the ‘scandal’ of her daughter’s sexuality.

Stephen went straight to her father’s study; and she sat in the old arm-chair that had survived
him; then she buried her face in her hands.
All the loneliness that had gone before was as nothing to this new loneliness of spirit. An
immense desolation swept down upon her, an immense need to cry out and claim understanding

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for herself, an immense need to find an answer to the riddle of her unwanted being. (Hall,
1982: 205–6)
This ‘unwanted being’, this self-rejection, is one that leads from a lonely childhood through to an
adulthood of failed relationships and feeling a lack of a right even to exist, a kind of internalized
exile. In the final words of the book, Stephen says, ‘[a]cknowledge us, oh God, before the whole
world’, and ‘[g]ive us also the right to our existence!’ (Hall, 1982: 447).
Wilde’s Picture of Dorian Gray (1966, first published in 1890) is an account of a tragic
gay figure, a ‘libertine’ who kills others and eventually kills himself. It describes the hero’s
sensualism as a failed attempt to escape loneliness, having had a ‘lonely childhood’ of ‘stainless
purity’ (Wilde, 1966: 99). Wilde’s lover, Douglas, wrote in 1894 of a dream of two young men
in a garden, one, Love, was ‘wont to be / Alone’, but was joined by the other – ‘the love that
dare not speak his name’.12 In such ways, the solitude of exile is turned inwards. There were
literary accounts of solitude, loneliness and LGBT lives well into the twentieth century, such as
Oosthuizen’s Loneliness and Other Lovers (1981) or – with a more positive account – Nagata’s
My Lesbian Experience with Loneliness (2017). Back in the 1890s, the artist Leighton painted
Solitude, one of his most popular works. In some ways the picture looks back to a romantic
contemplative solitude; in others it looks forward to a therapeutic view of healthy aloneness.
As the artist explained to his sister, the woman in the picture – who appears to be lost in her
thoughts – depicts the emotions he felt when visiting Linn of Dee near Braemar, in Scotland.
Leighton expresses that the place had ‘no sound, no faintest gurgle even reaches your ear; the
silent mystery of it all absolutely invades and possesses you.’ This painting has become the
embodiment of absolute self-consciousness.13
Yet it is also perhaps a portrait of late-nineteenth-century sexual repression, with Leighton’s own
sexuality much debated. For all his public stature as president of the Royal Academy, he was
fiercely protective of his privacy and yet, going back to a Romantic trope, he ‘remained to the
end a child of nature’ (Barrington, 1906: 8).
Along with lonesomeness and sexuality, a third solitude theme of the post-Romantic
period was that of alienation. In the early nineteenth century, alienation took a more central
place in theology and philosophy. The philosopher Hegel, a student alongside Hölderlin in
Tübingen, described alienation as one of the repeated ‘moments’ of the dialectic of separation
and togetherness, including estrangement from God (Hegel, 1988: 447–9). Feuerbach, a
student of Hegel, criticized his old teacher and instead turned alienation into an explanation
of, and critique of, Christianity, and a critique of the state. People alienate themselves from
their own species being, from their ‘essential nature’ (Feuerbach, 1855: 19), and from ‘Nature’
(Feuerbach, 1855: 183). But these largely Romantic formulations were rejected – or turned
on their heads – by Marx. Marx moved beyond alienation as against ‘nature’. People and
alienation are historically embedded in ‘the ensemble of the social relations’ (Marx, in Marx
& Engels, 1970: 122). Modern capitalist industrial societies alienate labour (including taking
the products of labour away from those labouring), and in doing that alienate people from each
other and from themselves. Although far from a Marxist, Dickens also described the alienation
of urban industrial life, with Hard Times (Dickens, 1955) concentrating on the alienation of
children from their families through the new forms of mass schooling. Melville’s Bartleby the
Scrivener: A Story of Wall-Street, published in 1853 (Melville, 2016), is a remarkable account

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of a loner within a bureaucratic city, an almost Kafkaesque alienation written long before Kafka
was born.
Thoreau, born within a few months of Marx, explained alienation in modern industrial society
through his account of a retreat from it. He practiced and wrote about the solitude – and at
times loneliness – of his time living in a hut by Walden Pond (Thoreau, 2006). This account of
healthy solitude is powerful – and provides one of the most influential attacks on the alienation
experienced in competitive crowds, a century before ‘the lonely crowd’ (Reisman, 2000) was
coined:
I find it wholesome to be alone the greater part of the time. To be in company, even with the
best, is soon wearisome and dissipating. I love to be alone. I never found the companion that
was so companionable as solitude. We are for the most part more lonely when we go abroad
among men than when we stay in our chambers. (Thoreau, 2006: 146)
Thoreau says others think he must be lonely, living in a hut away from the town, but he replies, ‘I
am no more lonely than the loon in the pond that laughs so loud, or than Walden Pond itself’, for
‘[w]hat company has that lonely lake, I pray?’ (Thoreau, 2006: 148). In this, he is developing the
earlier Romantic writing on solitude in nature, and arguing that loneliness is not to be described
simply as ‘aloneness’ (as it seemed to be in Wordsworth), but as a more complex emotion that
could be experienced in crowds as much as on one’s own. Thoreau was not antisocial, and writes
of his time at Walden Pond as allowing for company (with nature, and also with people), as well
as solitude: ‘I had three chairs in my house; one for solitude, two for friendship, three for society’
(Thoreau, 2006: 151). And yet he captured the value of healthy solitude, as well as the dangers of
loneliness, better than the more sentimental Romantics managed.
Alienation was turned inwards, with the existential philosophy of Kierkegaard (1985 [1843])
and then the literary versions of Rilke’s Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge of 1910 (Rilke, 2009),
Kafka’s Metamorphosis of 1915 (Kafka, 2008) and Sartre’s Nausea of 1938 (Sartre, 2000). These
all described negative inward-looking solitudes, as Engelberg describes ‘the story of solitude as
we move into the twentieth century’, which ‘relates how the solitary state moves from the Self’s
removal from Society to, say, Nature to the Self’s opposition with itself’ (Engelberg, 2001: 2).
Later in the twentieth century, the poet Larkin lamented the lack of healthy solitude and the
presence of loneliness. In Best Society (dated 1951, Larkin, 1988: 56–7, referencing Paradise
Lost’s ‘solitude sometimes is best society’, Milton, 1980: 211) he describes how as a child he
had thought solitude was easily available, but that in adulthood it became harder to find and
more ‘undesirable’. Those who do not like the virtue of sociability are deemed ‘vicious’, and
so, viciously, he locks himself at home with his solitude (a slightly disguised reference also to
masturbation). Larkin’s solitude is a form of alienation, if a long way from the tragic existentialist
literatures of Rilke, Kafka or Sartre. The twentieth century was a high point of literary solitude
focusing on loners and the lonely, like Larkin. Beckett’s Trilogy (Beckett, 2009, 2010a, 2010b) is
a set of three novels of solitude and self-rejection, to the point of death (as with Chaucer’s Arcita,
quoted above): ‘But what matter whether I was born or not, have lived or not, am dead or merely
dying, I shall go on doing as I have always done, not knowing what it is I do, nor who I am, nor
where I am, nor if I am’ (Beckett, 2010a: 53). Yates wrote short stories describing Eleven Kinds
of Loneliness (Yates, 2009), with accounts of a child new to school, patients in a TB ward, and a
lonely taxi driver telling tales to his passengers. Another short story writer, O’Connor, suggests

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that a short story is by its nature a ‘lonely voice’, and short story writers are typically lonely and
try – as hard as they can – to escape that loneliness.
The saddest thing about the short story is the eagerness with which those who write it best try
to escape from it. It is a lonely art, and they too are lonely. They seem forever to be looking
for company, trying to get away from the submerged population that they have brought to life
for us. Joyce simply stopped writing short stories. D. H. Lawrence rode off in one direction;
A. E. Coppard, that other master of the English short story, in another, but they were all trying
to escape. (O’Connor, 1968: 325)
Musically, post-Romantic solitude was first characterized by the technologies that made music
less social. The first great ‘antisocial’ musical technology was the piano, an instrument capable
of replacing whole orchestras. Liszt produced piano transcriptions of symphonies, operas and
even the songs of Schubert. Hardy describes a single player of a cabinet-organ as replacing the
group of men who sang and played violins and other instruments, in his first Wessex novel,
Under the Greenwood Tree or The Mellstock Quire: A Rural Painting of the Dutch School of
1872 (Hardy, 1989). That novel was the first of a series describing the loss of rural community
in the face of urbanization and industrialization, and he leads with the musical solitude of the
keyboard. The piano and similar keyboard instruments (such as the melodeon) were described in
1921 by the sociologist Weber as essentially bourgeois instruments (private, individualist) that
were, therefore, more popular in North European homes than in South European public spaces
(Weber, 1978: chapter 22).
Mechanical and later electronic reproduction of music from the late nineteenth century meant
that music could be a very solitary hobby, without any performer present. It was in the 1950s
that the popular music charts changed from being based on sales of sheet music (i.e. notations on
paper that had to be performed live whether in homes or public places) to being based on sales of
records (which required no live performer). And the charismatic solo performance popularized
by Paganini and Liszt was critiqued by Cage in his most famous composition, 4’33” (i.e. four
minutes and thirty-three seconds). In that piece, the pianist sits for that time without making any
music. It is regarded by more conservative critics as something that ‘amuses the audiences and
embarrasses the serious music-lovers’ (Hutcheson, 1975: 392). Kagge, a promoter of ‘silence
in the age of noise’ (Kagge, 2017), is more positive. Cage has been an inspiration. ‘Audiences
adore this piece of silence even today’, he says, ‘[o]r rather: the silence minus the noises that the
audience makes as they try to stay quiet’ (Kagge, 2017: 105).14 Cage himself has a somewhat
Romantic view of solitude in nature, writing of performing his silent piece not only in the concert
hall but in what could be called ‘Nature’:
I have spent many pleasant hours in the woods conducting performances of my silent piece,
transcriptions, that is, for an audience of myself, since they were much longer than the popular
length which I have had published. At one performance, I passed the first movement by
attempting the identification of a mushroom which remained successfully unidentified. The
second movement was extremely dramatic, beginning with the sounds of a buck and a doe
leaping up to within ten feet of my rocky podium. The expressivity of this movement was
not only dramatic but unusually sad from my point of view, for the animals were frightened
simply because I was a human being. However, they left hesitatingly and fittingly within the
structure of the work. The third movement was a return to the theme of the first, but with all

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those profound, so-well-known alterations of world feeling associated by German tradition

with the A-B-A. (Cage, 2009: 276)
When Gould created his radio documentary on solitude (Gould 2003), he was regarded as one of
the world’s great pianists, but one who had stopped giving any public concerts in favour of the
(relative) solitude and greater perfectibility of the recording studio. This concert silence was in
its own way as eloquent – and as frustrating – as that of Cage’s 4’33”, and it is no surprise that
his instrument was the bourgeois piano.

Conclusion

We have moved into an age where children and adults alike are in need of ‘training’ for solitude,
apps to create artificial silences and therapeutic interventions for the lonely. And yet the ancient
accounts of exile, the Romantic accounts of solitude in nature and the post-Romantic accounts of
alienation and of lonely sexuality all still speak to us. Research with children and adults, using
literary, visual and musical descriptions of solitude, brings out some themes that stretch across
the centuries (Stern, 2014). The tension between solitude and sociability, and the wish to create a
oneness that is both individual and universal, these are still experienced. And they are understood
especially through artistic depictions of aloneness. The exile of refugees in ancient writings is
complemented by new forms of aloneness, artistically engaged with now as much for therapeutic
as political purposes.
Today, the art of solitude can be seen as a romantic gesture, or as a commentary on sanity.
Yayoi Kusama paints what she describes as asylum art,15 living as she does, mostly, in a hospital
for those who have mental health concerns. She puts on exhibitions with titles such as Creation
Is a Solitary Pursuit, Love Is What Brings You Closer to Art.16 Children’s books continue to
speak directly to children about their joys and fears in solitude. Sendak’s Where the Wild Things
Are (Sendak, 1963) and McKee’s Not Now, Bernard (McKee, 1980) both describe the anger of
enforced solitude or ‘exile’, even if exile is only to the child’s bedroom, or the back garden of
the house. Berry has a close-to-Romantic view of solitude among The Peace of Wild Things in
his poetry (Berry, 2018). Music has become even more privatized, with headphones replacing
the ‘loud’ playing of (electronically reproduced) performances, making ‘silent discos’ possible –
where the participants may be listening to quite different music while dancing in a single room.
Yet solitude has a renewed power as creative (Jones, 2019) and therapeutic (Lees, 2012), and as
dangerous (Cacioppo & Patrick, 2008). There are many more solitary arts to be experienced.

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 8

Solitude as a Spiritual Practice

Perspectives from the Chinese Tradition

Wong Ping Ho

Introduction

As commonly understood, one of the pillars of Chinese culture, Confucianism, upholds that
‘One cannot be fully human in solitude’ (Ni, 2016: 54). Popular Taiwan writer Chiang Hsun
went so far as to claim that ‘Confucian culture is most unwilling to talk about solitude’ (Chiang,
2009: 20). Chiang has certainly overstated the case, to say the least. Japanese scholar Shiba
Rokuro had surveyed how the sense of solitude has permeated a lot of Chinese literary works
since antiquity (Shiba, 2018). The solitude motif similarly features prominently in other areas
of Chinese culture. This goes beyond addressing solitude as an objective aspect of the human
condition to prescribing solitude as an essential means of personal cultivation.
How are we to make sense of this apparent contradiction inherent in a relational/interdependent
self that at the same time lays great store on solitude? Two points are worth noting. First, fulfilling
satisfactorily one’s duties entailed by one’s multiple relations requires an appropriately cultivated
self. In the words of the Confucian classic The Great Learning:
The ancients who wished to manifest their clear character to the world would first bring
order to their states. Those who wished to bring order to their states would first regulate their
families. Those who wished to regulate their families would first cultivate their personal lives.
Those who wished to cultivate their personal lives would first rectify their minds. Those who
wished to rectify their minds would first make their wills sincere. Those who wished to make
their wills sincere would first extend their knowledge. The extension of knowledge consists in
the investigation of things . . . From the Son of Heaven down to the common people, all must
regard cultivation of the personal life as the root or foundation. (Chan, 1973: 86–7)
Such self-cultivation involves solitude, at least in part. In this regard, the following statement by
the German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who wrote from the Christian tradition, might as
 Solitude as a Spiritual Practice

well also be used to capture this Confucian sentiment: ‘He [who cannot be alone] will only do
harm to himself and to the community’ (Bonhoeffer, 1954: 77).
Second, the multifarious relations that nourish the interdependent self have to be established
and developed on a spiritual level. Paradoxically, solitude enables such spiritual encounters. All
these points are elaborated herein.

Ubiquity of the Solitude Motif in Chinese Culture

The image of a solitary, contented sage already appeared in The Book of Poetry (Wang, 2008),
one of the foundational classics of the Confucian canon. We are told in one of the poems that
‘In his cabin on the hill / Lives the sage so carefree. / Alone he sleeps and sings at will, / Always
finding cause for glee’ (Wang, 2008: 99). And it is not only sages who would enjoy themselves in
solitude, but many ordinary individuals, at least those in the literati class, would savour moments
of solitude too. The term xianju, while commonly rendered as ‘dwelling at ease’ or ‘living at
leisure’ in English, is actually defined first and foremost as ‘living alone away from people’ in the
authoritative The Great Chinese Word Dictionary (The Great Chinese Word Dictionary Editorial
Board, 1993: 81). Throughout Chinese history, the theme of xianju has often appeared in Chinese
poetry. As a very rough indication, in Complete Tang Poems, the most complete collection of
Tang dynasty (608–907) poetical works, there are 127 poems or groups of poems with xianju
in the title. There are also fifty poems or groups of poems with titles containing the term youju
(living in seclusion) (Peng, 1960).1 Numerous Chinese paintings and pieces of Chinese lute
(guqin) music also bear titles containing the term xianju. Song dynasty literati-official Sima
Guang (1019–86) famously named his garden ‘Garden of Solitary Pleasure’ (Stepanova, 2007).
In the case of Chinese landscape paintings, the norm is to display ‘a love of wild solitudes, of
plunging streams and soaring peaks, with perhaps a few contemplative figures enjoying the wide
prospect from their secluded pavilions or mountain retreats’ (Binyon, 1946: 13). Song dynasty
painter Han Zhuo advised that ‘Whenever painting figures, one should not use coarse, vulgar types,
but value those that are pure and elegant and in lonely retirement’ (Bush & Shih, 2012: 155). In
1104, Emperor Huizong established an imperial painting academy. During examinations, students
were required to create a painting that captured visually the spirit of a given poetic couplet. Topics
included such verse lines as ‘No passenger crosses the river in wilderness. / A lonely skiff all day
cross-wise’; ‘The disordered mountains hide an ancient temple’ (Ebrey, 2016: 36) and ‘In the sixth
month, I walk with pigweed staff along the stone path, / Where the noontime shade is thick, I listen
to the gurgling waters’ (Egan, 2016: 290), all of which exude a sense of solitude.
In a volume of paintings entitled ‘Entertainments of Emperor Yongzheng’, Qing emperor
Yongzheng (1678–1735) is portrayed as engaged in various leisure activities (Wu, 1995). It is
interesting to note that in all paintings the emperor appears alone. A possible reason for this may
be that it would have been improper to put other people in the same painting with the emperor
because the emperor was unequalled. In actual fact, ‘Gu [the solitary one] was a personal
pronoun that the emperor alone used to refer to himself’ (Furth, 2002: 28; square brackets added).
However, it is also not uncommon that similar paintings depicting members of the literati class
would also show the individuals alone by themselves. In fact a majority of the leisure activities
shown in ‘Entertainments of Emperor Yongzheng’ are those that would typically be engaged in
alone, such as playing the Chinese lute and meditating. It is unclear whether such solitary leisure

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activities were actually what the emperor would regularly enjoy, but the fact that they were shown
in this painting collection at least shows where the emperor’s aspirations lay.
Emperor Yongzheng’s son, Emperor Qianlong (1711–99), worked together with an expert
painter to create a painting of himself in a scholar’s costume, sitting alone in a hut with volumes of
books by his side, semi-hidden in a snowy landscape. This is typical of many Chinese paintings,
evocative of the same sentiments of solitude. In fact the part contributed by Emperor Qianlong in
this painting was the snowy landscape, which he copied from an earlier painting by an accomplished
painter (Wu, 1995). Another painting shows Emperor Qianlong on an outdoor excursion, this time
accompanied by an attendant. The emperor composed and inscribed a poem on the painting, the
concluding section of which reads: ‘A waterfall cascades by my side. / Tame deer beneath cliffs
seem to understand my words. / But instead of living like a hermit in deep woods, / I must ensure
peace, remember the hardship of my forbears [sic.] and plan eternity for the kingdom’ (Wu, 1995:
38). The emperor lamented the impossibility for him to enjoy a hermitic existence. Whether or not
this pronouncement reflected his genuine desire, it tells us that a hermitic form of life was at least
not looked down upon by society, not to say occasional bouts of solitude.
Many poems describe their authors sitting or standing alone by themselves. A famous example
of the former is the poem Sitting Alone in Face of Peak Jingting by the great Tang dynasty poet
Li Bai (701–62): ‘All birds have flown away, so high; / A lonely cloud drifts on, so free. / We are
not tired, the Peak and I, / Nor I of him, nor he of me’ (Li, 2007: 176). Among poems written
by Ming dynasty literati-official He Jingming (1483–1521), both the titles Sitting Alone and
Standing Alone can be found. Bryant (2008) noted that Sitting Alone as a title was not uncommon
among the works of He Jingming’s contemporaries, ‘many of whom used it for meditative poems’
(p. 228).
While the mood of the aforementioned poem by Li Bai about the experience of sitting alone
is one of serenity, at other times individuals are in different moods sitting or standing alone. In
fact quite often when poets described themselves standing alone by themselves, they might be in
a melancholic mood, as is the case in this poem entitled Sentiments on New Year’s Eve in the Year
Kuei-ssu, by Qing dynasty scholar Huang Jingren (1749–83):
Laughter pours from a thousand homes, as the water clock drips and drips –
One learns griefs and anxieties in secret, from matters beyond oneself.
Silent and alone, I stand on the market bridge unknown to anyone;
A single star bright as the moon, I watch for a long, long time. (Liu & Lo, 1975: 492)
The melancholy was not due to the author’s state of loneliness per se, but to the reason behind
that loneliness: the awareness of inadequacies in the world that the crowd around him failed to
appreciate, and his refusal to join the crowd by snuffing out that awareness. This reminds one of
the following remark by Confucius:
Worthy people go into reclusion because the age itself is disordered; those next in worth
withdraw because their state is disordered; next still are those who withdraw because of a
discourteous expression on their ruler’s face; and finally there are those who will withdraw at
a single discourteous word. (Confucius, 2003: 169)
This remark, to Hung (2018), implies that when the world ‘is full of mediocracy, vulgarity, and
corruption . . ., the noblest people live like secluded hermits – nearly a Daoist life’ (p. 20).

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Hung further quoted A. Charles Muller to reinforce this point about the agreement between
the Confucian and Daoist perspectives with regard to the need to keep aloof from a corrupt
world: ‘Normally Confucianism is understood as a tradition where one must remain engaged in
society. However, in this case, Confucius’ attitude is reminiscent of that of Zhuangzi, who always
recommend [sic] that intelligent people not accept the norms of a decadent world and retire in
solitude instead’ (p. 39). Han dynasty scholar Liu An (179–122 BC) stated clearly in Abstract
of the Zhuangzi that ‘The gentlemen of rivers and seas, the men of mountains and valleys, they
slight the myriad petty things of the world and move in solitude’ (cited in Kirkova, 2016: 221).
However, in some sense, this refusal to yield to and join the decadent world does not necessarily
mean the rejection of the world. Quite the contrary, as Catholic priest Thomas Merton argued:
Withdrawal from other men can be a special form of love for them. It should never be a rejection
of man or of his society. But it may well be a quiet and humble refusal to accept the myths and
fictions with which social life cannot help but be full – especially today. To despair of the illusions
and façades which man builds around himself is certainly not to despair of man. On the contrary, it
may be a sign of love and of hope. For when we love someone, we refuse to tolerate what destroys
and maims his personality . . . [The solitaries’] contribution is a mute witness, a secret and even
invisible expression of love which takes the form of their own option for solitude in preference to
the acceptance of social fictions. (Merton, 1985: 192–3)
It might be countered that those who followed the full-fledged Daoist form of life by becoming
recluses and living alone in the wilderness (Vervoorn, 1990) were undeniably rejecting society.
However, as the traditional Chinese saying goes: ‘The small hermit lives on a mountain. The great
hermit lives in a town’ (Porter, 1993: 220). Even Zhuangzi’s notion of du (solitude) as a way of life
has been interpreted by some commentators to entail a critical reflection on one’s social roles, rather
than necessarily a rejection of them (Wang, 2016). Such an interpretation would move the Confucian
and Daoist perspectives even closer. First, it shows that Zhuangzi does not deny the necessity of social
roles, which is in line with the Confucian position on the indispensability of community. Second,
critical reflection on one’s social roles certainly requires also self-reflection, which echoes the
Confucian insistence on the need for constant self-examination. Furth’s (2002) astute observation that
‘Du [solitude] as explicated in our classical aphorisms points toward introspection as essential to self-
cultivation, whether for health or sagehood’ (p. 28) certainly applies equally well both to Daoism and
Confucianism. Confucius’s disciple Zeng Shen declared that every day he examined himself on three
counts: ‘in my dealings with others, have I in any way failed to be dutiful? In my interactions with
friends and associates, have I in any way failed to be trustworthy? Finally, have I in any way failed to
repeatedly put into practice what I teach?’ (Confucius, 2003: 2). Confucius himself said, ‘If you can
look inside yourself and find no faults, what cause is there for anxiety or fear?’ (Confucius, 2003:
126). Such self-examination is all the more important when one is alone by oneself, as highlighted by
the Confucian idea of ‘vigilance in solitude’ (shendu2).

Vigilance in Solitude

It was pointed out earlier that the image of the solitary sage can be found in the foundational
Confucian classic The Book of Poetry. The theme of vigilance in solitude similarly appears
in another poem in this classic, the title of which was rendered as Dignity by the translator:
‘When in your room you stay alone, / You should be honest to the bone. / Don’t say that here

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you stay alone, / And that nothing will be known. / Where and when the Spirit goes, / No one on
earth ever knows; / That’s why our veneration grows’ (Wang, 2008: 601). Another foundational
Confucian classic, The Book of Rites, records a number of descriptions Confucius gave when
asked about the proper conduct of the scholar, one of which is: ‘The scholar . . . may be living
unnoticed, but does not give way to licentiousness’ (Legge, 1885: 406). The Chinese term
rendered as ‘living unnoticed’ in the quote is youju, which literally means living in solitude or
seclusion.
Although the teaching of vigilance in solitude features most prominently in Confucianism, the
idea can be found in other schools of thought too. For example, in Wenzi, a work attributed to a
disciple of Laozi, we find the statement that
What grieves ideal people3 is not what is just being done, but what comes from within, for they
observe what it will lead to. Sages are not ashamed of appearances, ideal people are careful
even when alone. (Cleary, 1991: 30–1)
Yan Ying, a politician who was a near contemporary of Confucius and whose position is considered
to be neither specifically Confucian nor Daoist, said, ‘I have heard it said that a gentleman can
stay alone without being frightened by his own shadow and can sleep alone without being afraid
of his own spirit’ (Milburn, 2016: 406).
The importance attached to vigilance in solitude is apparent in many ways. It was
common for literati studios, halls and buildings to be named Vigilance in Solitude (see,
e.g. Du, 2012; Wu, 2013). Emperor Kangxi, father of Emperor Yongzheng whom we came
across earlier on, drew the attention of members of the royal family to the emphasis put by
the Confucian classics The Great Learning and The Doctrine of the Mean on vigilance in
solitude as of primary significance for those aspiring to become a worthy person, and offered
his own elaboration on what it actually entails in practice (Kangxi, n.d.). When Qing dynasty
literati-official Zeng Guofan (1811–72) took the civil service examination, he was required
to compose an essay with the prescribed title ‘On the Gentleman’s Vigilance in Solitude’
(Ma, 2002). All these references to ‘the gentleman’s vigilance in solitude’ do not mean
that ladies were forgotten either. Empress Renxiaowen (1361–1407) of the Ming dynasty
wrote Teachings for the Inner Court, which was originally intended for the edification of
imperial women but was subsequently popularized among the ordinary populace as a result
of several emperors’ decrees, and included as one of Four Books for Women (named after the
Four Books of the Confucian canon). The empress cautioned that ‘even as small as a single
thought, or when one is alone, one must be prudent. If someone says, “Nobody sees it.” Can
one hide it from Heaven? If someone says, “Nobody knows.” Is one not deceiving one’s own
conscience?’ (Pang-White, 2018: 158).
At one level, the significance of vigilance in solitude is not difficult to grasp. As The Great
Learning observes, ‘When the inferior man [xiaoren] is alone and leisurely [xianju], there is
no limit to which he does not go in his evil deeds’; in contrast, ‘the superior man [junzi] will
always be watchful over himself when he is alone [shendu]’ (Chan, 1973: 89; square brackets
added). Ming dynasty scholar Wang Xiang (c. sixteenth to seventeenth centuries) explained that
‘a gentleman, who remains prudent when alone, acts with a heart of prudence and watchfulness
even in places where nobody sees or hears. Being so strict with watchfulness and self-alertness,
consequently he has few faults’ (Pang-White, 2018: 160). However, it is not just an issue of

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checking and refraining from improper thoughts that might lead to evil deeds but, much more
profoundly, also a matter of achieving one’s spiritual well-being, as hinted by the following
extract from The Doctrine of the Mean:
The Book of Odes4 says, ‘Although the fish dive and lie at the bottom, it is still quite clearly
seen.’ Therefore the superior man examines his own heart and sees that there is nothing wrong
there, and that he is not dissatisfied with himself. The superior man is unequaled in the fact
that he [is cautious] in those things which people do not see. The Book of Odes says, ‘Though
the ceiling looks down upon you, be free from shame even in the recesses of your own house.’
(Chan, 1973: 113; square brackets in the original)
Vigilance in solitude helps one to be free of shame and dissatisfaction with oneself. Mencius
held that the noble person (junzi) has three delights, one of which occurs when ‘he can look up
and not be abashed before Heaven, look down and not to be ashamed before others’5 (Bloom,
2009: 148). Although not everyone might agree that freedom from shame and dissatisfaction
with oneself necessarily entails spiritual well-being, the two are not unrelated. Furthermore, there
may be much more that is involved and at stake spiritually in vigilance in solitude than abstaining
from improper behaviour and achieving freedom from shame and dissatisfaction with oneself.
In response to a friend’s remark that ‘“the meaning of joy not being interrupted” . . . refers to
the sage, to his being “perfectly and continually sincere”’, Ming dynasty Neo-Confucian Wang
Yangming (1472–1529) maintained that
The only effort required is to learn constantly, and the essential of learning constantly is
to watch over ourselves when we are alone, and this vigilance in solitude is precisely the
extension of liang-chih [man’s inborn capacity for knowing and doing the good, that which,
when developed to the utmost, unites him with heaven and earth and all things], while liang-
chih is nothing other than joy-in-itself. (Wang, 1972: 90; description in square brackets taken
from p. xii)
Elsewhere Wang Yangming advised his disciples that ‘The important point is to achieve the state
of equilibrium and harmony, and achieving equilibrium and harmony depends primarily on being
watchful over oneself when alone’ (Wang, 1963: 34). Kumazawa Banzan (1619–91), a Japanese
Neo-Confucian influenced by Wang Yangming, pointed out the crucial difference between the
superficial and profound approaches to vigilance in solitude: ‘When you interpret “caution in
solitude” [literally] as being cautious over solitude, you have the detriment that even leisure is
like being in the presence of others, wearing a hakama and sitting in order of seniority. When you
interpret it as knowledge in solitude, there is no detriment’ (cited in Bowring, 2017: 86; square
brackets in the original). It is clear that while the former is spiritually unwholesome, the latter
contributes to spiritual flourishing, but the distinction between the former and the latter is subtle
indeed. It hinges on whether one engages in the practice of vigilance in solitude in the spirit of
sincerity or not.
Vigilance in solitude was also discussed and practised by Korean Confucians, one of which
was Yi Gan (李柬; 1677–1727). For Yi Gan, the ideal spiritual state, achieved by sages, is for
the transcendent i (principle, pattern or coherence) to be fully manifested in an individual’s gi
(mind-heart).6 Self-cultivation consists in striving towards the identity between i and gi so that gi
no longer deviates from i. ‘Accordingly,’ Yi Gan wrote:

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one should be cautious and restrain oneself when one is alone. By this way of restricting
oneself, one should make oneself sincere. One should abide by this way/rule so that one cannot
neglect this practice at any moment and can always keep the practice. This is the very need
for practical concern and effort toward the level that i and gi come to have the same substance
and that the mind-heart and the nature are identical to each other. (cited in Choi, 2019: 246)

Note the advice that ‘one should make oneself sincere’. In this regard, it is interesting that some
researchers translated the Korean term for vigilance in solitude, 신독 sindok (愼獨), simply
as ‘sincerity’ (see, for example, Shin, 2013: 96). And herein lies a paradox. Is sincerity the
prerequisite for vigilance in solitude or its ultimate goal? It seems it is both. The paradox can
only be resolved in actual meditative practice.
In the words of Keenan (2011), Wang Yangming understood vigilance in solitude ‘as a way to
experience the essence of mind’ (p. 104). Put in more concrete terms, the practice of vigilance
in solitude is ‘an honest monitoring of one’s own unique development as one’s humaneness is
recovered from within’ (p. 44). This is similar to Tu’s (1989) formulation that vigilance in solitude
involves a person’s ‘conscious attempt to look and listen for subtle manifestations of his inner self
so that he can fully actualize the human way inherent in his nature’ (p. 25). This is, in essence,
a meditative practice. This approach to vigilance in solitude was further developed and refined
by Ming dynasty scholar-official Liu Zongzhou (1578–1645), whose influence was extended to
Japan, with many Japanese followers in the second half of the Edo period (Steben, 2012). Liu
Zongzhou elevated the status of vigilance in solitude ‘as the core concept of Confucian practice,
and understood it as a kind of meditative state of deep stillness, silence and tranquillity, which
when experienced regularly will give one a great sense of inner calmness and rootedness in the
midst of one’s daily work and social interactions’ (Steben, 2012: 51).
This approach to vigilance in solitude as a meditative practice by no means replaced vigilance in
solitude as self-monitoring for unwholesome thoughts and actions. The two are certainly not mutually
exclusive. Whether or not one is engaged in meditative practice, it would be good to have means
available that facilitate self-monitoring for the sake of moral and spiritual development. In fact, at
the same time as vigilance in solitude as a meditative practice was elucidated and popularized during
the Ming dynasty, the practices of keeping ‘ledgers of merit and demerit’ (gongguo ge) and moral
diaries for self-cultivation also became widespread (Wang, 1998). People filling in ledgers of merit
and demerit would take stock of their actions during the day, assign point values for good and bad
deeds, and add up the total score to reflect their moral status, aiming at some sort of moral cleansing
(Rahav, 2015).7 Others kept a daily diary of their thoughts and interactions along similar lines, but
without the numerical assignments and calculations. This Neo-Confucian practice of keeping moral
diaries also spread to Japan. Japanese Confucian Kaibara Ekken (1630–1714) described his practice
in the following terms: ‘At night we reflect on our mistakes during the day, and if there are no failings
we can sleep peacefully. If there are failings we should be repentant and ashamed and take this as the
lesson for the following day’ (cited in Keenan, 2011: xxiii).
Sometimes this kind of diary writing risked degenerating into ‘a form of puritanical moral
discipline in daily life’ (Yang, 2016: 6), or, in Dryburgh’s (2013) words, ‘embodied regulation’ (p.
112). Note the severe terms in which Qing scholar-official Zeng Guofan (1811–72) instructed his
son on how to keep the diary: ‘You must write it in the formal script. You should include all the
sins you have committed during the day, that is to say sins of the body, the mind, and the tongue.

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You should continue to write it all your life without any gaps’ (cited in Harrison, 2005: 11). This
reminds us of Kumazawa Banzan’s distinction made earlier between the negative ‘being cautious
over solitude’ and the positive ‘knowledge in solitude’. To contribute to spiritual development,
moral diaries need to be written in the spirit of vigilance of solitude ‘as a way to experience the
essence of mind’, as taught by Wang Yangming.
By the time of the Qing dynasty, it had become customary for some diary writers ‘to meet
regularly in small coteries of around three or four friends to maintain their self-cultivation
by exchanging their private diaries. Once exchanged, the close friends would make marginal
comments about the decisions, worries, or temptations noted in another friend’s diary’ (Keenan,
2011: xxiii). This practice of writing moral diaries and sharing them among friends for mutual
edification continued into the twentieth century (Rahav, 2015). Keenan (2011) pointed out that
‘This form of self-cultivation involved both solitary contemplation and respectful interaction’ (p.
xxiii), as befits the communal orientation of Confucianism.

Community in Solitude

As pointed out right at the beginning of this chapter, the emphasis of Confucianism is generally
considered to lie on the interpersonal dimension. What Qing dynasty scholar Ruan Yuan (1764–
1849) pronounced is representative:
In all cases, jen8 仁 must first be exhibited in personal actions before it can be observed. In
addition there must be two people involved before jen can be seen. If a person shuts his door
and lives peacefully alone, closes his eyes and sits still with a peaceful attitude, although his
mind contains virtue and principles, in the end this cannot be counted for what the sagely gate
called jen. (cited in Elman, 1985: 178)
However, this is only one side of the coin. As mentioned earlier, even Confucius noted with approval
that ‘Worthy people go into reclusion because the age itself is disordered’ (Confucius, 2003: 169),
and this does not mean that such worthy people do not have the well-being of humankind in mind
when they go into reclusion. On the contrary, humankind’s well-being may be the thing that is first
and foremost on their mind; reclusion can be a special form of love for humankind, to rephrase
Merton. More importantly, as Steben (2012) reminded us of the other side of the coin:
The Confucian path may not be based on a philosophy of individualism, but certainly running
through the tradition there is a recognition of a dimension of the human self or human
subjectivity that is in a real sense above all of the relationships in which a person’s life is
involved, as important as those relationships are. (p. 50)
This transcendent dimension was already apparent in our references earlier to li (principle), and
to Wang Yangming’s understanding of vigilance in solitude ‘as a way to experience the essence
of mind’ (Keenan, 2011: 104). According to a popular formulation of spirituality, it is important
for one to be connected to oneself, to others, to the environment and to the transcendent (Hay &
Nye, 2006; Fisher & Wong, 2013; Ng, 2008). The traditional Chinese in fact quite often withdrew
from social connections precisely in order to enable engagement in other forms of connections
for the sake of self-cultivation. From this perspective, the practice of vigilance in solitude enabled
individuals to achieve connection with their own selves and to the transcendent within their
own selves, at the expense of temporary disconnection from other individuals. In other cases,

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severance of human connection enabled (or was at least compensated for by) alternative forms
of valuable connection.
Take the example of some Religious Daoists who broke bonds with the human society. Lind
(2015) pointed out that, even in such an arguably extreme case, ‘If the adept leaves the society
to devote him- or herself to the practices in solitude, it doesn’t mean that the social relations and
ethics cease to have an impact on the body, but rather that he or she attempts to control and direct
these factors to transform the body’ (p. 12). The adepts’ practices actually served to help them
construct (real or imagined) relations with the spirit world.
One particularly salient kind of connection that the traditional Chinese were eager to establish
while alone was that with the ancients. The following lines from two different poems of Chao I (1727–
1814), a Qing dynasty scholar, are representative of many similar literary expressions from the literati:
‘Closing my door I refuse people for a time; / Day after day I struggle with the ancients’; ‘In my
solitude I suffer lack of friendship; / I can get close only to the Ancients’ (Priest, 1982: 233). The first
poem was about solitude actively sought out by the writer for the sake of encounters with the ancients,
whereas the second was about solitude passively endured but which was ameliorated by the company
of the ancients. One more example may suffice for the present purposes. The following poem, entitled
Reading on a Cold Night, is by Qing dynasty scholar Zheng Zhen (1806–64):

After my lamp begins to dim, I press sleeves together, chanting, / Then open my door for my
meeting with the rising moon. / I sigh that everyone abandons a poor man like me, / But luckily, the
ancients still recognize my face!

The translator commented that ‘in spite of his loneliness, he feels a real fellowship with all the great
authors of the past’. (Schmidt, 2013: 457)
Such sentiments and experiences are not restricted to the pre-modern Chinese either. Twentieth-
century scholar and author Shen Congwen (1902–88) passed his long and lonely nights away
from home reading Sima Qian’s Historical Records. He wrote to his wife about the inspiring
experience he had undergone:

what a few solitary individuals had preserved in words became the only vehicles to link past
and present and to connect self and other. They make historical continuity possible, so that
feelings constrained by a specific time and space could still be re-enlivened, as though face-
to-face, after a thousand years and a hundred changes. (cited in Li, 2015: 614; italics added)

The translator was impressed enough to remark upon the ‘power of literature . . . to bridge self
and other across time and space . . . [and] convey the vitality of their author and subject over to
their readers, however belatedly’, and upon Shen Congwen’s ‘deep resonance of Sima Qian’s
person, his life and his feelings’ (Li, 2015: 614).
It is possible that such frequent expressions of meetings with the ancients are mere rhetoric with
no actual substance, but as Wong (2019) tried to establish, numerous Chinese spiritual practices
serve as conduits for communion with the ancients, effecting a kind of transtemporal spiritual
encounter. Perhaps such literary expressions both arise from and reinforce a particular cultural
perceptivity in the Chinese psyche, which allows them to grasp the personalities responsible
for the creation of particular literary and other cultural works, in such a way that they sense the
intimate presence of these personalities.

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Solitude in Nature and Art

There are frequent encounters with nature in solitude too. Zheng Zhen’s aforementioned poem
refers to his ‘meeting with the rising moon’. Earlier on we mentioned Li Bai’s poem Sitting Alone
in Face of Peak Jingting, which describes Li and the Peak in terms that befit intimate friends: ‘We
are not tired, the Peak and I, / Nor I of him, nor he of me’ (Li, 2007: 176). In order to spend time
with nature in private, ‘Confucian officials’ leisure time included moments of solitude such as trips
to places with beautiful scenery, monasteries, and mountains and rest in the garden’ (Stepanova,
2007: 76). He Jingming, whom we met earlier on in this chapter, wrote a poem entitled Befriending
Bamboo, telling us that ‘I bought a garden and planted only bamboo, / Taking bamboo for my
companion there . . . / I lodge in deep retirement and ponder for myself. / Whence does it come, this
burst of joy in solitude?’ (Bryant, 2008: 23). In his essay On One’s Place of Dwelling, Ming dynasty
scholar Chen Jiru (1558–1639) also mentioned bamboos in the design of the garden, prescribing
that ‘At the end of the bamboos there is a house and the house must be secluded’ (Minford, 1998:
259). Tong Jun (1900–83), eminent scholar of history of Chinese architecture, explicated on the
nature of the Chinese garden as a venue for solitude:

The Chinese garden is not built as a playground for a multitude of people. Problems of
circulation, which in Western gardens are admirably solved by axes and cross-roads, are
no problems when men wander in the garden, and not walk through it. The long corridors,
narrow doorways and curved paths in a Chinese garden are not meant for a crowd. The stairs,
bridges and rockery are never designed to please children. It is not a place for recreation. It is
essentially for contemplation and solitude. (Tung, 1936: 222)

Stepanova (2007) echoed this with the observation that ‘A garden was an area of virtual solitude,
an escape to the world of nature inside the city walls and creation of boundless journeys on a
small piece of ground’ (p. 76).
Nature can be enjoyed even vicariously in the literati studio or the chamber through artistic
means such as paintings and poetry. In the tradition of ‘incumbent travel’ (woyou), a term coined
by famous painter Zong Bing (375–443), people are said to wander in nature spiritually through
viewing landscape paintings lying in bed. According to official history, towards the end of his
life, Zong Bing ‘painted landscapes to be viewed in his room as a substitute for roaming in natural
scenery’ (Bush & Shih, 2012: 337), declaring that ‘Now I can purify my heart by contemplating
the Dao, and do my roaming from my bed’ (cited in Wang, 2014: 3). Zong Bing is most famous
for the essay Introduction to Painting Landscape, which describes the spiritual elevation he
experienced by viewing landscape paintings in solitude as follows:

Thus, I live at leisure, regulating my vital breath, brandishing the wine-cup and sounding the
lute. Unrolling paintings in solitude, I sit pondering the ends of the earth. Without resisting
the multitude of natural promptings, alone I respond to uninhabited wildernesses where
grottoed peaks tower on high and cloudy forests mass in depth. The sages and virtuous men
who have shone forth throughout the ages had a myriad charms [of nature] fused into their
spirits and thoughts. What then should I do? I rejoice in my spirit, and that is all. What could
be placed above that which rejoices the spirit? (Bush & Shih, 2012: 38; square brackets in
the original)

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As indicated in the aforementioned quote, the painter of good landscape paintings that can induce
such spiritual elevation in the viewer must have first internalized the landscape and its spirit, or
should we say, imbued him- or herself with the landscape’s spirit. Furthermore, they harboured
lofty sentiments that they expressed through their paintings. For example, Ming dynasty literati-
official Wen Zhengming (1470–1559) explained his motivation for painting wintry landscapes in
an inscription he wrote on one of the paintings: ‘The lofty scholars and recluses of the past . . .
often did snow scenes; they chose to make use of that subject in order to embody their feelings of
noble loneliness, of freedom from vulgarity’ (cited in Cahill, 1978: 239; omission in the original).
Contemporary Chinese philosopher Li Zehou captured the spiritual significance of landscape
paintings for the Chinese populace with the assertion that ‘Chinese landscape paintings are
comparable to images of the Cross in the West’ (cited in Deng, 2018: vii). Deng (2018) provided
the following elaboration, which is worth quoting in full:
Readers who have been to China will likely have discovered that in the environment in
which Chinese people live, including their homes, offices, hotels, public spaces, and
private establishments, landscape paintings are comparable in their ubiquity to images of
the Cross in Christian cultures. Their ‘function’ is to help people move beyond the limits
of the individualistic self, including spatio-temporal limits and consequential considerations.
They return us to nature, placing us in unity with heaven and earth and realizing a type of
transcendence that liberates us from merely worldly considerations. Although most of these
paintings are chosen unreflectively as mere decorations, or chosen consciously with the aim
of appearing cultured, it is still significant that in these instances landscape paintings, rather
than other decorations, are so consistently chosen. In this we see precisely a manifestation of
the cultural-psychological formation, though as a manifestation of the collective unconscious.
Herein there is awe at the natural cosmos, which is why humans are represented as so
inconsequential in these landscape paintings. (p. ix)
Not only are these humans in the paintings inconsequential against the vastness of the landscape,
but they are alone too. Chinese poetry often depicts the same sort of scene that is portrayed in
landscape paintings, with similar intentions and effects. The vastness of the landscape is conveyed
through an image of distance. Giuffré (2018) explained that in Classical Chinese literature, this
image of distance is
generally attached to the inner and spiritual condition of the poet. The essence of the far-away
distance, both spatial and temporal, symbolises the deep moral personality and the high ideals
embodied by the sensitive character of the poet. The concept of distance leads the poet to a
transcendental realm, where the unceasing passage of time and the infinity of the cosmic
space merge together. (p. 132)
This is in line with the understanding of Qing dynasty philosopher Wang Fuzhi (1619–92) that
poetry in the Chinese tradition is ‘a method of reestablishing the unity between humans and nature
by cultivating an enlarged, open, and enlightened awareness in contrast to the small, private, and
dark egoistic modality of our heart-mind that dominates the everyday’ (Kim, 2019: 147).
As Wong (2019) pointed out, members of the traditional Chinese literati were quite often
adept at a number of artistic pursuits. In the essay Introduction to Painting Landscape quoted
earlier, Zong Bing also mentioned himself ‘sounding the lute’ in solitude. And the lute is often

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a subject of Chinese poetry and painting too. Yung (2017) observed that ‘in many ink-brush
paintings of magnificent peaks and valleys, calm rivers and creeks, dreamy clouds and jagged
pine trees, one often finds depictions of a lone person contemplating nature with a qin [Chinese
lute] at his side’ (p. 530; square brackets added), as is the case of one of the paintings in the album
‘Entertainments of Emperor Yongzheng’ (Wu, 1995). In other paintings, Chinese lute players
are depicted playing alone in their study. All this is because the Chinese lute was played for the
sake of self-cultivation leading to personal virtue and enlightenment. Therefore it was ‘primarily
played in private, directed not outwardly toward an audience but inwardly toward the player
himself’ (Yung, 2017: 531), for his own edification.
Chinese lute master and scholar Xu Shangying (1582–1662), who lived between the late Ming
and early Qing dynasties, advised in his masterpiece The State of Guqin Art of the Xi Shan School
that the Chinese lute player should seek ‘to produce music of solitude and tranquillity’ (Tien,
2015: 210). In more concrete terms,
We must do away with careless and sluggish playing . . . By doing so, the sounds produced will
then appear magnanimous and gentle. When one refuses to go after the undesirable quality of
intricate delicacy, one naturally produces sounds which are reminiscent of what’s ancient and
exquisite. When one plays with such qualities, the audience, though listening to it in the room,
would feel as if they were walking in a deep mountain or valley, surrounded by aged trees,
cold springs and the sounds of breeze, in complete solitude from the hustle and bustle of the
world. (Tien, 2015: 276)
As the Chinese lute was often played in the absence of any audience, it would perhaps have been
more accurate to revise the above slightly and say that ‘When one plays with such qualities,
one would feel as if one were walking in a deep mountain or valley, surrounded by aged trees,
cold springs and the sounds of breeze, in complete solitude from the hustle and bustle of the
world.’ It is clear that both Chinese lute playing and Chinese landscape painting, and a lot of
Chinese poetry too, would ideally be practised in solitude, with the similar aim to induce in the
practitioner and the audience/viewer/reader a wholesome sense of spiritual solitude.

Conclusion

All the points made in the discussions earlier about solitude as a spiritual practice are in a sense
already covered by the instructive connotations of the terms xianju (implying a close association
of solitude with leisure, and hence with the renouncement of worldly concerns, at least for the
time being), and shendu (implying a close association between solitude and mindfulness of one’s
inner self). The task of the chapter has simply been to provide a bit of elaboration, mostly by way
of historical examples.
In conclusion, while it is certainly true that ‘One cannot be fully human in solitude’ (Ni, 2016:
54), it is no less true that, in the theory and practice of Confucianism (no doubt long seasoned
with elements of Daoism and Buddhism), one cannot be fully human without solitude. This can
perhaps be best symbolized graphically by the taiji circle, with each of its two halves representing
community and solitude, respectively.

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Solitude and Religion

The Spaces Between

Gillian Simpson

Introduction

Solitude, as Nouwen (1981: 16) claims, ‘is the furnace of transformation. Without solitude we
remain victims of our society and continue to be entangled in the illusions of the false self.’
In religious practice solitude is often linked with personal encounter with the ‘divine’; it
requires physical or psychological distance from other people. Unsought solitude can have a
serious damaging effect, though for some, solitude is both pursued and necessary for spiritual
health. Koch (1994: 15) defines the condition of solitude as a spectrum of mental and physical
disengagement:
an experiential world in which other people are absent: that is enough for solitude, that is
constant through all solitudes. Other people may be present, provided that our minds are
disengaged from them; and the full range of disengaged activities, from reflective withdrawal
to complete immersion in the tumbling rush of sensations, find their places along the spectrum
of solitudes.
Solitude requires some degree of isolation to disengage from surrounding distractions, but it
does not necessarily mean physical separation; distance can be ‘sometimes measured in inches’
(Barbour, 2004: 2). Solitude is, therefore, in part a subjective state; sitting a metre away from
another person in a synagogue, mosque or church may be enough for psychological solitude;
alternatively, physical isolation may leave our minds unable to escape from the dominating
presence of others.
Spirituality is often synonymous with solitude. While it eludes a concrete definition, the concept
of spirituality first appears in St Paul’s letters in the New Testament to describe a specifically
Christian attitude to life, as opposed to a division between the spiritual and physical realms. The
separation between the intellect and non-rational nature came about as a result of Scholasticism
 Solitude and Religion

in the twelfth century, but the term had largely disappeared by the 1600s, re-emerging in the
twentieth century as a replacement term for mystical theology (Sheldrake, 2010: 6). Spiritual
encounter can be found in the spaces between doctrine and dogma, rituals and symbols, and while
it cannot be divested completely of everyday activities it is, as Sheldrake (2010: 9) observes,
generally accepted today that ‘the human spirit is most truly itself and most effectively enhanced
when in special locations such as church and monastery, or in the protected privacy of “home” or
in an interiorized self – the soul, the heart or the mind’.
Rowan Williams (1979: 2), however, seeks to break down the perceived elitism of spirituality,
further democratizing it by affording it a space at the centre of the public arena. As he proposes,
it is ‘far more than a science of interpreting exceptional private experiences; it must now touch
every area of human experience, the public and the social, the painful, negative, even pathological
byways of the mind, the moral and relational world’.
For many, spirituality comes in the form of engagement with community, personal relationships,
the dogma and ritual of religious belief and practice, the search for self-fulfilment, all of which
offer a sense of connection to the divine. In the West particularly, spirituality is associated with
‘personal, experiential aspects of religion in contrast with an organized community’s doctrines,
institutions and rituals’ (Barbour, 2014: 557), though spaces within doctrine and rituals allow
for private engagement. The central prayer in Jewish liturgy the Amidah, for example, recited
privately and inaudibly, reflects the personal prayer of the ancient Temple and the mixed language
of exile, and creates opportunities to discover a greater depth of personal holiness (Bloom, n.d.).
It is a moment of transition, from the collective to the personal, a step that Weil (1942: 78)
recognizes must take place before moving to a deeper form of understanding that reflects the
sacredness of human beings. Personal and community relationships can be profoundly spiritual
events, but for some relational spirituality is held in tension. Barbour (2004: 5) explains this as
requiring a solitude which enables ‘contact with what lies beyond social routines and conventions,
beyond the repetitiveness and superficiality that often characterize interactions among people’
allowing ‘focus on certain experiences and dimensions of reality with fuller attention’. Solitude
in the form of physical isolation leads to what Weil (1942: 76–8) describes as ‘impersonality’,
that which is sacred in the human by stripping away personality, and it can only be reached in
mental and physical aloneness.
For Barbour (2014: 570) individual solitude affords opportunities for people to develop a
connection to ‘the fundamental sources of meaning and value in their lives’. It can, for some be
a complete aloneness, ‘a necessary condition of meditative awareness or full concentration on
something beyond the self that connects them with the world and often with what they believe to be
sacred, divine, holy, or most valuable’ (Barbour, 2014: 570). But for many it is the type of solitude
commonly found in religious communities, the ordinary spaces-between found in everyday
communal living. Cohen (2017: 155–6) differentiates between these two different approaches to
solitude which he refers to as ‘ordinary’ and ‘deep’ solitude. This will be further explained later,
but whatever form it takes solitude helps orientate the individual towards discovering new ways
of connecting the divine to the mundane. Withdrawal into solitude almost invariably leads to a
new consciousness which is profoundly socially oriented. It is from these ‘spaces-between’ that
new insights arise, and while for Barbour (2004: 6) it stands in ‘a liminal (marginal or boundary)
position in relation to social institutions’ solitude serves as the touchstone for rebirth, not just of
the individual but the community as well.

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The Historical Context of Solitude in Judaism and Christianity

While it is a prerequisite for religious founders and seminal thinkers, solitude is often regarded
with unease in organized religious communities which have throughout history sought to control
and regulate the lives of independent solitaries. This has resulted in tensions between ‘the solitary
visionary and the pressures for ethical and social conformity’ (Barbour, 2014: 564). Without
the voices of the solitaries, however, those individuals who strove for ‘experiences of solitude
to escape pressures, dogma, conventional ways of thinking and being, vices, and the power
of the group’ (Coplan & Bowker, 2014: 5–6), the ideals and insights that formed those very
communities would not have come about. There is a precedent in the scriptures. Solitude was a
precondition for divine revelation; the ancient prophets in the Torah and Jesus in the Gospels set
the pattern for future Jewish and Christian approaches to solitude.
Jewish and Christian approaches to solitude historically have differed, and those differences
are still evident today. The Jewish community saw itself as a society-between, a liminal group
whose purpose was to shed the light of God into the world from a position of separateness.
Personal solitude was generally considered disadvantageous, as Judaism was (and still is) defined
by its notion of Am Yisrael, peoplehood. At its core is the central biblical narrative of the exodus
from Egypt which is seen primarily as a story of liberation of a people and the ‘cornerstone of a
new social order’ constructed around collective freedom under God (Sacks, 2000: 105). Together
with the biblical premise that ‘It is not good for man to be alone’,1 the community is recognized
as the heart of the Jewish experience. Sacks (2000: 111–12) explains the centrality of nationhood
as both a past and future entity:

Individuals can be bound together as a group not just because of where they come from but
where they are going to; not just because of what happened to them but because of what they
are called on to achieve. They share ideals, a common vision. They participate in a collective
life with a distinctive set of rules, values and virtues. They are not linked by history but by
destiny . . . such a group is not a community of fate but a community of faith.

The Mishnah likewise cites the advice of Hillel, who advises Jews not to ‘separate yourself from
the community’ (Pirkei Avos 2:4). As Rabbi Gillman (2008: 5) notes, although ‘the ultimate locus
of authority for what we believe and how we practice as Jews is in ourselves, I also believe that
we can and must voluntarily surrender some of that authority, primarily to our communities, for
without community we would be totally bereft.’
Biblical narratives do, though, set a precedent for solitude for some, presenting a different
space-between apart from community. The enslaved Israelites were transformed into a free nation
through the interactions between Moses and God on Mount Sinai. Kugel (2008: 10) observes
that contact with God was desirable, though there are two conditions which characterized the
interactions: intermittence and fear. God appears unexpectedly and occasionally to the early
Jews, and it is always accompanied by a collective fear. Unlike Christianity and later Judaism,
however, ancient Israelites ‘are never . . . ‘in search of God’. On the contrary, when God does
suddenly appear, their reaction is inevitably like that of the Israelites at Mt. Sinai, who were
collectively ‘afraid and trembled and stood at a distance’ (Exod. 20.18). Instead God uses chosen
intermediaries who inhabit the space between God and the people, who have been honed and
prepared in solitude and isolation. Sacks (2005: 149) identifies two movements, or awakenings,

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in the Bible which exemplify the distinction between solitude and community in Jewish practice:
itaruta de-leylah, an awakening from above, an action initiated by God through one individual,
and itaruta de-latata, an awakening from below, in which the people set in motion the action. This
is a combined act, exemplified in the giving of the Torah at Mount Sinai (Exod. 24. 15-18), which
comprises the Jewish mission in the world. As Sacks (2005: 150) notes, ‘If an awakening from
above is God’s gesture of reaching down to humankind, an awakening from below is a human
gesture of reaching up toward heaven. When that happens, the horizons of human possibility are
enlarged.’
While peoplehood remains central to this awakening, there is an undercurrent in the mystical
tradition that acknowledges the importance of solitude and the contemplative life. In the twelfth
century Rabbi Abraham Maimonides wrote The Guide to Serving God which devotes an entire
chapter to personal retreat. He suggests that the examples seen in Torah provide an important
message for Jewish practice, a mixture of solitude and community as the way of spiritual discipline
and, while acknowledging the importance of deep solitude for personal devotion, underpins the
advantages of a mixture of social interaction and personal isolation:
Outward retreat (hisbodedus) might be total. Such as to separate from the city to isolate oneself
in deserts, mountains, or other uninhabited places. It might be partial, such as to isolate oneself
in houses. It might be frequent or occasional, for long periods, or for short periods. But it is
impossible in this world for one to retreat for an entire lifetime. (HaRamban, 2008: 495)
More recently a tradition of mystical, or ecstatic, Kabbalah, originating with R. Abulafia in the
thirteenth century and culminating in the Hasidic tradition (Idel, 1988: vii–viii), emphasized
the practice of hitbodedut (hisbodedus). In Halakhic thought solitude was seen as a religious
value that was ‘preserved as a part of sacred history: the solitude of Moses on Mount Sinai, that
of Elijah in the desert . . . became ideals that were part of the heritage of the past’ (Idel, 1988:
103); perfection could be achieved only in the company of others. The lives of early saints also,
however, who ‘travel to rocky caves and deserts, secluded from the affairs of society . . . repeating
the words of the Torah, and chanting the Psalms, which gladden the heart’ (Sha’arey Kedushah,
cit. Kaplan, 1978: 95), demonstrate a small, but significant, move for some, away from Halakhic
devotion as the path to God towards mystical union, the separation of body and soul in order to
enter into the presence of the divine (Kaplan, 1978: 88–8).
Christian and Jewish histories show a distinctly different approach to solitude. While both
acknowledge its necessity for the founding fathers, Christian approaches to solitude have
diverged from Hebraic norms rooted in Torah, adopting the type of deep solitude that comes with
the metaphysical body–mind dichotomy of Greek philosophy. This has resulted in a polarization
between states of isolation and communal participation, an either/or approach. Judaism, though,
has largely maintained its stance that personal solitude is to be avoided, grounding its philosophy
mainly in peoplehood and the ordinary solitude that comes with an emphasis on community,
while giving head-room to the mystics and saints who practice deep solitude. There has, however,
been a recent shift in emphasis with a significant move towards recognizing the value of personal
solitude in some areas of Jewish practice, with the opening up of new forms of space-between
which engage in personal approaches to spirituality.
Christian approaches, on the other hand, have centred their attitudes to solitude both in and
beyond the spiritual community. John the Baptist, who set ‘a precedent for ascetic practices and

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withdrawal from society’ (Barbour, 2014: 558), and Jesus, whose life in community was interspersed
with periods of solitude, are the archetypes for subsequent developments. Spirituality in the earliest
church was built on the premise that it was ‘expressed most strongly in the “way of life” of the
community as a whole, not least its common prayer and liturgy’ (Sheldrake, 2007: 22), reflecting
its increasing role as a public religion in the first two centuries. Early communities sought to place
koinonia (Christian fellowship) at their heart; however, there was a growing need for some to retreat
to the desert, away from the noise of the public arena to seek the true nature of the church. Williams
(2003: 23) describes the inception of the monastic movement as the early monks and nuns:

moved off into the communities of the desert because they weren’t convinced that the
church in its ‘ordinary’ manifestations showed any clarity what the church was supposed
to be about; they wanted to find out what the church really was – which is another way of
saying that they wanted to find out what humanity really was when it was in touch with God
through Jesus Christ.

He notes that the actions of these early proponents grew out of concern that the church was
‘becoming corrupt and secularized’ (2003: 23). These early pioneers sought to balance the solitary
‘search for spiritual insights’ which grew out of ‘individual character and experience’ with the
communal and institutional nature of the young Christian church (Barbour, 2014: 559). Anthony
the Great (cit. Williams, 2003: 23), perhaps the best known of the early solitaries, acknowledged
that ‘our life and death is with our neighbour’. Anthony, who spent twenty years in solitary
confinement, ‘achieved a union with God such as is granted to only a few human beings on earth’
(Görg, 2008: 26). While his approach to solitude is uncompromisingly harsh, we can see in his
actions and those of other early ascetics the seeds of the role of solitude in Christian practice.
The physical wilderness of the early Church Fathers and Mothers became the blueprint for future
patterns for communities of solitude which sought the deeper spaces between to ‘recapture the
spiritual commitment of the age of martyrs’ and reflect the wandering of the Israelites in the story
of Exodus (Barbour, 2014: 559).
The distinction between monastic and lay communities remained largely unchanged until
the eighteenth century when the Enlightenment challenged the role of solitude, valuing ‘social
exchange as the engine of cultural and mental progress’ (Vincent, 2020: 3). This allowed
‘intellectual exploration and self-discovery’ (Vincent, 2020: 19) and was mirrored in the
eighteenth-century church with the growth of the Evangelical movement and the upsurge of non-
conformist institutions which emphasized collective approaches to social welfare, education and
missionary work. By the end of the eighteenth century, however, the Enlightenment values of
reason and science over superstition and faith were being challenged as exemplified in the work
J. G. Zimmermann,2 who argued for a balance between ‘all the comforts and blessings of Society’
with ‘all the advantages of seclusion’ (Zimmermann, cit. Vincent, 2020: 2). The subsequent
changing attitudes towards solitude in the Romantic Era saw a movement towards subjectivity,
individualism, the imagination, spontaneity and acknowledgement of the transcendent as a
counter-argument to Enlightenment values. In secular society this meant a rise in the pursuit of
material gain and a relentless move towards individualism, which offered a new form of non-
Christian liminal space, while the church saw an increased interest in personal devotion and the
introduction of spiritual retreats for both clergy and laity, featuring prayer and silence (Stone,
1919: 744).

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Approaches to Solitude in Contemporary Judaism and Christianity: Finding

the Spaces Between

While, historically, Jews and Christians have had quite different approaches to solitude, recent
movements have seen a narrowing of the gap between them. Contemporary approaches display
increasing similarities, with both traditions moving towards a new space based on the active
pursuit of a deeper form of solitude in liminal spaces.
Cohen (2017: 155–6) differentiates between the two different approaches to solitude that
we have identified throughout religious history, ‘ordinary’ solitude in which ‘we circulate in
and out of solitude and sociability during the course of our schedules and routines’, and ‘deep’
solitude when ‘individuals voluntarily disengage from interpersonal activity for extended periods
of time’. Deep solitude was a prerequisite for those figures who are regarded as the agents of
a given world view, including the founding fathers who Max Weber (1991: 164) describes as
‘ideal types’ or ‘virtuosos’.3 When Moses received the initial call from God he was alone in the
wilderness, Jesus retired to the wilderness after his baptism, Muhammad was meditating alone
when he received the words of the Qu’ran and the Buddha attained enlightenment only after a life
of ascetic deprivation and meditation. But they all returned to the world with renewed vision and
understanding. Solitude was not a long-term condition but a temporary prerequisite for instigating
a change which would ultimately result in the formation and growth of a religious movement that
was to have world-transforming consequences. One of the striking features is that, although their
need for solitude is often perceived as a counter-argument to communal religious life, in fact the
opposite is true. A permanent state of solitude was, however, not regarded as desirable; indeed in
the Judeo-Christian tradition the Hebrew Bible views long-term isolation ‘with pity and horror’
(Barbour, 2014: 558). God called the Israelites to form a community of believers.
Ordinary approaches to solitude can enhance personal spiritual development through
organized disciplines – in communal worship through doctrine, ritual, prayer and music, and in
the spaces set aside for prayer and study in religious community life. Deep solitude is evident
in consciously chosen, lengthy isolation – a space occupied by, among others, the ‘religious
virtuosos’, seminal thinkers who, from within the boundaries of their own traditions, form
bridges between religious affiliations and secular life – the ‘poets’ and ‘heretics’ who occupy
the ‘spaces-between’. These ‘heretics on the edge’ (two of whom, Merton and Heschel will be
discussed later), whose influence extends far beyond the contingencies of religious affiliation,
sometimes offer creative ideas leading to a common encounter between faith traditions and open
up points of connection.
Recently there has been an increasing interest in the role of solitude in personal development.
Storr (1988: ix) acknowledges the received wisdom that ‘man is a social being who needs the
companionship and affection of other human beings from cradle to grave’ and yet he observes, ‘the
lives of creative individuals often seem to run counter to this assumption’. Based on the work of
Carl Jung, Storr notes that personal individuation centres around bringing together the conscious
and unconscious minds in order to achieve ‘the sense of peace, of reconciliation with life, of being
part of a greater whole’ (1988: 196). A parallel can be found in the accounts of religious mystics
and in the accounts of ‘men and women of genius’ (1988: 198) whose qualities are demonstrated
in the religious founding fathers. The role of solitude in the West has, in the last five decades,
been of increasing interest and significance. There has been an explosion of both religious

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and secular material on the benefits of meditation and personal enlightenment, which borrows
substantially from Eastern religious practice. Solitude is commonly synonymous with religious
life; whether that is the ordinary solitude of social and liturgical life, or deep solitude found only
in prolonged elective isolation, it remains at the core of the search for God. Approaches to solitude
today in Christian and Jewish traditions follow generally established patterns which emulate the
founding fathers and early communities, though they diverge significantly in emphasis. Attitudes
to solitude in religious practice have also changed in response to Enlightenment and Romantic
ideologies in the West. In contemporary Judaism three approaches to solitude have emerged from
both the Enlightenment and the ever-present threat of anti-Semitism.
First, while the spiritual emphasis in Judaism remained overwhelmingly focused on the
collective community and Torah study, the Romantic movement was the partial catalyst for
the emergence of Hasidic Judaism ‘a model of romantic religiosity with which to counter
assimilationist rationalism and rabbinism’ (Biale et al., 2018: 5). The challenge to the infallibility
of Torah, and the ascendency of the arts and the imagination, created possibilities for a renewed
emphasis on mysticism with the prominence of individual experiences of ecstatic encounter. Its
founder, Israel ben Eliezer, who had learned the value of solitude in early life, taught that ‘man is
in a constant, solitary encounter with his Creator’ (Dubnow, 1991: 27), emulating the Romantic
shift in emphasis from the collective to the personal. The Hasidism prioritized charismatic
spirituality redirecting mystical energies ‘from the national plane to the individual’ (Biale et al.,
2018: 5). Neo-Hasidic philosophers in the twentieth century took up this idea, emphasizing the
inner life of the individual as a vehicle of God. Buber, a neo-Hasidic Jewish philosopher, wrote
that the way of the Hasid is intended to bring about reconciliation of conflict: ‘The origin of all
conflict between me and my fellow-men is that I do not say what I mean, and that I do not do
what I say . . . we foster conflict-situations and give them power over us until they enslave us’
(1948: 22). But in order to do this ‘he must find his own self, not the trivial ego of the egotistic
individual, but the deeper self of the person living in a relationship to the world’ (1948: 22), a
process that he calls ‘straigten[ing] himself out’ (1948: 21).
This call to the deeper self is reinforced in the contemporary practice of hitbodedut,4 which is
increasing today in the Bratslav Hasidic community. There is also a new growing, cross-boundaried
movement of contemplative Judaism that is calling on both Jewish and other related contemporary
spiritual practices (silence, mindfulness, attentiveness, receptivity, contemplative prayer), all of
which require conditions of solitude. It is particularly favoured by ‘returning’5 Jews seeking a
more personal form of religiosity. There is a cultural trend towards emotional dimensions of
religious practice ‘which has characterized Hasidism from the beginning’ (Margolin, cit. Persico,
2014: 99). This quest for spiritual experience, with meditation becoming more widespread,
mirrors a trend in Western culture towards personal religiosity, seeking meaning and authority
from experience rather than the traditional Jewish emphasis on Torah (Persico, 2014: 100).
Despite the small, but growing, interest in contemplative practice among some Jews, the
Hebraic understanding is that solitude equates to loneliness and separation. Erlich (1998)
recognizes the origin of Jewish teaching in Gen. 2.18: ‘It is not good that the man should be
alone,’ a state of isolation described as b’didut, a noun created in modern Hebrew, with entirely
negative connotations. Apart from the mystical and contemplative approaches seen in resurgent
Hasidism and contemplative Judaism, for most Jews, b’didut is regarded as undesirable, Jewish
spiritual practice is communal. In early faith communities, Judaism centred around the notion of

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the collective people of God. The prayers and liturgy for festivals commemorating the joys and
tragedies in their history, the giving of the Torah, the solemn remorse expressed on Yom Kippur
are all written in the plural emphasizing this is a people set apart (Jacobs, 1992: 1). However,
up until the fifth century BCE Jews had prayed as individuals; prayer became standardized only
after the Great Assembly of 444 BCE when the key structures and principles of prayer were set
down (Megillah 17b, cit. Feuer, 1990: 142). These principles reflected the defining characteristic
of Judaism and its basis in Am Yisrael. The central experience of Jewish history, the exodus from
Egypt, is the story of ‘a moment of religious awakening’, but it is also ‘an experience of national
liberation’ (Jacobs, n.d.)
This leads us to consider a second observation about solitude in Judaism – the collective
solitude of the people. This may seem a strange response to contemporary Jewish communities;
the fracture of religious Judaism in the nineteenth century into Orthodox and Reform ideologies
exposed very different emphases on belief and practice. Jewish life today has reached an existential
crisis of identity with antipathy between some Diaspora Jews and Israelis, religious and secular
Judaism and the effects of assimilation and inculturation. Jewish identity is constantly in flux, yet
they are still a people set apart, held together by the notion of peoplehood. Sacks observes that
despite all its bewildering complexity Judaism ‘is both a religion and a nation, a faith and a fate’
(Sacks, 2009: 47). It is set apart from the rest of the world through its religious practices, history
and politics. Jewish life is ‘quintessentially communal, a matter of believing and belonging’
(Sacks, 2009: 47). The paradox of solitude in Judaism therefore lies in the dual tension between a
modern drive for individualism and the biblical covenant. Judaism today maintains the notion of
a solitary people through its faith, history, culture and practices, observing the premise that ‘you
are a people holy to the Lord your God. Out of all the peoples on the face of the earth, the Lord
has chosen you to be his treasured possession’ (Deut. 14.2) and God’s command that they should
be ‘a light to the Gentiles’ (Isa. 49.6).
The idea of a solitary people is also underpinned by anti-Semitism which has resulted in a
form of collective solitude for both religious and secular Jews, an isolation that has stretched
from the birth of Christianity through to the destruction of European Jewry in the Holocaust and
current mutated forms of anti-Zionism (Sacks, 2009: 97). Cohn-Sherbok maintains that enforced
isolation due to persecution, as well as the perception of chosenness, has helped to sculpt a people
of collective solitude:
The more the outside world hated us, the more we relied on God to save us. In the face of
violence, we sacrificed ourselves to sanctify his name. Through over three millennia, we have
seen ourselves as God’s suffering servants. Our mission has been to serve God and advance his
kingdom. We have been God’s chosen people, whose destiny is to witness to his eternal truth.
(Cohn-Sherbok, 2006: xii)
This has perhaps further reinforced idea that personal solitude is detrimental to the original
covenant notion of a people who dwell alone.
There is a third approach to solitude, not initially evident but nonetheless to be considered,
based in the Jewish family. Community and family are closely interrelated but separate spheres of
activity in Jewish life; both are necessary to uphold the essential nature and character of Judaism
(de Lange, 2010: 81).While the Jewish community is public facing, the family and home provide
‘ordinary’ solitude away from the public arena. It reflects a ‘solid, reassuring place . . . in human

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society’ and while the demands of family ‘all too often seem to collide, on the one hand with the
demands of the individual and on the other with the claims of . . . society as a whole’, the Jewish
home offers a sense of identity and purpose (de Lange, 2010: 82).
This is exemplified strikingly in Heschel’s (1955: 417) observation of the Sabbath. He notes
that it is centred between public worship and private family time, describing it as ‘holiness in time
. . . the presence of eternity, a moment of majesty, the radiance of joy’. Heschel believed that the
search for God is mutual, that while humans are searching for God, God is likewise searching for
them, and the Sabbath provides the holy time in which that search can be intensified:
The meaning of the Sabbath is to celebrate time rather than space. Six days a week we live
under the tyranny of things of space: on the Sabbath we try to become attuned to holiness in
time. It is a day on which we are called upon to share in what is eternal in time, to turn from
the results of creation to the mystery of creation; from the world of creation to the creation of
the world. (Heschel, 1951 [2005]: 10)
Heschel’s explanation of the requirements for entering into holy time, by stepping out of one way
of being and into another, bears a remarkable resemblance to the requirements for solitary prayer
and meditation seen in some Christian practices. He observes that ‘Six days a week we wrestle
with the world, wringing profit from the earth; on the Sabbath we especially care for the seed of
eternity planted in the soul . . . Six days a week we seek to dominate the world, on the seventh
day we try to dominate the self’ (Heschel, 1951 [2005]: 13). While he writes in the plural form,
this is an act of communal solitude, conducted within the family structure, moving away from
the public world to enter privately deeper into the presence of God. Heschel gives us a glimpse of
Sabbath solitude – sacred time to be with God, to wonder, to go beyond knowledge (1951 [1997]:
12), beyond the written words of Torah:
On the Sabbath it is given us to share in the holiness that is in the heart of time. Even when
the soul is seared, even when no prayer can come out of our tightened throats, the clean, silent
rest of the Sabbath leads us to a realm of endless peace, or to the beginning of an awareness of
what eternity means. (1951 [2005]: 101)
While he advocates Torah as the primary means of developing an authentic spiritual life his
embracing of Neo-Hasidism led him to search for ‘kinship with ultimate reality’ (Heschel,
1955: 422) by transcending both the Jewish community and the self (Cohn-Sherbok, 2007: 99).
Nevertheless, Judaism on the whole still considers that solitude in the form of b’didut equates to
loneliness and separation and is a state to be avoided. Erlich (1998) acknowledges that the biblical
verse ‘It is not good that the man should be alone’ (Gen. 2.18) likens solitude to loneliness and
separation, with wholly negative implications.
Christianity, on the other hand, particularly in the West, adopted an Aristotelean mindset which
espouses that ‘contemplation is . . . the highest form of activity’ (Aristotle, 1976: 328), a state of
solitude being necessary for spiritual growth. Examples of embedded solitude are found in lay
Christian traditions through liturgy and prayer. Collective worship, while communal, balances
shared engagement with personal reflection in an act of solidarity. It is a form of mutual solitude,
a sacred time set apart from secular life. The silences embedded between the liturgy, music,
spoken prayers and readings are spaces for personal solitude. As Erickson (1989: 40) notes, it is
‘more than the absence of sound. Liturgical silence provides a context, a frame for the hearing

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of God’s word. It is “waiting patiently for the Lord”’ (Ps. 39[40].1), ‘being open to the still small
voice of calm’.
Christianity has, throughout its history, accepted private withdrawal from the public sphere
into internal solitude (de Lange, 2010: 81). Medieval ‘virtuosos’ developed traditions of solitude
creating profound mystical insights. The Carmelite order, following the example of Jesus’s
withdrawal to the wilderness to pray, combined preaching and solitude, with a recognition that
their public work was achievable only through the ‘contemplation and meditation accomplished
on the mountain’ (Jotischky, 2002: 97). The works of two of its greatest progenies, John of the
Cross and Teresa of Avila, have had a lasting impact on approaches to deep solitude into the
present day.
John, whose epic Ascent of Mount Carmel culminates in The Dark night of the Soul, attempts
to show that in solitude ‘the soul must be emptied of self – purified of the last traces of earthly
dross – before it can be filled with God’ (Santa Teresa, 2003: vi). It is this act of self-emptying,
journeying into deep solitude, which leads to spiritual growth:
On a dark night, kindled in love with yearnings – oh, happy chance! –
I went forth without being observed, My house now being at rest.
In darkness and secure, By the secret ladder, disguised – oh, happy chance! –
In darkness and in concealment, My house now being at rest.
In the happy night, In secret, when none saw me,
Nor I beheld aught, Without light or guide, save that which burned in my heart.
This light guided me More surely than the light of noonday
To the place where he (well I knew who!) was awaiting me –
A place where none appeared. (John of the Cross, cit. Santa Teresa, 2003: 1–2)
Likewise Teresa’s Interior Castle promulgates a sense of ecstatic union with the divine, achievable
only in solitude. However, like John, the purpose of the union is not ‘to rejoice in God in solitude,
but to tell its joy to all, so that they may help it to praise Our Lord, to which end it directs its
whole activity’ (Teresa of Avila, 1989: 168). This withdrawal into the interior life to receive new
insights for the world beyond is well developed in spiritual practices today which promote deep
solitude.
This is often seen in the form of personal retreats, as Leech (1995: 179) observes, where
people seek to ‘find space for solitude and the practice of silence’. It is essential for spiritual
health – to escape from ‘the oppression of words’ and to recover meaning to life (1995: 178). The
purpose of retreat is to sharpen perception, purify vision and train the spirit in order to serve the
world ‘with renewed strength without being dominated or swallowed up by it’ (1995: 180). Leech
is not unaware of the apparent ambiguity of the role of the solitary life in Christian community,
as it ‘paradoxically must begin from the firm belief that human beings are a solidarity, that they
are not isolated units but one body in Christ. There is no solitude without communion, man is
not an individual but a person, and persons are made for communion’ (1995: 178). Examples
of the solitudinous life are found in monastic communities which emerged from the eremitic
experiences of the desert fathers. They are essentially unchanged today, embodying the value
of deep solitude. Entry into monastic life follows long-established patterns, echoed in religious
rituals of other religions and built around the dual notion of solitude and community. They derive
from medieval monastic rituals in which a symbolic dying to a previous life was required to

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mark entry into the community. Marquette (cit. Chewning, 2000: 1174) notes that this is equally
true outside of Christianity with Hindus and Buddhists pursuing lives of solitude to achieve
true knowledge and liberation. Monastic communities balance private and communal life; the
Benedictine order, for example, encompasses both monastic and lay membership, ranging from
the strict vows of the Trappist monasteries which seek to
let go of daily distractions to free the mind and heart for deep contemplation. Our activities and
attire are simple and humble. Our grounds are profoundly silent save for purposeful speech,
quiet chant and the sounds of nature. We are lovers of place and find blessings in union with
and stewardship of creation. Life as a Trappist maintains decided degrees of separation from
the outside world – so that we may continually renew ourselves and the world through prayer.
(trappists​.o​rg)
to ‘third order’ vocations in which lay members who follow the monastic life embrace the spirit
of the order to which they belong:
Benedictine oblates6 seek God in association with a monastic community: as individuals and as
members of a body, they grow in love of God, neighbor, and self. With the Rule as their guide,
oblates adopt values that are part of the very fabric of Christian spirituality, such as, spending
time daily reflecting on the Sacred Scriptures; cultivating an awareness of the presence of
God in silence; devoting time to the praise of God; performing acts of mortification. An
acquaintance with these and other Christian values presented in the Rule of St. Benedict will
enable oblates to attain that special peace and joy that Christ came to bring and promised to all
who follow him. (Order of St Benedict)
Lay associations usually involve ‘a commitment to live out the spirituality or charism of the
particular congregation’ (Vandenakker, 1994: 129), thus affording the opportunity to form a ‘rule
of life’, a space between monastic and lay life.
Perhaps the most influential of recent Christian advocates of the power of solitude is Thomas
Merton, a Trappist monk, who both engaged in and wrote extensively on the subject. Merton
is often regarded as the great Christian solitary of our time; he was in many ways a recluse
who sought solace in solitude, but he also understood the power of isolation in coming to terms
with the real self and the world. Merton believed that truth could be found only by engaging in
all human influence, both concrete and historical (Williams, 2011: 18). The reason we are so
interested in Merton, Williams (Williams, 2011: 19) contends, is not because we want to know
more about him, but that ‘Merton will not let me look at him for long: he will, finally, persuade
me to look in the direction he is looking’. For Merton true solitude is a necessity to prevent us
living the illusions of other people (1968: 96–7) and to find the path of compassion. It is ‘deeply
aware of the world’s needs. It does not hold the world at arm’s length’ (1968: 10). True solitude is
the gateway to self-knowledge: ‘My knowledge of myself in silence (not by reflection on myself,
but by penetration to the mystery of my true self which is beyond words and concepts because it
is utterly particular) opens out into the silence and “subjectivity” of God’s own self’ (1958: 68).
But Merton also recognizes that solitude is not the goal and end of the monastic and solitary life.
For him, Christian life is political, a place where people can converse freely, not a static ideology,
but a ‘homeless’ entity in the world in which people can explore one another’s language without

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the oppressive need for any one authoritative voice (Williams, 2011: 64, 66). Solitude is a bridge
between aloneness and community, the goal of which is the fulfilment of God in the world:
Contemplatives are not isolated in themselves but liberated from their external and egotistic
selves by humility and purity of heart – therefore there is no longer any serious obstacle to
simple and humble love of others. The more we are alone with God the more we are with
one another, in darkness, yet a multitude. And the more we go out to one another in work
and activity and communication, according to the will and charity of God, the more we are
multiplied in him and yet we are in solitude. (Merton, 1961: 52)
Furlong observes that for Merton solitude was a state of mind that emanated from feelings
of loneliness, that it could be found only ‘by staying within’ and ‘a deepening of the present’
in which God is found (Merton, cit. Furlong, 1980: 178). In order to achieve solitude he had
to isolate himself from the rest of the monastic community. It is this self-marginalization
that has perhaps contributed to his success. Merton saw himself as ‘a marginal person who
withdraws deliberately to the margin of society with a view to deepening fundamental human
experience’ (cit. Cunningham, 1978: 1181–2), and it is this notion of marginality that opens
up the ‘spaces-between’, offering at the same time a detached solitude and a practical social
conscience.
Merton exemplifies the ‘creative individual’ whose life and works give voice to the power
and benefit of solitude, a monk, deeply embedded in his own tradition and yet speaking across
the boundaries. Merton’s correspondence, and later his meeting with Heschel, in fact illustrate
the shared perspective of cross-boundaried interest in religious mysticism leading to social
action. Their combined input into the Nostra Aetate, the last document emanating from the
Second Vatican Council, along with their joint ‘conspicuous voices against the war in Vietnam’
(Cunningham, 1999: 98), is an apposite reminder of the thin spaces created by visionaries from
whatever their religious tradition, which lead from solitude, to community and ultimately to calls
for social justice and action.
In the last few decades this combined perspective on solitude has become the catalyst for
new forms of Christian meditative communities which seek to combine the ordinary solitude
of congregational community life with the deep solitude of monasticism (e.g. Taizé, Third
Orders, The World Community for Christian Meditation [WCCM]) in emulation of the early
desert traditions. These new traditions seek to combine the two seemingly paradoxical strands of
Christian life – the solitary contemplative and the active, communal life which calls for social
justice and action. John Main, founder of the WCCM (cit. Freeman, 2006: 207), summarizes the
process and goal of the meditative life today:
Our journey is a way of solitude. True, it is the end to loneliness and isolation. Solitude
becomes the crucible of integrity, personal wholeness, which the love of God transforms into
communion, into belonging and inter-relatedness at every level of our lives.
These new traditions have in many ways become renewed forms of community which occupy the
spaces between monastic and lay life, modelled on both the founding figures and virtuosos of the
Christian tradition and born from the need for both ordinary and deep approaches to solitude in
the Christian life.

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Conclusion

Contemporary approaches to solitude in Judaism and Christianity still follow the received norms
of the founding figures, but with the ideological changes wrought by the Enlightenment and
subsequent Romantic movement, and advances in psychology as an academic discipline, there
is a new emphasis on personal spiritual development which has permeated the language of
religion. This chapter has identified a growing interest in the growth of deep solitude in both
traditions, with a small, but significant, shift in Jewish practice towards a spirituality which
seeks God in deep solitude through personal silence and meditation, particularly in Jewish people
who are seeking to return to and find personal meaning in their religious heritage. It has also
acknowledged the growing trend in Christianity to seek out new types of community based on
the practice of deep solitude as a counterfoil to the ordinary solitude of largely liturgical spiritual
practice. Perhaps both are an attempt to seek deeper meaning in an increasingly secular world.
Solitude in religious practice maintains its important role as a counter to the collective, and
a means of progress. Throughout history it is the solitary ‘ideal types’ and ’virtuosos’ who have
been the catalyst for change. This approach is now being adopted not only by the virtuosos but
also by regular members of religious communities for whom ordinary solitude does not allow
opportunity to explore the depths of religious experience and who are searching for their own
‘spaces between’. These spaces are increasingly sought across religious boundaries as the voices
of the virtuosos speak to people from different religious traditions.
And while deep approaches to solitude are still regarded with suspicion by some communal
institutions, particularly in Judaism, but also in some Christian traditions, its increasing popularity
over the last five decades, aided by the seminal voices of advocates like Merton and Heschel, is
perhaps a catalyst for the next pivotal moment in religious history. Perhaps we can glimpse an
opening up of spaces-between that are accessible to, and a meeting place for, Jews and Christians
across the religious divide.

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Part II

Silence


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Introduction

Wong Ping Ho

It seems silence, both as an issue of public concern and as a subject of academic investigation,
is becoming less silent. The publication of this handbook is itself part of this trend. Philosopher
David E. Cooper observed:
Until about 10 years ago, Max Picard’s work The World of Silence (1952), neglected for
decades, was almost the only serious examination of silence available. Times have changed,
and silence is in fashion. Recent books on the topic include Sara Maitland’s best-selling
A Book of Silence (2008), ones by Thích Nhất Hạnh and Erling Kagge, as well as studies
aimed at a more academic readership. (Cooper, 2018, unpaginated)
This development has, of course, not escaped the attention of contributors to this section. Teresa
Olearczyk, in her Chapter 12, tells us that
Many have rediscovered, following Kierkegaard, the value of silence, as a remedy for inner
diseases. Many publications about silence are published, ‘Houses of Silence’ are opened,
offering silence and calmness (including the one in Tyniec), and many books on silence appear
in bookshops, which is an expression of longing for silence.
Olearczyk refers to inner diseases that require silence as a remedy. The presumption is that such
inner diseases have become more serious and prevalent nowadays. A further presumption can
be made that inadequate experience of silence is itself a cause of inner diseases, and that is
why doses of silence can be a remedy. Both presumptions are, of course, open to investigation
and confirmation. What is quite clear is that, as Eva Alerby remarks in her Chapter 14, ‘In
modern society, low volume levels – peace and quiet – are often in short supply’, and schools
and universities are no exception. And it is probably this ‘silence deficit’ that has made people
aware of their unmet need for appropriate forms and levels of silence, and consequently bringing
people’s attention to silence as an issue of concern.
The expression ‘appropriate forms and levels of silence’ in the aforementioned statement was
intentionally deployed because silence is not always an unalloyed good, as various contributors
unanimously emphasized (as did Julian Stern’s Introductory chapter to this volume). In her
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Chapter 11, Sandra Bosacki highlights this point by referring to the ‘double nature of silence’. To
take the case of silence as the counterpart of speech, a judicious balance needs to be maintained
between the two. In the Confucian classic Yijing (Classic of Changes), Confucius said: ‘In the
Dao of the noble man / There’s a time for going forth / And a time for staying still, / A time to
remain silent / And a time to speak out’ (Wang, 1994: 58). By reminding the noble man that there
is a time to remain silent, and a time to speak out, Confucius affirmed the need for both silence
and speech as befit the circumstances. The proverb ‘Speech is silver, silence is golden’ (Flavell &
Flavell, 2011: 217) similarly affirms both speech and silence, but accords the latter a higher value
by comparison. The German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer captured the dialectical relationship
between silence and speech by stressing that ‘One does not exist without the other. Right speech
comes out of silence, and right silence comes out of speech’ (Bonhoeffer, 1954: 78).
Bonhoeffer (1954) further pointed out that ‘The mark of solitude is silence, as speech is the
mark of community. Silence and speech have the same inner correspondence and difference as
do solitude and community’ (p. 78), giving additional support for embracing solitude, silence and
loneliness together in this same volume. Indeed, all contributions in Part II, with the exception
of Helen Sauntson and Rodrigo Borba’s Chapter 13, also touch upon solitude. There is the
additional recognition that stillness is also intimately related to solitude and silence, as evidenced
by references to stillness in most of the chapters in Part II (Cleveland; Bosacki; Alerby; and
Pirrie & Fang) and in Stern’s Introductory chapter to this volume. We may also wish to note
that stillness is mentioned in parallel with silence in Confucius’s above remark in Yijing. Indeed,
in East Asian cultures, probably more so than in the West, solitude, silence and stillness are
inextricably linked. For example, A Modern English-Chinese Chinese-English Dictionary defines
the Chinese character ji (寂) as ‘1. quiet; still; silent; 2. lonely; lonesome; solitary’ (Foreign
Language Teaching and Research Press, 2005: 412). Similarly, the Korean word hojŏt hada is
variously defined in English as hushed, still, deserted, lonely, solitary, desolate and so on, none of
which is in fact an entirely satisfactory rendering (O’Rourke, 2013).
The following statement from the Daoist classic Zhuangzi mentions silence and several of its
cognate terms in one breath: ‘This emptiness and stillness, this placidity and flavorlessness, this
silence and quiescence, this non-doing is the even level of heaven and earth, the full realization
of the Course [Dao] and its intrinsic powers . . . the root of all things’ (Zhuangzi, 2020: 109;
square bracket added). It was pointed out earlier that the proverb ‘Speech is silver, silence is
golden’ accords a higher value to silence. The statement in Zhuangzi outdoes this by relating
silence to emptiness, which in Daoist ontology is considered to be the ground of being and
origin of everything. The general idea of the fertility of silence and emptiness is, of course,
not limited to the East but is universal. Among contributors in Part II, Olearczyk titles her
Chapter 12 ‘Creativity, Concentration and Silence’, declaring that ‘[s]ilence is not unproductive,
it is creative’, mentioning how ‘Silence and solitude create a specific bond that fosters creativity’.
Similarly, Bosacki observes that ‘silence is often defined as a pre-requisite to reflection and an
integral part of the creative process’.
The reminder that silence is a multifaceted phenomenon, or rather that silence actually refers
to a number of different phenomena, is brought up by various contributors. In the Introductory
chapter to this volume, Stern serves up a number of helpful distinctions, such as perceptual
silence (not listening or hearing: aural) versus actional silence (not speaking or making other
intentional sounds: oral). To facilitate examination of the multifaceted phenomenon of silence,

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a number of dimensions are tentatively proposed below. They are not intended to be either
exhaustive or hard-and-fast categories. Nor is it claimed that all the dimensions are necessarily
mutually independent. They only serve as an aid to our analysis.

(1) Physical Silence vs. Metaphoric Silence: Silence in the original, literal sense is the absence
of physical sound. This basic, physical sense of silence is readily extended metaphorically
to refer to such conditions as inner (psychological) silence, and the loss of discursive power
(the state of being silenced in the sense of being stripped of ‘voice’). It is conceded that
whether the sense of silence in the latter case can be considered as metaphoric might not
be entirely clear-cut. The reader is invited to come up with his/her own judgement. Helen
Sauntson and Rodrigo Borba’s Chapter 13 is a typical piece that addresses this issue of
silence in the sense of loss of discursive power.
Another interesting question pertains to those who rely on sign language for
communication. While in the literal sense the scene is silent, a heated, ‘noisy’ conversation
may be going on in sign language. Is the noisiness here metaphoric or literal? By further
extension, an environment may be literally quiet, but a lot of activities may be going on that
create a hectic, visually noisy, scene. It might be justifiable to describe this last scenario as
a case lacking metaphoric silence.
It is clear that there need not be any direct correlation between physical and
metaphoric silence. Alerby highlights the ‘distinction between the silence a person may
experience at the actual place (so-called outer silence) and the silence they experience
within themself (so-called inner silence)’, observing that for some people ‘it is easier
to eliminate and ignore external disturbing noises than it is for others’. Olearczyk asks
people to actively ‘remain lonely among people, not distancing them at the same time,
but bringing them closer to each other’. These points are well recognized in the Chinese
tradition. Poet Tao Yuanming (365–427) famously remarked that ‘Any place is calm for
a peaceful mind’ (Tao, 2003: 113). A traditional Chinese saying goes so far as to claim
that ‘The small hermit lives on a mountain. The great hermit lives in a town’ (Porter,
1993: 220).

(2) Personal Silence vs. Environmental Silence: This is similar to Stern’s distinction
between perceptual silence (environmental silence) and actional silence (personal
silence). However, as alluded to at the end of the second last paragraph herein, an
environment of a low surrounding noise level might still somehow exude a sense of
metaphoric disquiet, so environmental silence is not necessarily only aural and oral.
Eva Alerby’s Chapter 14 recorded the complaints of students at a Swedish university
about the lack of calm and quiet places at the university. One student said that ‘it is
almost impossible to avoid the unpleasant feeling that some of the large rooms or halls
often create, especially if the sound level is high’. Granted that a high sound level
intensifies the unpleasant feeling, the sense of disquiet is there anyway. Another student
said that ‘The places that scare me most in the whole university are the exam halls . . .
The rooms are often sterile and stark. This produces a sterile feeling.’ Scariness is
certainly a form of metaphoric disquiet.

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(3) Silence that is Actively Sought/Embraced vs. Silence that is Imposed/Passively Endured:
This distinction can be compared to the one between solitude and loneliness. Often people
actively seek opportunities for solitude, whereas loneliness is something people have to
reluctantly put up with. The difference in the sense of agency between active embrace and
passive endurance is highlighted in a number of chapters in Part II. Richard Cleveland, in
his Chapter 10, stresses that ‘the degree of child autonomy or agency (i.e., the power to
choose whether one speaks or remains silent) is paramount in determining healthy silence’.
Olearczyk advises adoption of silence as a way and a life skill through an act of the will.
Alerby goes so far as to say that it is only when a person chooses to remain silent for some
reason that this person can properly be regarded as silent. However, there may be cases where
it is not straightforward to determine whether the silence represents an autonomous act or
not. For example, Bosacki notes that ‘silence can be used for self-protection in situations
where adolescents feel unsafe and fearful’. This sounds like an autonomous choice to adopt
silence as a self-protective ‘weapon’. But can one also rephrase the sentence to say that
‘adolescents can be forced to use silence for self-protection in situations where they feel
unsafe and fearful’? It seems that a lot of details would be required to determine the degree
of agency underlying any specific act of silence.
(4) Positive Silence vs. Negative Silence: As pointed out earlier, various contributors have
unanimously noted the ‘double nature of silence’ (Bosacki’s words). However, whether a
certain form of silence is beneficial or detrimental is probably determined by its respective
location along the aforementioned three dimensions, so strictly speaking a separate positive–
negative dimension would not be necessary, although it is meaningful and essential to look
into the nature of the impact a particular form of silence has on individuals and society.

Let us try to view a couple of cases involving silence through the lens of the previously proposed
dimensions. A salient example of physical silence is the absence of ambient noise. Actually, it is
probably much easier to address the presence of something rather than its absence; therefore, the
study of noise and its effects on human beings had started much earlier than the study of silence.
One of the first psychology experiments this editor conducted in his university days was precisely
to determine the effects, if any, of different levels of ambient noise on individuals’ reaction time.
Such ambient noise (or absence of silence) is physical, environmental and passively experienced.
It is well established that environmental noise is detrimental to children’s cognitive performance
(Klatte et al., 2013). Interestingly, on the other hand, experiments with adults demonstrated that
a moderate versus low level of ambient noise enhances performance on creative tasks (Mehta
et al., 2012), complicating the easy correlation between silence and creativity. Again, both the
form and level of silence, and the nature of the specific creative task concerned, need to be taken
into consideration.
As noted earlier, the silence involved in the loss of discursive power, according to my own
hunch, is a type of metaphoric silence. It is silence that is imposed, depriving individuals of their
voice; hence, it is a type of individual silence. However, this imposed silence on individuals is
itself caused by the hegemonic silence deployed by the powers that be, a kind of environmental/
communal silence. Thus both individual and environmental silences are involved, at different
sites and on different levels. The outcomes of this kind of silence are compromised individuals
and a compromised society.

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It is this kind of silence involving loss of discursive power that Sauntson and Borba’s
Chapter 13 addresses. As such, it stands out among the contributions in Part II in that while all
the other chapters tend to focus much more on the positive aspects of silence even though all
serve up reminders of the ‘double nature of silence’ (Bosacki’s words), their chapter deals with
a particularly dark form of silence. Through historical reviews, they first described the seeming
advances and substantive setbacks of the struggles towards LGBT+ equality in UK and Brazilian
schools. Then through deploying a number of meticulous techniques of linguistic analysis on
educational documents, they endeavour to reveal the covert and not-so-covert silencing strategies
in the language these documents use. To counter such silencing, they recommend ‘the insertion
of a greater diversity of meanings into the “exclusionary and silencing language” of school
curricula’.
In contrast to Sauntson and Borba’s treatment of disabling silence (i.e. silence that disables),
Olearczyk’s Chapter 12 focuses on enabling silence that ‘gives voice’ to individuals. Currently
such enabling silence is under great threat, drowned out by incessant dins and constant diversions.
Paradoxically, with a sort of humankind’s natural resilience, this has led to the ‘rediscovery’ of
silence alluded to at the beginning of this introduction. Olearczyk elucidates the significance
of silence for reflection, creativity, self-control and human well-being, but in order to reap the
benefits silence can bring, silence must be practised with self-discipline. Therefore she advises
the promotion of silence in preschool and school education, observing that many schools have
already established quiet zones or quiet rooms. However, the promotion of silence should not be
at the expense of activity. Olearczyk cites Maria Montessori, Johann Friedrich Herbart and Rudolf
Steiner on the necessary coexistence of movement and silence as essential elements in education.
The role of silence in school-age children and youth is the focus of both Cleveland’s
Chapter 10 and Bosacki’s Chapter 11, with the former addressing school-age children more,
and the latter covering school-age youth more. Both also emphasize the crucial importance
of respecting and protecting the agency of children and youth, making room for them to take
control of their silence and speech. To make his point, Cleveland employs the terms ‘Autonomous
Silence’, ‘Imposed Silence’ and ‘Chosen Silence’. In the terms of the dimensions proposed
earlier in this introduction, Autonomous Silence is environmental silence that is nevertheless
welcomed and embraced by an individual. Imposed Silence is individual silence endured under
coercion. Chosen Silence is silence that is actively sought and created. Autonomous Silence
and Chosen Silence are potentially beneficial, but Imposed Silence jeopardizes the individual’s
agency and is therefore harmful. Along the same line, when the practice of silence is introduced
into schools, care must be exercised to ensure willing intention on the part of both pupils and the
teachers guiding the practice. The stress on intentional silence practice is similar to Olearczyk’s
prescription of practice with discipline. This purposefulness is one of the three features of
mindfulness that Cleveland identifies and adopts for the practice of silence, the other two features
being a non-judgemental mindset and a focus on the present moment.
Bosacki similarly covers mindfulness in the context of experiences of silence, highlighting the
relationship between mindfulness and self-compassion and perceived self-worth, among other
benefits to well-being. Through times of silence and contemplation, one’s authentic inner values
can also be examined. But contemplation is just one of the various functions of silence addressed
by Bosacki. Other forms of silence covered in the chapter include aggressive silence, controlling
silence, resisting silence, political silence and safe silence, all of which ‘can enhance possibilities

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for creating change in the self and in relational patterns’, provided that such silence is exercised
with agency.
Alerby’s Chapter 14 looks into Swedish university students’ need for quiet and peaceful
places and spaces. Such quiet and peaceful places and spaces at the same time convey a feeling
of freedom, security and belonging, a sense of ‘being at home’. Regrettably, such places and
spaces are in short supply in schools and universities nowadays, which is a reflection of a similar
problem in society at large. Even so, university students are adept at searching out and fashioning
their own ‘oasis’ in informal, unofficial settings. It is not necessary for sound to be completely
absent in such oases, which is anyway impossible. The absence of noise that is obtrusive or salient
is enough. Such oases allow for the much-needed relaxation and contemplation that set free
students’ thoughts and souls.
Anne Pirrie and Nini Fang’s Chapter 15 is a ‘mischievous’ piece that defies categorization –
the word ‘mischief’ being used by the authors themselves to describe the ploys they employ to
subvert the supposed format required of academic writing. In this regard, form matches content,
which is to show how ‘quiet professionalism’, while bearing the stamp of loneliness, alienation
and solitude imposed by the current climate of neoliberalism, nevertheless achieves to save the
quiet professional from total suffocation. The key to such success against the odds is found in
the term ‘quiet’, which the authors use in the sense related to the absence of impingement, that is
‘being free from disturbance; not interfered or meddled with; left in peace’. Whereas Wittgenstein
(2001) advised that ‘What we cannot speak about we must pass over in silence’ (p. 89), the
authors might suggest that what we cannot resist overtly we should subvert in silence. I leave it
to the reader to decipher and savour the piece. Meanwhile, it is time for me to return to silence.

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 10

Children and Silence

Richard E. Cleveland

Introduction

The mantra ‘Children should be seen and not heard’ was already part of English culture in the
fourteenth century when John Mirk referenced this social expectation in his sermons. Created to
entertain as much as inform parishioners, Mirk’s sermons were not just popular but influential
(McGillivray, 2013). Arguably, this sentiment remains pervasive in Western society, where
children’s opinions are rarely valued more than their silence. Complicating this societal norm,
however, are domains where children are expected to both demonstrate silence and assertively
speak. One may consider the school environment where classroom teachers within the same day
may reward silence and punish silence. For example, during times of whole class instruction,
students may be expected to remain silent during teacher demonstration/instruction. At the
conclusion of lecturing, students may not only be expected to speak, but silence may be interpreted
as resistance or ignorance. One may easily conceive of similar situations where at one moment
the silent child is the ‘good’ child (e.g. quietly paying attention to the speaker/media) and mere
moments later the silent child is ‘naughty’ (e.g. failing to volunteer an answer on prompting).
Such examples highlight how silence in and of itself may not always be that which is ‘healthy’ or
developmentally appropriate, despite societal preferences. Answering this question of healthiness
requires consideration of the factors influencing the decision to ‘be’ silent.
Silence is an action much in the same manner we might consider talking, laughing or even
shouting a chosen behaviour. The child’s world (as arguably paralleled with adults) is composed
of multiple arenas where environment and societal expectations for each setting determine how
chosen behaviour(s) will be received. The child choosing to shout on the playground may receive
no more chastisement than the child choosing to sit quietly alone in the library. Conversely,
both children may attract the concerned attention of teachers, should they continue their
behaviours in the opposite environments (i.e. the ‘unruly’ vocal child shouting in the library and
the ‘ostracized’ quiet child desiring to be alone on the playground). Thus, it seems reasonable
that any exploration of children experiencing healthy silence must adequately acknowledge the
role of cultural expectations for silence and how variable those expectations may be. Further, it
The Bloomsbury Handbook of Solitude, Silence and Loneliness

is necessary to recognize these expectations vary not only by environment but potentially also
by differentiated times within the same environment as well. Prior to a child choosing their
behaviour and attempting to elicit a certain response or outcome, the child must be aware of these
dynamic expectations. Only then can consideration of available behaviours and their potential
for ‘success’ (i.e. success in terms of the child’s particular wants or needs) be acted on with any
degree of certainty. Having attended to external factors upon children’s experience of silence (i.e.
environments and their associated expectations), let us now focus our attention on more internal
influences.
Whether child or adult, the question of demonstrating or experiencing ‘healthy’ silence also
involves exploring the aspect of motivation or decision behind such action. Specifically for our
purposes, the degree of child autonomy or agency (i.e. the power to choose whether one speaks
or remains silent) is paramount in determining healthy silence. Is the child given the freedom to
decide whether or not they remain silent? Again returning to the school environment, we find a
landscape where children’s agency is frequently considered not important despite being a primary
vehicle through which they interpret and act upon their world (Hyde et al., 2010). With busy
schedules, packed agendas, mandated curricula to teach and the spectre of standardized testing,
recognizing (let alone fostering) child agency may seem quite low in terms of prioritization.
While many such situations may be argued as necessary (after all, though not as enticing as recess
maths must be learned), this further complicates the question of ascertaining what constitutes
healthy silence for children. Additionally, should caring adults create spaces for children to exert
agency in practicing or experiencing silence, are such opportunities recognized? When teachers
(or other caring adults) take dedicated action towards providing children with appropriate avenues
for expressing agency, are these instances viewed as actual possibilities by the children? Stated
otherwise, are such instances dismissed by children due to the onslaught of implicit messages
received from the very same adults? For example, the lecturer who, while speaking to the class,
ends every sentence with phrases such as ‘right?’ or ‘understand?’ while immediately progressing
to their next sentence rather than waiting for students to respond. Thus, whether unintentional
conversational idioms or more meaningful reflections of a hidden curriculum (Jackson, 1970;
Nowak et al., 2015; Orón Semper & Blasco, 2018), such verbal examples highlight some of the
many challenges to children recognizing (and subsequently acting upon) their agency.
The child’s day may be filled with many instances of quiet or silence. As many of the
examples thus far have illustrated, the school day alone may not only provide such opportunities
but further complicate successful navigation of those opportunities. Societal expectations can
vary dynamically, and messaging (whether expressed or implicit) may cloud actual opportunities
for students to demonstrate agency. These external and internal forces exert considerable sway
over children’s ability to experience and practice healthy silence. But even when these factors are
addressed, what distinguishes ‘healthy’ silence from the various periods of quiet throughout the
child’s day? Prior to answering this question, let us explore different ways in which silence may
be conceptualized.

Differing forms of Silence

The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) defines silence as both noun and verb, with approximately
twenty-five descriptions comprising the two categories (Silence, n.d.). While some of the listings
are obsolete or specific to particular places or works (e.g. proverbial phrases such as ‘Silence

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is golden’, geographical locations, allusion to Hamlet’s dying words, a rest in musical scoring),
reading through the majority descriptions reveals a common distinctive quality – the source or
initiating force creating the silence. This distinction might be conceptualized via three categories
of ‘Autonomous Silence’, ‘Imposed Silence’ and ‘Chosen Silence’.
Autonomous Silence refers to situations where silence exists as an entity to be experienced, not
directly influenced or permeated by an individual’s will. ‘The state or condition when nothing is
audible; absence of all sound or noise; complete quietness or stillness; noiselessness. Sometimes
personified’ (Silence, n.d.). One may think of the stillness of the night, the quiet of the wilderness
or the precipice of a coming storm. Similarly, one may think of the silence present during times
of contemplation. While at first glance this may seem to be either chosen or imposed, there is
significant difference between silence that emerges and available for embrace versus silence
enforced. For example, the emergent silence in a cathedral during a time of prayer or meditation,
versus the silence imposed upon a young parishioner by his mother’s emphatic ‘Shush!’ during
that same time.
Imposed Silence refers to silence that is exerted upon the individual by a force outside of
themselves. The OED describes this silence as, ‘To put to silence, to silence by argument or
prohibition [. . .] also, to reduce to silence’ (Silence, n.d.). Interestingly, nearly every form of
silence as a verb fits the parameters of Imposed Silence. For example,
To cause or compel (one) to cease speaking on a particular occasion; also, to overcome in
argument [. . .] To cause (an animal or thing) to cease from giving out its natural sound; to still,
quieten [. . .] To stop, suppress (a noise or sound) [. . .] To reduce (a person, etc.) to silence by
restraint or prohibition, esp. in order to prevent the free expression of opinions. (Silence, n.d.)
Clearly, children experience a great deal of Imposed Silence throughout their early developmental
stages. As previously mentioned, some of these instances may even be considered warranted as a
part of the typical developmental expectations for children (e.g. listening attentively during class
instruction). However, children’s environments (e.g. home, school, community), which consider
Imposed Silence as the only appropriate form of silence, directly hinder the development of
children’s agency and opportunities for experiencing healthy silence.
Chosen Silence refers to silence experienced through the intentional will of the individual.
The OED here defines silence as ‘The fact of abstaining or forbearing from speech or utterance
(sometimes with reference to a particular matter); the state or condition resulting from this’
(Silence, n.d.). Chosen Silence is an employed behaviour. In a sea of noise, the individual is
choosing to create a space for silence. When encountering examples of Autonomous Silence,
whether naturally occurring or man-made, the individual is choosing to embrace, or partake of
the silence. In both cases, it is the individual’s desire to experience and ability to engage silence
that distinguishes Chosen Silence.
This framework for conceptualizing silence aligns with other works acknowledging the
multifaceted nature of silence as experience. Exploring silence as phenomena bordering human
action and interaction (i.e. both independent and interdependent of language and speech), Lehmann
Oliveros (2016) reviews a ‘general typology’ of silence constructed from previous works. The three
categories closely mirror Autonomous, Imposed and Chosen Silence. Lehmann Oliveros describes
the first category ‘Silence’ as, ‘solitary, mystical, and unconscious [involuntary] experience’ (p.
3) referencing aesthetic, poetic or awe-inspiring experiences (Autonomous Silence). Defining

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‘Silencing’ presents the reader with a very clear parallel to Imposed Silence with the experience
described as, ‘manifesting power by means of restricting someone else’s expression’ (p. 3).
Examples provided extend beyond mere ‘talking over’-behaviours in conversation and include
human rights crimes where victims are unable to report/accuse perpetrators. Similar to Chosen
Silence, the final category of Lehmann Oliveros’ framework, ‘Silences’, highlights the integral
role of agency. ‘Silences; are social, secular, and conscious. (e.g., Turn-taking in conversations or
signs asking for silence in waiting rooms at hospitals)’ (p. 3). Thus while the categorical labels
may be different, the primary determining factor remains the agency of the individual to choose
to embrace or engage silence (i.e. Autonomous, Chosen) versus being forced into silence (i.e.
Imposed).
Providing a comprehensive metareview of silence, Valle (2019) notes approximately fifty-six
different disciplines or areas of interest where silence has appeared as a research topic surmising
that this alone serves as indication of the significance of experiencing silence phenomena. Valle’s
review recognizes the dynamic nature of silence in that the experience of the phenomena may
be healing or disruptive. Rather than bounded categories for elucidating silence, Valle proposes
ten forms of silence distributed along a spectrum. Anchored at the ends by either ‘Environmental
silence’ or ‘Transcendent silence’, each reference point along the spectrum indicates degrees of
variation from these two poles. Environmental silence represents a predominantly external or
physical influence, whereas Transcendent silence not only refers to the dominance of an internal
or inward focus, but a silence that potentially goes beyond the conscious will.
It may be rightly argued that Valle’s spectrum of silence in essence sidesteps the construct
of Silencing or Imposed Silence, focusing only on phenomena of silence that serve as a vehicle
for contemplation and reflectivity. However, with each movement along Valle’s spectrum from
Environmental to Transcendent, we see silence transforming from mostly behavioural phenomena
in response to an external world, to internally experienced awareness that requires the active will
of the participant. This still doesn’t provide a clear ‘placement’ for Silencing or Imposed Silence
within this framework, but the presence of individual agency (i.e. varying degrees of intention)
suggests that perhaps Valle’s spectrum begins once Imposed Silence has ended.
Our exploration of silence began with referencing common or frequently understood definitions
of the word. From there we have seen how multiple conceptualizations of the construct of silence
align with a threefold framework of Autonomous Silence, Imposed Silence and Chosen Silence.
Furthermore, throughout all three variations of the phenomena the degree of an individual’s
autonomy or agency plays a critical role. But from some of the very examples used to define and
illustrate the role of agency, we see that at times children’s agency is not only limited but also
knowingly restricted. What then is our response? How are caring adults (e.g. parents, caregivers,
teachers, counsellors) to balance agency and the developmental appropriateness of silence with
children? We now turn our attention to child development as first steps towards considering this
question as it pertains to the schoolhouse.

Silence within Child Development

Multiple theorists provide paradigms for exploring child development. Stage theorists are
commonly referenced when educators and/or practitioners may be analysing the relative health and
degree of ‘typical’ development for a child. Such theories provide guidelines and marker events

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describing trajectories for a child’s developing identity, cognitive abilities and meaning-making.
Pertinent for the exploration of silence, such theories can also frame what silence may look like
at different times through a child’s life. However, an obstacle to this exploration is that review
of most stage theorists reveals no explicit delineation of silence as a dedicated aspect of child
development. Having already acknowledged the role of agency within any conceptualization of
‘healthy’ silence, a more productive approach may be to consider how such theories may provide a
lens through which to consider the emergence and development of agency throughout childhood.
Agency might be conceptualized as the degree to which a child possesses the ability and
choice to not only decide what actions to take, but to see the results of those decisions (CORE
Ten Trends, 2017; McLaughlin, 2018). This requires an awareness of self as distinct from others
while in community (i.e. interrelated) with others. Multiple connections may be realized here
with developmental, specifically constructivist and cognitivist, theorists outlining this emerging
awareness throughout childhood. For example, Piaget in outlining the Concrete-Operational
(seven to eleven years) stage describes a moving away from egocentric play and activity towards
considering others’ perspectives (Erford, 2017). Vygotsky (1986), recognizing the influence of
language and social interaction on development, described such awareness (individual cognition)
as emerging, ‘not from the individual to the social, but from the social to the individual’ (p.
36). While it may be argued Vygotsky conceptualized the relationship between individual and
external influences as highly interactive and interrelated, still distinction exists. For our purposes,
two specific theories will serve as illustrative first steps leading us to discussing agency (and
thus silence) in the schoolhouse: Erikson’s psychosocial theory and Bandura’s social cognitive
learning theory.
Erik Erikson’s psychosocial theory outlines eight distinct stages of human development with
three spanning the approximate ages of three to eighteen years: Initiative versus Guilt, Industry
versus Inferiority and Identity versus Role Confusion (Erford, 2017). Each of these three stages
presents guidelines through which the child/adolescent develops a determined, productive and
confident, sense of self. Successful navigation of each stage and its subsequent goals further
establishes healthy identity and interpersonal relationships. Erikson’s theory describes broad
developmental tasks associated with each stage which, upon initial examination, might seem
framed dichotomously between agentic and non-agentic archetypes. Indeed, the expected
‘picture’ of an autonomous, agentic individual (specifically through a Western civilization lens)
more readily aligns with the characteristics of taking initiative, being industrious and exhibiting
a confident identity. As a result, there may exist temptation to view these optimal states of health
with more extraverted expectations. However, continuing this line of ‘either/or’ reasoning and
applying these ideal expectations for agency upon silence quickly becomes problematic. For
example, if the child does not immediately speak up, are they lacking Initiative? Is the quiet child’s
silence because of Inferiority? Is a quiet, brooding teen in need of help with Role Confusion?
Clearly the path towards healthy development lies somewhere in between, a balance between
the two poles of each stage. Acknowledging this, danger remains that caring adults in a child’s
life (e.g. parents, caregivers, educators, clinicians) may limit or hinder exploration of silence
as an essential component of development in their attempts to shape behaviours using a binary
paradigm.
Albert Bandura’s social cognitive theory emphasizes the role of social influence on/with the
individual (i.e. observation, modelling, imitation, etc.) in developing complex behaviours. Bandura

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identified four components required for learning including attention, retention, reproduction
and motivation. Specifically relevant for our present discussion of agency is Bandura’s focus
on motivation and his associated concept of self-efficacy (Erford, 2017). Not only does self-
efficacy influence the feelings, emotions and cognitions children may have, but this then directly
influences motivations guiding behaviours/actions. This would seem to share much ground with
agency, perhaps reframing our question as the motivation or self-efficacy children possess in
regard to experiencing silence. However, one of Bandura’s most well-known experiments with
children vividly illustrates how the very tenets of social cognitive theory (i.e. social influence)
can actively hinder children’s agency.
Bandura’s Bobo Doll experiments focused on social behaviours, specifically aggression,
learned through observation. Additionally, Bandura investigated the role of consequences
(both positive and negative) as vicarious reinforcers for aggressive behaviours. Both groups
(i.e. positive reinforcement and negative reinforcement) acquired the aggressive behaviours as
modelled; however, children within the negative reinforcement (or ‘punishment’) group had also
learned they were expected not to demonstrate these behaviours. This serves as scholarly example
of anecdotal occurrences which happen frequently within the schoolhouse; some of which have
already been mentioned here. Students may know how to speak their opinions, and may possess
the desire or motivation to speak their opinions, but may also recognize that adults expect them
to refrain from speaking. Here agency exists but goes unrecognized and potentially extinguished.
Without consistent, attentive awareness to the expectations (both explicit and implied) conveyed
to students, caring adults may be inadvertently squelching any possibilities for agency (and
silence) to flourish.
Clearly much work remains exploring silence within childhood development. A more thorough
examination of theories and their relationships (both potential and realized) with silence is beyond
the scope of this chapter. But as review of our two exemplars has demonstrated, it may be fair to
say that for the majority developmental theories (and, more specifically, stage theories) their very
strength stands as a potential limitation in defining agency and silence. More accurately stated,
strict adherence to dichotomous classifications within binary or compartmentalized paradigms
of agency hinders conceptualizing and implementing silence with children. Similarly, without
careful attention to the social dynamics actively influencing children in their daily milieus (e.g.
home, classroom, playground, daycare) caring adults may stifle authentic expressions of agency –
again, especially if the systemic influences of the environment are guided by dichotomous goals.
There remains need for a balanced approach to the road ahead.

Guardrails on a Mountain Road

The Pacific Northwest region of the United States presents residents and visitors alike with a
diverse geographic landscape. Most notable are the mountain ranges running throughout the
majority of the region with their towering peaks, glacial crowns and thundering waterfalls.
Numerous roads snake through the mountains offering access to hiking trails, vistas and mountain
summits. The drive on most roads is winding with steep inclines and offers only one lane in each
direction of travel. At many points climbing upwards into the mountains, drivers will notice a
stark difference framing their journey. With the road literally carved into the side of the mountain
at times, one side of the vehicle will present a sheer rock face stretching skyward while the

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other side of the vehicle opens to a seeming abyss. Metal railings ‘guard’ each side of the road
providing one last precaution should a vehicle lose control.
This imagery provides a helpful illustration in reconciling dominating stage theories of
development with the balance required for exploring agency and silence with children. Educators
and clinicians may consider the mountain road as the child’s journey through development. At
each stage of the journey, the marker events particular to a specific theory (e.g. Identity versus
Role Confusion) stand as the ‘guardrails’ of the winding road. It would be ridiculous to expect
the driver to constantly have their vehicle touching the ‘healthy’ side of the spectrum and its
accompanying guardrail (not to mention creating significant body damage to the vehicle). It does
seem clear, however, that the driver will strive to remain in their lane (i.e. healthy development)
keeping the guardrail in constant sight as a reference point. We may take this illustration one
step further and incorporate the realities of obstacles encountered along mountain roads such as
broken pavement, patches of ice, a fallen tree limb or a wandering deer. Various points throughout
the journey may require minimal to moderate swerving in order to keep moving forwards (i.e.
continued development). Indeed, there may even be more significant obstacles along the journey
(e.g. trauma, abuse) where significant deviations are required not only to continue forward
movement but to stay on the road altogether.
This illustration provides a grounded example of how we might pursue balanced agency (ergo
silence) within child/youth populations. With the established borders of developmental theory
in place, we can now explore how agency might flourish even when the road is wrought with
obstacles. The path determined, the guardrails set, we now turn our attention to a theoretical
framework for guiding agency and silence based upon a foundation of mindfulness.

Mindfulness, Agency and Silence

Discussing agency within education, Iris Duhn recognizes its important role but challenges
readers to consider the question: How do educators go about ‘doing’ agency with toddlers? In
addition to expanded privatized daycare offerings, many Western nations have seen a broadening
of the ages of students served as younger (e.g. toddler) children receive state-sponsored
educational services. In the United States for example, kindergarten (approximately age five
years) long served as the traditional ‘start’ for public education. As more and more state school
districts have replaced kindergarten with an earlier pre-kindergarten start, this change has been
reflected not only in state and federal funding but also in the very nomenclature used. What was
once referred to as ‘K-12’ education (i.e. kindergarten through twelfth grade) is now superseded
by either ‘PK-12’ or ‘P-12’ (i.e. pre-kindergarten through twelfth grade) on both formal and
informal documentation. Duhn asks readers to consider toddlers’ capacity for, and expression
of agency challenging dominant models which require autonomous, self-aware expression (i.e.
verbal expression) as a main foundation (2015). Aligned with our present discussion, Duhn
also cautions caring adults against too strictly adhering to rigid structures (referring to them
as dead end ‘cul-de-sacs’) preventing adults from noticing authentic expressions of agency,
or fostering environments where such expressions may emerge organically. If educators are
to avoid Duhn’s ‘cul-de-sacs’ when working with children, then their approach must be one
of open awareness that refrains from automatic reactionary codification to a set system of
classifications.

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Mindfulness is most frequently understood as ‘paying attention in a particular way’ (Kabat-

Zinn, 2005). Mindfulness has long been recognized as a contemplative, reflective practice
within Buddhism and other Eastern traditions but has only more recently (e.g. the last forty
years) been taking root in Western civilization. Sadly, as mindfulness practices have blossomed
and expanded within the West, many have strayed from the core tenets of mindfulness. Rather
than authentically pursuing enlightenment and inner-exploration, these opportunistic offerings
(dubbed ‘McMindfulness’ by Jon Kabat-Zinn [2015] due to their focus on mass production and
profit) claim to be ancient panaceas for a stressed-out, overly medicated, plugged-in world. Yet
despite these obstacles, mindfulness continues to grow in use finding implementation in clinical,
medical and educational settings.
If mindfulness is how we go about paying attention in a particular way, then these ‘particulars’
require explanation. First, mindfulness is paying attention on purpose. Instead of ignoring or
‘zoning out’ from one’s surroundings, mindfulness requires the intentional dedication of time,
place and energies for practice. Second, mindfulness is awareness of the present moment.
Here there is no ruminating over past situations or problem-solving future stressors. Dedicated
faculties are directed to the present moment; and each successive moment thereafter making
up every new ‘present’. Third, mindfulness is non-judgemental in nature. The term ‘non-
judgemental’ here refers to avoiding reactive, auto-pilot responses elicited in our minds when
confronted with thoughts, sensations and/or emotions. A final element originates specifically
from the Western embrace of mindfulness and references the innovative atmosphere frequently
created from mindfulness practices. Referred to as ‘novelty production’ Ellen Langer describes
how mindfulness facilitates creative or novel awareness saying, ‘Just as mindlessness is the rigid
reliance on old categories, mindfulness means the continual creation of new ones’ (1989: 63). In
summary then, we might move forward with the following working definition of mindfulness:
Mindfulness is purposeful, non-judgmental, present-moment awareness incorporating novelty
production. (Cleveland, 2018; Gehart & McCollum, 2007; Langer, 2009)
But the question remains how mindfulness might relate to our present concern regarding children’s
agency as a component of silence. For this we again return to Duhn’s challenging question of
agency with toddlers and our imagery of the mountain road.
Answering the question of agency in toddlers, Duhn (2015) asserts two important qualities:
Awareness of Self & Others; and Co-constructor of Meaning. Here we see our first connections
to mindfulness in that mindfulness facilitates awareness of the present moment. Just as many
mindfulness practices begin with the centring breath and extend awareness outwards to the rest
of the physical body, the surrounding environment and beyond, here too with agency we see the
beginning awareness of self that extends to the other-than-self. From a developmental perspective,
toddlers (or any other individual) may be limited in the degree or ‘depth’ of awareness of others;
however, this should not limit their opportunity for demonstrating agency. Where the toddler
may only recognize an ‘other’ child, a child of ten years may recognize the other child as well as
verbal and nonverbal messages. Placed within our mountain road metaphor, although a child’s
awareness of the path and guardrails may be only rudimentary (e.g. recognizing others but not
the ‘final’ destination of development; understanding the barriers of the guardrails but not the
consequences they bound), this does not negate their voice in choosing how they proceed along
the path.

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Similarly, there exists parallel between Duhn’s call for co-constructing meaning and
mindfulness’ tenet of espousing a non-judgemental stance. To co-construct meaning is to
construct meaning with at least one other person. This brings into perspective a set of values,
motivations or judgements distinctly other. One need only observe young children playing and
negotiating the ‘rules’ of play to see such co-construction in action (e.g. ‘I am the tyrannosaurus
because I’m oldest’ contested with ‘But I’m the tallest, and a tyrannosaurus is the biggest’ and
a third voice ‘Aren’t brontosauruses bigger?’). Non-judgemental awareness allows recognition
and attending while remaining stationary in present-moment awareness. Describing this stance,
Vietnamese Buddhist Monk Thích Nhất Hạnh draws the imagery of ‘a palace guard who is
aware of every face that passes through the front corridor’ (2008: 38). The guard does not move
from their station, fixate on only one face, nor close their eyes ignoring the continual flow of
people. Returning to our imagery, children benefit not only from awareness of the mountain
road and its guardrails but also from attending to others on the path and their chosen pathways
of travel.
In concluding the discussion on agency within toddlers, Duhn (2015) challenges prevalent
paradigms focusing solely on agency as autonomous identity of the knowing self and the
expression of sovereignty. Instead of a young victor moving forwards with developmental
‘conquests’, Duhn proposes a more interactive, balanced perspective of agency where the primary
action is a ‘seeking of encounters [. . .] that force continual invention to maintain the relationship
between movement and rest’ (2015: 927). It should not be missed that here we find ourselves
presented with a parallel to silence; silence as the ebb and flow between speech and rest. This
parallel returns us to our primary concern of the phenomena of silence with children and the role
of agency within healthy expressions/experiences of silence.
Although few instances exist where silence is explicitly acknowledged within child
development theory, most address the construct of agency in older (e.g. four years and older)
child populations. The majority of these theoretical paradigms present caring adults (e.g.
parents, clinicians, educators) with polarized descriptors qualifying optimal versus maladaptive
outcomes. Consequently, clinicians and educators specifically may be tempted to fall into a ‘one-
size-fits-all’ framework with their clinical and curricular interventions based on these binary
distinctions. Utilizing a more balanced approach, such as incorporating mindfulness-based
practices, not only fosters critical components of child agency but also affords opportunities for
children to participate in healthy expressions/experience of silence within their daily landscape.
A brief review of representative examples from literature exploring silence with children will
be beneficial as we turn our attention to how such an approach might take shape within the
educational environment.

Researching Children and Silence

Agency has great importance not only for silence but also in multiple other domains of child
wellness. Clearly, the role of child (or learner) agency positions itself as central within any
curricular or pedagogical interventions espousing constructivist or learner-centred foundations.
Exploring child agency within the rapidly expanding world of learning technologies, and
specifically story-making apps, Kucirkova highlights the difference between agentic (children
as empowered, independent users/creators) versus non-agentic design (content and/or experience

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created for the child). Kucirkova paints a picture of this distinction between agentic design (or
‘personalization’) and non-agentic design, saying
An example of agentic personalization is a child who visits a library and chooses a book based
on the child’s own likes and interests. An example of a non-agentic, automatic, personalization
is a child browsing an online library and receiving a recommendation for a book that matches
the child’s likes and interests. (2019: 114)
While some may argue the distinction nuanced (after all, in the end the child finds a book with
their interests, yes?), Kucirkova uses this example to highlight how with many educational
technologies purporting personalized or learner-centred curricular experiences, it is not the child
themselves who are empowered to design/create, but rather an adult technician or (increasingly
more frequent) an artificial intelligence component to the platform making decisions. This
question of child/learner agency remains just as pertinent for silence as for educational
technologies as arguably a forced choice constitutes no choice at all. Presuming this message is
received encouraging clinicians and educators to provide meaningful opportunities for children
to exert agency for expressions/experience of silence, what might healthy silence look like with
children? Stated differently, what are salient points for caring adults to consider in their efforts to
nurture children’s healthy silence?
As already mentioned, literature specifically exploring silence is limited and even more
sparse when investigating the practice with youth/child populations. Perhaps indicative of this
dearth, in their research exploring solitude and silence, Van Meter et al., (2001) were able to
utilize a developed instrument to assess solitude but had no scale for silence using instead
observation. Van Meter et al. point out that silence like solitude (and as previously highlighted
in our exploration: like mindfulness) requires dedicated time. It is through intentional practice
that silence is developed, refined and expanded. Practiced silence can be of benefit regardless of
amount: two minutes, two hours, two days.
Perhaps a primary point of importance for clinicians and educators is recognition that silence
may not always be an indicator of negative feelings, experiences or behaviours. In researching
the influence of parental and friend relationships on adolescents’ preference for solitude,
Barstead et al. (2018) noted that motivations prompting children to withdraw or be alone are not
homogenous in nature. Barstead et al. recognize the role of child agency and assert that youth and
children (i.e. kindergarten through high school) are capable of differentiating between healthy
expressions of solitude (e.g. preference to be alone) and unhealthy experiences of solitude (e.g.
shyness, ostracization, bullying). Considering the many parallels between solitude and silence
as well as the common denominator of child agency, it seems plausible that children and youth
may possess similar discernment when differentiating between healthy and unhealthy forms of
silence. Whether observing children practicing solitude or silence, there remains potential danger
for well-intentioned clinicians and educators to associate these practices only with maladaptive
expressions and prescribe subsequent intervention where none is required.
As influential as adult response to children’s expressions of silence (i.e. interpreting as positive
or concerning) is, perhaps even more significant is the role adults may play in modelling healthy
forms of silence for children. Exploring silence within teaching, Forrest (2013) recognizes various
forms of silence (e.g. forms similar in construction with Autonomous, Imposed and Chosen
Silence) and acknowledges the role of agency. Forrest then warns educators against viewing

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silence as ‘mere acoustic void that needs filling’ (2013: 616). Here again, silence is distinguished
as a practice requiring dedicated time and energies. Furthermore, with the assertion that silence
improves with continued practice, educators are called to not only facilitate healthy experiences/
expressions of silence, but to model them for students as well. Such modelling incorporates
both explicit instruction as well as more ‘hidden’ aspects of pedagogy. Forrest gives the example
of teachers who are able to sit in silence, responding in measured and appropriate ways to the
ever-changing classroom environment, contrasted with teachers constantly filling quiet times,
or demanding response. Forrest suggests that too often such actions represent a fearful need
to ‘prove’ the teacher has accomplished learning; she or he has successfully taught a particular
concept or fact. Summarizing previous works recommending silence practices in classroom
settings to foster listening, learning and instruction, Forrest suggests teachers model an openness
to awe, wonder and the dynamic intricacies of the learning environment through silence rather
than continual space-filling when moments of stillness occur.
This equipping of how one experiences healthy silence (through modelling and practice)
fosters wonder and learning beyond academics alone. While delineating the importance of
contemplative education for children and youth, Patricia Jennings references practicing silence
as one example of how contemplative practices may be incorporated into education. Jennings
(2008) characterizes practices such as silence as ‘alternative ways of knowing’, which may aid
students’ self-regulation and cognitive functioning. Perhaps more important for students’ holistic
personal development though, Jennings describes these practices as ‘support[ing] children’s
quest for meaning’ (2008: 102). Whether supporting students’ academic success or aiding agentic
meaning-making, clinicians and educators seem conveniently situated in a place to actively foster
healthy experiences and expressions of silence for children. Let us now turn to how this might
take shape within the schoolhouse.

What Does this Mean for Schools?

As we have discussed, students’ preference to play alone, experience solitude or display a desire
for silence in and of itself may not indicate trauma or unhealthy social/emotional functioning.
Paralleling solitude (Coplan et al., 2014) when the behaviour or action is a manifestation of child
agency, silence may be not only developmentally appropriate but healthy. One may consider how
even the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5), in describing selective
mutism in children, acknowledges the mitigating role silence plays for children as they transition
or navigate new situations/stressors (Murris & Ollendick, 2015).
The notion of silence within schools being simultaneously praised and disciplined is nothing
new. In her historical account of vocal education (i.e. formal delivery of speeches and/or logical
argumentation) throughout the nineteenth century, Josephine Hoegaerts (2017) confirms an
overarching expectation for silent children populating the schoolhouse. However, Hoegaerts
points out that even in the midst of this context (both place and time), silence was more complex
than mere Imposed Silence. Educators differentiated between various forms of silence, assuming
responsibility for training pupils in recognizing when and how to implement these forms. Viewing
the classroom as a place for modelling and training students in silence remains just as pertinent
for today, especially if we recognize silence as a part of regular, daily human experience or
‘human becoming’ (Bunkers, 2013: 7).

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While it may sound contradictory to state individual agency is learned through interaction
with others, this paradox stands just as true for silence. This requires a classroom climate or
culture where all are able to participate (McLaughlin, 2018) with balanced choice determining
when, how or to what degree that participation occurs. Concluding our discussion, we return
to our framework of mindfulness to outline how such balanced silence practices might be
executed.

A New Direction

Presenting an overview of mindfulness, we identified these three components as key in describing

mindful awareness: purposeful, non-judgemental and present-moment. We additionally recognized
that engaging in mindfulness practices frequently creates an open, creative atmosphere facilitating
novelty production. Our intention in utilizing mindfulness as a foundation for exploring silence
practices stems from the recognition that mindfulness can aid in navigating a balanced course
between traditionally dichotomous (yet simultaneous) views of silence in school as praised and
reprimanded. Mindfulness holds value as a framework for creating silence practices within the
school/classroom setting.

Purposeful
As presented in our current discussion, consensus exists that silence, like mindfulness, requires
intentional practice (Bunkers, 2013). Just like mindfulness practices incorporate specific
boundaries, silence also requires the individual dedicate time, space and energies for meaningful
growth. This is not to say that silence practices cannot align or cohabitate with other activities
in the classroom setting. Indeed, depending on the age and developmental level of participating
students, initial forays into silence practices may experience less awkwardness and more success
if partnered with interventions sharing similar theoretical tenets. Whether practiced by itself or
in conjunction with another contemplative activity in the classroom, silence requires willing
intention on the part of participating individuals and the educators guiding the practice.

Non-judgemental
Also similar to mindfulness, silence benefits from a non-judgemental stance. Reuter (2015) notes
that silence functions as a healthy mechanism to interrupt ‘autopilot’ responses such as quick
inferences or biased conclusions. In the same way mindfulness notices or attends to thoughts,
emotions or sensations, silence provides space – quite literally pause – for non-judgemental
awareness to occur without immediate reactionary classification and compartmentalization of
stimuli. This non-judgemental component applies to children and adults practicing silence, but
additionally to educators observing silent children. Through an abundance of care and shortage
of non-judgemental awareness, well-intentioned educators may rush to ‘autopilot’ conclusions
based on observations of children within the school domain (e.g. classroom, playground,
common areas). Hyde et al. (2010) recognize various instances when children might choose
silence for managing difficult times such as familial transition, difficult interactions with peers,
contemplating developmental changes in identity, seeking comfort or solace, or as a part of
faith/spirituality/religious beliefs. With this in mind, they caution caring adults that silence as an
avenue of exerting expression (or agency) towards wellness is commonly overlooked.

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Present Moment
Finally, silence calls for attention to its existence as phenomena within the present. Whether
noticing unplanned, emergent silence (i.e. Autonomous Silence) or exerting intentional energies
to practice silence (i.e. Chosen Silence), healthy silence remains bounded in the present moment.
Within mindfulness practices, common obstacles may challenge a continued focus on the present.
For example, drawing attention to a centring thought of calm may inadvertently arouse stressors
in the form of past-tense regrets (e.g. altercations with individuals earlier in the day) or future-
oriented anxieties (e.g. scheduled interactions with same individuals tomorrow). Additionally,
feelings of awkwardness may arise, especially during initial or introductory experiences to the
practice causing distraction from the present moment. Similar challenges exist when embracing
silence within the present moment. Especially pertinent may be feelings of awkwardness
experienced when practicing silence in school climates firmly established as noisy (and here
‘noisy’ may refer to volume or just sheer flooding of the open, silent space). Here educators can
not only facilitate healthy silence practices but also model for students how to maintain a present-
moment focus, embracing silence while attending to feelings and emotions non-judgementally.

Example
With the increased attention given to mindfulness and mindfulness practices, many school-based
curricula and interventions are available for the majority of school-aged children/youth (i.e.
kindergarten through high school). The following example outlines the partnering of silence with
mindfulness in the form of a classroom lesson. Such a lesson may be a standalone informative
activity or a reoccurring session. The lesson could be delivered by either educator (i.e. teacher) or
clinician (e.g. school counsellor, school psychologist), with emphasis placed more on authenticity
of practice rather than specific certification or credentialing.
Beginning the lesson, the adult asks students about silence finding out what perceptions, ideas
and beliefs students may have about the phenomena. This initial assessment may be structured
or more informal. A more structured format might be a ‘K-W-L’ chart, where students are asked
what they Know about silence; what they Want to know about silence and then returning to the
chart after the lesson has concluded to review what has been Learned about silence (Ogle, 1986).
Just as valuable, informal exploration may take the form of open-ended questions prompting
discussion (e.g. What does silence mean? What does silence sound like? How does silence feel?).
Having ascertained some idea of students’ familiarity with silence, the adult introduces the
concepts of ‘healthy’ and ‘unhealthy’ silence connecting with students’ earlier observations when
possible. Depending on age level and developmental appropriateness, examples of unhealthy
silence may range from losing your voice due to illness (elementary-aged) to historical example
of civil/human rights infringement (high school-aged). In both cases, silence is imposed from
a person/force other than self. Critical before practicing silence, the adult should acknowledge
that even healthy forms of silence may feel awkward or ‘weird’ at times, especially if not
regularly practiced. Introducing this awareness not only opens the door for later dialogue, but
more importantly addresses any potential adverse feelings students may experience during the
phenomena itself.
The adult introduces a mindfulness exercise using centred breathing to facilitate awareness
of silence. Multiple mindfulness-based interventions (MBIs) are available for use with children
whether explicitly designed for the classroom setting or not. The majority of such MBIs are

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equipped with sample scripts that adults may read from or edit when using in the classroom.
Students are invited to participate and assume a comfortable yet dignified position whether
sitting at desks or on the floor. Next students are invited to close their eyes and notice their
breathing. The adult brings attention to students’ breathing providing a leisurely count associated
with the inhaling and exhaling of each breath. After allowing time for breathing to fall into a calm
rhythm, the adult draws attention to noises in the room (e.g. adult’s voice, feet shuffling, voices
outside the classroom, clock ticking). The adult draws attention that even when everyone in the
classroom is silent, such noises may momentarily interrupt that silence. Attention is then drawn
to the parallel between silence as ‘pause’ between noises, and the pause we experience between
breaths. The adult returns students’ attention to their breathing, to prepare for returning to class
discussion, and then invites them to open their eyes.
Following the exercise, the adult leads students through a time of reflecting on and processing
the experience. Once again, the adult may choose whether to follow a structured format (i.e.
the K-W-L chart) or more informal discussion. Students are led through exploring the physical
sensations of silence first, and then the emotional reactions as well. As mentioned earlier, having
already acknowledged that ‘it’s okay’ to feel weird, the adult may prompt students into discussing
what healthy silence feels like, and how healthy silence may be beneficial even when the practice
initially feels awkward. Concluding the lesson, the adult would explore what future practice
might look like if students were interested in trying healthy silence again. Questions might
include: Where might be a good place to practice healthy silence? When would be an appropriate
time to practice healthy silence? How might someone practice healthy silence on their own? In
this way, students collectively brainstorm and discuss the logistics associated with practicing
healthy silence.

Conclusion

In many ways, the experience of silence exists as a double-edged sword. In a time marked
with technology, hyper-connectivity and a constant bombardment of cultural ‘noise’ (e.g. text
messages, emails, social media postings, cell phone calls), silence may be often wished for as a
respite (Bunkers, 2013). However, silence can also open spaces of discomfort both from without
and within. As illustrated in the song Car Radio,1 the singer comes to terms with driving in a car
with no music to drown out his thoughts and struggles with the resulting silence. Paraphrasing,
the singer describes how, sometimes, quiet is violent, as there is no distraction to mask what is
real – because someone stole his car radio.
Without information regarding healthy forms of silence, and exposure to silence as a
contemplative practice, children may not be aware of the therapeutic value of silence considering
it no more than a void requiring immediate filling. Similarly, educators unaware of how healthy
silence may benefit students’ academic and social–emotional well-being may forego opportunities
for silence within the classroom and/or misinterpret students’ desire for healthy silence as an
indicator of maladaptive functioning. Educators and clinicians within the schoolhouse have the
access and opportunity to introduce, model and foster children’s experiences of healthy silence.

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 11

Multifaceted Silences in Adolescence

Implications for Social Cognition and Mental Health

Sandra Bosacki

Introduction

What does it mean when there is silence in a classroom? What are the experiences of adolescents
when they are silent, or exposed to silence in a classroom? What is happening in the hearts
and minds of adolescents when they are silent? Why have researchers continued to neglect
the experience of silence and socioaffective aspects of adolescent development? What makes
adolescents’ emotional development and experiences with silence distinct from children and
adults? To answer such questions, this chapter will consider how adolescents make sense of
themselves and their social world within the context of silence. As we journey into the twenty-
first century, researchers and educators who work with youth need to remain open to new
conceptions of adolescence and silence. Thus, this chapter builds on past, current and ongoing
psychoeducational research and holistic educational philosophies that explore how adolescents
experience times of silence.
Many researchers and educators agree that adolescence (ages of nine to eighteen) is one of the
most pivotal times in an individual’s overall development (Blakemore, 2018). Regarding identity
development and social interactions, according to the classical developmentalist G. Stanley Hall
(1904), adolescence is the age when youths shift their energy from themselves to their social
relationships and experience the ‘storm’ and ‘stress’ of life. The central task of adolescence
includes the development of one’s identity within the social context that includes conversations,
nonverbal communication and silences. Thus, the adolescent’s main task is to develop a sense of
self and identity within their social relationships and experiences of solitude.
Surprisingly, although adolescence is a pivotal time in identity and emotional development,
the majority of studies focus on adolescents’ cognitive abilities and social interactions (Harter,
2012). Also, studies demonstrate clear age-trends with affinity for aloneness. For example,
recent findings suggest that the affinity for aloneness increases through early adolescence
The Bloomsbury Handbook of Solitude, Silence and Loneliness

(Maes et al., 2016). In contrast, studies also show that an aversion to aloneness decreases from
early to late adolescence (Coplan et al., 2019). Given such findings, surprisingly few studies
explore early, mid- and late adolescent’s perceptions of silence, either alone or with others.
Most studies explore either affinity or aversion to solitude in adolescence, so then why have
researchers continued to neglect adolescents’ experiences of multiple silences (Nguyen et al.,
2019)?
This chapter will examine how individual differences and classroom culture, including
gender, ethnicity and language, may affect adolescents’ experiences of silence in school settings.
With a vision towards the future, I recommend ways in which educators can redesign and rethink
a holistic and inclusive education that honours, values and embraces these silences. To explore
the landscape of classroom silences in adolescence, I outline multiple meanings of silence that
adolescents may experience within the classroom. I explore why the field of psychology continues
to evade comprehensive empirical study of silence and social cognition among adolescents, and
propose paths forward for holistic programmes. That is, how do educators and practitioners create
experiences of silence that increase adolescents’ ability to flourish or feel confident and function
well? (Seligman, 2011).
Overall, this chapter aims to unite two scholarly areas that in the past have studied adolescent
development separately. I will suggest ways in which developmental psychology and education
can collaborate and co-create inclusive, social–emotional programs that focus on the importance
of silence for mental health, compassion and mindfulness. I am to encourage educators and
researchers to engage the two disciplines in an ongoing critical discourse about the significant
role silence plays in adolescents’ personal and social lives. With an eye towards a new era, I end
with recommendations for next steps and underscore the importance of transdisciplinary and
transcultural research.

What Is Silence and Why Does It Matter for Adolescents?

Although the word ‘silence’ is ubiquitous and often found throughout many educational and
psychological literatures, silence is often defined as a prerequisite to reflection and an integral
part of the creative process (reflection and practice). Throughout this chapter, I focus on silence
as a form of communication, and as an integral part of the teenager’s sociolinguistic repertoire
that is learned mainly at home and also within the school setting. The ‘art of conversation’
entails a sociolinguistic repertoire of practice which allows children to learn and practice
sociolinguistic behaviours that are guided by social and cultural conventions which govern
appropriate verbal interaction. The art of conversation thus entails both the act of speaking and
the act of listening.
Silence may communicate as a call-type or a distinct, species-typical vocal repertoire that
involves no sound. Silence can signal, as well as sound calls (Anikin et al., 2018; Berryman,
2001). Given the ambiguity of the language used to refer to silence, across multiple languages,
there is often a cluster of words which refer to communication without sound (Bosacki, 2005).
In contrast to research on non-linguistic vocal communication such as screams or laughter
(Schwartz et al., 2019), in English, silence or a non-linguistic non-vocalization is often defined
as ‘stillness’, ‘silence’ and ‘quiet’. All three must be considered in the interpretation of silence
because no single one contains all that is meant by the whole.

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This chapter aims to illustrate the multidimensionality of silence within the secondary school
classroom. Given that silence may serve as a representation of ambiguity or uncertainty in the
classroom (Bosacki, 2005), for some students such uncertainty in the class may have a positive
influence in that it may lead to curiosity (Lamnina & Chase, 2019), which in turn drives learning
and student engagement (Berlyne, 1950, 1966; Dashiell, 1925). Alternatively, for some youth,
silence may lead to feelings of angst and worry given the uncertain atmosphere in the classroom
and with others. Given this double nature of silence, teachers and peers need to remain cognizant
of the psychosocial implications of labels such as a ‘quiet’ or ‘shy’.
Regarding the term ‘silence’, according to Berryman (2001), silence is one of three calls used
by human beings to signal aspects of emotionality. Two calls are the two basic emotions of sadness
and happiness expressed by the acts of crying and laughing. To further explore the concept of
‘silence’, the term ‘stillness’ refers to both movement and sound. For example, when the river is
still and not moving, it remains silent. Movement and sound are related in that movement can be
viewed in the medium of light (waves or quanta) as it stimulates our eyes, and in the medium of
air as sound waves stimulate our ears.
The distinction between silence and quiet is on the basis of motivation. For example, the
motivation to be quiet usually stems from inside of us, whereas silence may be imposed on
us from the outside. For instance, classroom silence is usually guided by school regulations
and mandated disciplinary procedures to ensure classroom management. In contrast, when a
student is ‘quiet’ or refrains from speech, this behaviour in part is the personal choice made
by the student. That is, due to negative affect such as feelings of fear, discomfort or anxiety
due to a multitude of possible reasons such as social anxiety (feeling silenced by peers,
silenced by a teacher/parent, among others), a student may self-socialize herself to remain
silent (Maccoby, 1998).
Scholars also explore how culture affects personal experiences of silence (Anikin et al.,
2018; Zhu et al., 2007) and investigate under what conditions does a person decide to be silent?
Is silence a choice or command, and what are the functions and meanings of silence in one’s
learning experiences? In the following sections I will describe how silence for adolescents can
be experienced as a private escape or time to connect with oneself and nature, or as a strategy to
negotiate conversations within social relations within school settings.

Self: Silence and Solitude – Silence and Self

Duplicitous Nature of Silence: Friend or Foe of the Adolescent

Social situations include experiences of silence, and such experiences may either ameliorate
or exacerbate an adolescent’s sense of social competence, confidence and well-being. A
psychocultural approach to personal experiences of silence stems from an interest in exploring
the most useful tools and resources for an adolescent to function in a social world. Accordingly,
we need to investigate what the adolescent needs to know and feel about participating effectively
in various social contexts? How do adolescents’ social and self-knowledge emerge out of their
experiences in pragmatic circumstances?
This psychocultural approach assumes that knowledge of others’ mental states is built out
of experiential, pragmatic knowledge acquired in an interpreted, social world. This relational,
developmental view of psychological understanding supports further research of scholars who

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explore the connections among thought and emotion, language and behaviour within the personal,
social and cultural world (Bruner, 1996; Taumoepeau et al., 2019; Vygotsky, 1978).
For example, in the case of social withdrawal and shyness, silence may be connected with negative
social experiences and emotions. That is, those who chose to be silent may have different motivations
such as prosocial (avoid hurting the feelings of the social partner), self-protective (to protect oneself
from judgement) or self-presentational (to appear humble and avoid appearing boastful). Such
experiences of silence may be especially pronounced during social group situations, where verbal
expression may be equated with confidence, popularity and social status, especially among youth
perceived as socially savvy or ‘cool’ (Wilson & Jamison, 2019).
During adolescence, social situations may involve a peer who holds psychological power
over another in the social hierarchy. A high-status peer may choose to harass or psychologically
damage a peer with lower social status through means of exclusion and neglect. That is, a popular
student may choose to ignore another lower-status peer’s social initiatives or requests. This ‘silent
treatment’ may be considered a form of psychological or emotional harassment if the peer who
received the silence experiences negative emotions such as anxiety and distress (McDonald &
Asher, 2018).
The process of ‘silencing’ within dialogue is complex, and the decision to remain silent in
a public forum may have mixed emotions attached. To illustrate, an adolescent’s silence may
represent her decision to refrain from joining a conversation, and thus suggest a sense of personal
agency or control. This decision may originate from her feelings of discomfort (e.g. two students
may criticize their teacher), and thus the decision to remain silent may lead to feelings of relief
and pride. In contrast, she may feel pressured to comply with the silence (e.g. her friends tell
her to ignore the teacher in class), and thus may feel ‘silenced’. Such a decision may then be
accompanied by feelings of fear and anxiety. For example, a student who is called upon in
class and chooses to remain silent may frustrate the teacher, as well as provoke ridicule from
the student’s peers. Thus, the reasoning underlying the decision to remain silent, as well as the
reaction solicited from the audience, may create negative emotional reactions.
In contrast, the decision to remain silent could also lead to positive emotions. For example, if
a student is asked to sit in the class with others for five or ten minutes of ‘silence’ or ‘quiet time’,
she may experience positive emotions as this task provides the opportunity to remain silent and
to reflect and listen or ‘check-on’ with oneself. That is, a student can exercise her/his imaginative
and creative abilities by becoming body aware and listen to one’s mental and physiological
messages. In both cases (self-imposed by student vs. teacher imposed on student), silence is
defined by the absence of verbal expression and provides an opportunity for a student to listen to
her or his thoughts, emotions and physical sensations. Such an experience will subsequently have
either positive or negative influences on a student’s sense of self-confidence and competence.
Regarding social silences, youth who find it stressful to join social groups, or who feel
painfully shy, may choose to remain silent in a group situation to avoid the negative feelings that
may arise from the possible rejection (Coplan et al., 2011). That is, students may wish to say
something to another peer, but the ability to emotionally forecast one’s future emotional reaction
may lead the student to imagine the possible rejection or social evaluation, and/or ridicule. Such
imagined predictions may prevent them from taking the risk to express or share their thoughts. If
such students feel inhibited to contribute due to fear, they may decide to either remain silent, or
to withdraw from the social situation.

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Other students may also choose to remain silent in that they are socially disinterested. In this
regard they may lack the motivation to approach others, while at the same time not necessarily
have the motivation to avoid others. Compared to shy or socially withdrawn people, when
socially disinterested individuals are approached by others they will be less likely to retreat and
may experience little or no wariness and anxiety (Coplan et al., 2019). In contrast to those who
make the personal decision to remain silent, verbally and socially competent adolescents may
experience feelings of control and powerfulness, as they may be aware of their ability to influence
another child’s behaviour (Recchia et al., 2019).
In summary, for some individuals, silence may be viewed as a source of inspiration and
as a psychological and emotional venue for quiet reflection. However, for others, silence may
be accompanied by loneliness and emotional pain. The latter vision of silence may thus bring
wariness in social company, victimization, fear of rejection and feelings of self-consciousness
(Bosacki et al., 2019; Galanaki, 2004), and social dissatisfaction (Coplan et al., 2019). In short,
there are various reasons for the emotional experiences and behavioural expressions of silence.
On the one hand, silence may be accompanied by negative feelings of isolation and abandonment,
and feelings of loneliness or an emotional craving for intimate connections with others. On the
other hand, silence may also lead to feelings of peace, contentment and relaxation – or joy, awe
and wonder as one may experience aloneliness, or an emotional craving to be alone and have
intimate connection with oneself or quality private time.

Social: Silence and Relationships – Silence within Context

The ability to communicate effectively with others depends partly upon knowledge and skills that
have little or nothing to do with language per se. For example, children learn that they may have
to greet others and to end a conversation with some form of a sign-off. The social conventions
that govern appropriate verbal interaction are called sociolinguistic behaviours. Such behaviours
fall within the broader domain of pragmatics or what we ‘do with language’. For example, how
do we learn to understand and perform according to the rules of conversational etiquette – taking
turns such as switching between speaker and listener, and saying goodbye when leaving or to end
a conversation, and so on (Coplan & Weeks, 2009).
Pragmatic skills also include strategies for understanding the subtleties of ambiguous and
non-literal or figurative language such as humour and teasing (Bischetti et al., 2019; Fritz,
2019), metaphor, irony and sarcasm (Filippova, 2014; Pexman, 2008). The ability to initiate
conversations, change subjects, share stories and argue persuasively is also a pragmatic skill
necessary for social communication. Children continue to refine their pragmatic skills and
sociolinguistic conventions throughout the preschool years into adolescence. Cross-cultural
studies show that this development is affected by cultural differences, particularly regarding
social etiquette and decorum, such as the ability to recognize when one commits a social faux
pas (Banerjee et al., 2011; Schwartz et al., 2019).
Emotions also play a critical role in social communication (Vracheva et al., 2019). Structural
and strategic silences may have different emotional implications. Regarding the case of structural
silence, an adolescent may feel ‘silenced’ by the classroom structure, or may feel silenced by the
‘other’ who does not allow the other to speak. Thus, how would such an adolescent feel as a result
of this blunted attempt at communication? This structural type of silence may be linked to the
need for more social situations and interpersonal interactions.

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In contrast to structural silence, in strategic silence, an adolescent may choose to refrain from
expressing a particular emotion either nonverbally or verbally. Thus, given that the adolescent
makes the decision to remain silent at her own discretion, what are the emotional and social
implications of this self-inflicted silence? That is, compared to structural silence, the motivation
to self-silence may be influenced by the interactions of others, and thus the decision to remain
silent may remain at a more private level (Nguyen et al., 2019). Thus, how do the implications
differ for self-imposed silence compared to silence imposed by the structure of authoritative and
institutional codes of conduct?
Regarding the subtleties of social interaction, researchers continue to remain challenged by
the question of how well do adolescents understand the mental states and emotions of others, and
how does this influence their sense of self-worth and preferences for socialization and silence.
To answer this question, we need to understand how adolescents co-construct their emotional
knowledge out of their social experiences. Studies suggest that the co-construction of emotion
and knowledge occurs within sociopolitical structures such as schools (Habermas et al., 2009).
Thus, to try to make sense of the role critical curiosity plays within the process of psychological
pragmatics, this chapter builds on studies that suggest curiosity experienced during times of
silence may help to drive learning, engagement, and well-being (Hulme et al., 2013; Kashdan &
Steger, 2007).
Psychological pragmatics refers to a dynamic knowledge system comprising self-views,
emotions and cognitions that undergo constant creation and re-creation through social interaction
(Bischetti et al., 2019; Bosacki, 2003). This dialogical system allows us to understand the
mental states of ourselves and others within a framework of action influenced by social and
cultural values, ideals, structures and practices. Thus, how one views and feels about one’s
value or personal worth may play an instrumental role in the co-creation of our ability to be
psychologically pragmatic. Put differently, our beliefs and feelings about our value or worth
affect how we understand and interact with others. Building on these psychocultural theories
of self-systems and social behaviour (Bandura, 2016; Harter, 2012), researchers continue to
explore the complex links between psychological pragmatics such as understanding humour and
irony (Airenti, 2016; Fritz, 2019), and self-worth within the school culture. However, further
research is needed to explore the gendered and cultured links among social cognition and social
communication within the secondary school system.
Most higher-level language educational programs often focus on the verbal components,
and promote socio-communicative skills such as speaking in front of others and conversation
skills. In contrast, few language programmes aim to sharpen critical listening and observational
skills (Bosacki, 2005, 2016; Bosacki et al., 2019). Educational programs for adolescents rarely
focus on the pragmatic or sociolinguistic skills involved in the process of social and emotional
learning (Yang et al., 2018). To date, there also remains a lack of balance between ‘intrapersonal
skills’, which involve time for periods of purposeful, silent contemplation and reflection, and
‘interpersonal skills’, such as perspective-taking within collaboration and communication,
listening and dialogue, and negotiation (Vracheva et al., 2019).
During times of purposeful solitude and social interactions, adolescents need the opportunity
to learn how they can value and embrace the importance of solitude and silence. Scheduled
independent and solitary learning time during the daily academic schedule would provide
students with the opportunity to take dedicated class time to be alone with themselves (without

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the companionship of any personal digital devices) (Twenge & Martin, 2020). Such scheduled
opportunities may provide the permission needed for students to feel comfortable enough to let
their mind wander and possibly engage in daydreaming, and imaginative and creative activities.
In addition, such scheduled solitude in schools would also provide students with the opportunity
to ‘listen to themselves’ including their thoughts, feelings and bodily sensations. Thus, as
Hildebrandt et al. (2019) suggest, we need programmes that promote emotion regulation and
management strategies through the cultivation of attention or presence, perspective and affect
such as compassion.
As noted earlier, structural or social silences may also be experienced by adolescents as
ostracism, prejudice (Capodilupo et al., 2010), and ‘being silenced’ by others. This phenomenon
of ‘feeling invisible’, or of being excluded from social interactions, is often studied within the
context of psychological harassment or bullying. Recent research also explores social silence
in terms of more nuanced hostile acts known as microaggressions. Such acts are subtle and
commonplace remarks or actions that people interpret as prejudicial, demeaning and negating
(Capodilupo et al., 2010). Examples within a secondary school classroom could involve on the
surface seemingly innocuous comments on a student’s family heritage, gender or faith orientation
by a peer or a teacher (e.g. complimenting a female for making the hockey team, or a male for
receiving a high grade in a fashion and design course). However, given the sensitivity of such
issues for particular students, such comments may be interpreted as damaging irrespective of
the speaker’s intention. Given the curricular and classroom time constraints, some teachers may
decide to refrain from addressing controversial issues in class, and thus may unknowingly silence
current topics such as issue of gender fluidity and sexual diversity (Surette, 2019).

Psychosocial Implications: Multiple Uses of Silence in Adolescence as Helpful (Prosocial)

or Harmful (Aggressive)

Given the ambiguous nature of the use of silence as a socio-communicative tool, silence can
serve as either a helpful or a harmful tool. Recent research explores the constructive uses of
solitude, and why some youth prefer to spend more time alone than with others. Building on
Dewey (1910), and Piaget’s work of intellectual development and play, Susan Engel (2011, 2015)
states how studies tend to overlook the importance of time alone, and free time in a child and
adolescent’s life. Engel discusses society’s focus on the importance of friendship and social
relationships, which in turn may help to shape adolescents’ motivations for ‘alone time’. For
example, research suggests that our knowledge of the developmental consequences of social
silences is constrained by cultural norms. Some studies suggest that in many Western societies,
shyness, social withdrawal and silences may be less acceptable for boys than for girls (Coplan
et al., 2004; Coplan & Weeks, 2009). Furthermore, compared to Western countries such as
Canada, shyness and social silences are more prevalent and carry more societal value in Eastern
countries such as China (Coplan et al., 2011). Clearly, future research is required to elucidate
these findings.
Constructive use of solitude includes silence as a means of power, reflection and self-expression
during adolescence (Coplan et al., 2019; Larson, 1997; Vracheva et al., 2019). In addition to spending
time in silence during periods of solitude, silence can also be used as a particular method in large
group situations such as schools. As vocalization is often connected to issues of power within the

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classroom, some students may feel more competent and confident than others and, thus, more likely
to use silence as a tool to convey this sense of power (Wilson & Jamison, 2019).
Silence can also serve as an unhostile means of controlling others and expressing one’s desires
(Weinstein et al., 2018). When silence serves as controlling device, it may serve as a self-protective
tool, and may help to regulate emotions in relationships without direct engagement. Silence can also
be a form of positive resistance in that it can be used to create a balance between compliance and
rebellion. Alternatively silence can create a neutral ground within a hostile relationship. For young
people raised in cultural and familial contexts that prohibit their verbal or physical aggression, silence
as a form of resistance may serve as a strategy to preserve their agency and sense of self.
Given the multicultural and multilinguistic contexts of North American adolescents’ worlds today,
many adolescents may experience sociopolitical silences within the classroom and beyond. Such
silences may occur beyond intimate relationships and extend to political silence where adolescents of
colour or ethnic minorities may strategically suspend their voices in white communities. Regarding
gender-role orientations, some transgendered or LGBTQ adolescents may use silence as political tool
to express their message within a community where the majority of the population is heterosexual and
cisgender (Capodilupo et al., 2010; Surette, 2019).
Finally, silence can be used for self-protection in situations where adolescents feel unsafe and
fearful. This safe silence may conceal as it communicates, and hide an adolescent’s anger behind a
mask whose meaning he or she can quickly change if necessary (Bosacki, 2005, 2013). For example,
recent findings from our interviews with Canadian eleven- to thirteen-year-old girls and boys showed
that adolescents who remained silent and chose not to engage in conversation with others were often
feeling upset or anxious and stressed. Silence, then, may send mixed messages to others. When
controlled, silence can be used to protect the self from psychological harm by others, or to create
a safe space within relationships in which to formulate new directions and offers possibilities for
movement and change. Thus hostile silence, controlling silence, resisting silence, political silence and
safe silence can enhance possibilities for creating change in the self and in relational patterns.
However, as a tool to invoke harm on self and/or others, silence may also send another message of
alienation, despair and hopelessness. That is, in contrast to prosocial silence, through the avoidance
of confrontation and negative emotions in relationships, aggressive silence fails to bridge social
connections to others that could lead to dialogue, reconciliation or new relational patterns. Given that
silence may send mixed messages to others, it may communicate anger and hostility, but contradicts
anger’s call for retaliation. That is, such silence may represent an angry reproachfulness towards
another person, who may be unaware of the source of the anger. Aggressive silence also suggests
an unforgiving, uncompassionate and critical harshness towards the self. Such silence is sometimes
associated with stress, anxiety, self-criticism, a lack of self-compassion and self-coldness (Bosacki
et al., 2019; Neff, 2016; Van der Gucht et al., 2018), chronic and sometimes major depression.
Research on Canadian elementary school teachers’ perceptions of children’s verbal loudness
and silent behaviour reflected stereotypic gender patterns (Coplan et al., 2011). That is, teachers
were more likely to rate quietness and silence in girls as positive, and loudness or exuberance as
problematic, whereas the opposite pattern was found for boys (e.g. loud boys/silent girls – good:
silent boys/loud girls – bad). Regarding our past research on Canadian adolescents’ views of
talking and listening with their friends and family members, more girls compared to boys felt that
sometimes remaining silent was more effective in social relationships than talking as often many
felt ignored or silenced when they did speak (Bosacki, 2013).

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Gender differences in social and emotion understanding and experiences of silence, then, may
reflect differences in students’ stereotypic gender-role ascriptions such as femininity and masculinity
(Bosacki et al., 2020). That is, guided by their own emotional scripts that have been co-constructed
through social interactions with their parents and others (e.g. siblings, peers, teachers), adolescents’
experiences of silence may reflect gender-role stereotypes, resulting in observable gender differences
(Bosacki et al., 2018). Parents and teachers, therefore, who endorse such stereotypic views towards
gender and sexuality may have an indirect influence on the development of their child’s social-
communicative abilities and mental health (Bosacki et al., 2015; Yarnell et al., 2019).
Given the crucial role teachers and parents play in both the gender-role socialization and
co-construction of adolescents’ social cognitive and linguistic abilities (Recchia et al., 2019),
surprisingly few studies explore the links between teachers’ and peers’ perceptions of gender-
role and adolescents’ emotion understanding and socio-communicative abilities. The majority of
studies either (1) investigate parent–child conversations, or (2) parents’ beliefs and expectations
of their child’s emotional development but not of gender-role behaviour in adolescence (Fivush
& Wang, 2005). Although some research findings show that parents’ beliefs and expectations
about emotional development are gender specific (Dolichan et al., 2018), findings on parent–
adolescent and teacher–student emotion talk are mixed (Kwon et al., 2019).
For example, some studies show that mothers and teachers (mainly female) tend to talk more
about emotions with girls (Coplan et al., 2009; Fivush & Wang, 2005), and focus more on emotion
and mental state words (Taumpoepeau et al., 2019). In contrast, some studies show that adult talk
with boys (compared to girls) focuses more on the causes or explanations of emotions, and less,
overall, about emotions themselves (Zaman & Fivush, 2013). For example, past studies show
that girls are more likely than boys to discuss emotions with adults, especially sadness (Recchia
et al., 2019). In contrast, a recent meta-analysis of gender differences in parent–child emotion
talk found no gender difference across thirty-four studies of mother–child (one to twelve years
of age) emotion talk across diverse cultures and socio-economic statuses (Aznar & Tenenbaum,
2019; Dolichan et al., 2018). Such findings have implications for the socialization of emotions,
as well as for the use of silences in conversations, particularly within the classroom.
Research on gender-related differences in experiences of silence and social and emotion
understanding remains inconsistent and fairly scarce (especially with regard to adolescents’
understanding of complex, self-conscious emotions such as remorse and shame). More recently,
researchers have moved the focus from the exploration of between-genders to within gender
and gender similarities versus differences (Kwon et al., 2019; Nielson et al., 2019). Given the
constantly changing definitions of gender and gender fluidity, such an approach to exploring
silences and gender within adolescence may be useful.

Implications for Practice and Future Directions

Silence, Social Cognition and Mental Health

To summarize, adolescents’ experiences of solitude and social interactions often involve emotional
exchanges where they practice emotion and language in play and in competition. In this section I
will provide some strategies to help teachers utilize events that entail play and competition to help
further the development of emotional competence in terms of either silent or verbal contexts. The
integration of social and emotional education in gender practice with adolescents underscores

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the dynamic complexity, fluidity and continuity of the formation of a social and private self. That
is, I will consider the ways in which emotion practice and students’ mental health are affected by
language, gender and ethnicity (and vice versa) during the school hours.

Positive Psychology and Compassionate Mindfulness Movement

Another area of research that may illuminate the connections between the experiences of silence and
mental health in adolescents includes studies on the concept of mindfulness and self-compassion (Van
Doesum et al., 2019), flow and positive thinking (Csikszentmihalyi, 1990). This branch of humanistic
psychology focuses on the ability to flourish by combining resilience with optimism (Seligman,
2011), and provides an area for collaboration regarding cognition and spiritual and/or religious
experiences. Supporting evidence from neuroscience shows that flow or optimal experiences may
have a neurological basis and suggests an altered state of consciousness (Feuerborn & Gueldner, 2019;
Galla, 2016). Research on flow as well as mindfulness shows that adolescents who report experiences
of flow and high levels of mindfulness are more likely to experience a greater sense of psychological
well-being and successful academic achievement (Van der Gucht et al., 2018).
Given the more contemporary, broader concepts of mental health, the notion of happiness
and subjective well-being may also provide researchers with some answers to the inner, spiritual
world of adolescents. For example, recent examples from our ongoing longitudinal research on
social cognition and mental health in Canadian adolescents (eleven to seventeen years) show
that high levels of students’ mindfulness link to high levels of self-compassion and perceived
self-worth (Bosacki et al., 2018). In addition, Assor et al. (2019) found that eighteen- to nineteen-
year-old adolescents’ well-being improved through reflective authentic inner-compass facilitation
programs that promoted examination of one’s authentic inner values through times of silence
and contemplation. Thus, positive psychology is an area for future research that illustrates the
complex links between adolescents’ experiences of silence, mindful reflection and well-being
(Christodoulou et al., 2019).

School and Classroom Culture – Connections between Culture and Cognition

As educators, we need to explore the emotional worlds of mixed heritage youth and how their
experiences of silences differ from those raised in a uniethnic home. The increasing prevalence
and asserted presence of mixed-race youth demand a critical examination of our ways of talking
about and studying race and ethnicity in schools. Educational and research programmes need
to allow for fluidity and multiplicity regarding racial-ethnic identification. A culture or climate
of mutual respect, caring and sensitivity is one that helps to promote prosocial attitudes and
behaviours including acceptance of and respect for differences. The tacit and explicit social
norms and rules that govern sociolinguistic behaviours in the school setting help to define what
is acceptable and unacceptable treatment of individuals.
Given that school life reflects how our world is becoming increasingly global and diverse,
adolescents are likely to meet and interact with others whose race, ethnicity and family backgrounds
differ from their own (Surette, 2019). In addition to race and ethnicity, other differences such as
gender, social class, physical characteristics and sexual orientations may serve as focal points for
conflict and intolerance among adolescents. As our society grows in multi-ethnicity, the need is
great for developmentally appropriate and inclusive curricula that promote tolerance and respect
for differences.

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Irrespective of educational programmes, school must provide an inclusive and developmentally

appropriate learning culture or climate that promotes a sense of mutual respect, connection and
caring, compassion and inclusion (Jazaieri et al., 2018). It is an imperative that educators and
researchers help students, especially in secondary schools, to develop a set of values and standards
that promote acceptance of diversity, and eliminate insensitive and intolerant behaviour in the
classroom (Surette, 2019). The emotional school climate needs to reflect the collective values and
standards of interpersonal relationships and interactions that promote the communicative value
of silence, as well as the spoken word.
For example, recent findings show how a kind and motivational emotional tone of the teacher’s
voice can have a positive impact on students’ academic competence (Weinstein et al., 2018). Such
findings encourage educators to be aware of the nonverbal signs they emit to their students,
including tone of voice and body language. Thus, a climate of mutual respect and compassion for
all, regardless of group and individual differences, is crucial to help young people develop into
competent and compassionate adults who exhibit moral responsibility.
As we enter into the third decade of the twenty-first century, together with rapid technological
advancements, educators and researchers need to take the time to promote the ideal connection
between ethics and excellence and culture and cognition. To promote school engagement and
well-being, as technology continues to speed up, the challenge for educators and students in
the 2020s will be to slow down the process of learning and take the time necessary to develop
meaningful and trustworthy relationships.

Conclusions

Drawing on the literature outlined in the previous sections, findings are mixed concerning the
link between adolescents’ experiences of silence and mental health. For example, higher levels of
understanding of others’ mental states may also be related to higher levels of emotional sensitivity
that may lead one to feel psychologically isolated and vulnerable (Bosacki et al., 2019). Given
the constructive value of solitude in that it may promote reflection and self-regulation (Larson,
1997; Nguyen et al., 2018), more research is needed to explore the motivations for adolescents
to be silent and alone. Motivations to engage in constructive solitude may include the need to
reflect and create which is more likely to lead to feelings of well-being, self-compassion and
happiness (Bosacki et al., 2019; Nguyen et al., 2019). In contrast, the motivation for reactive
solitude is usually due to fear, social avoidance and dissatisfaction, and often relates to increased
feelings of loneliness and depression (Bosacki et al., 2019; Marcoen et al., 1987), Thus, more
research is needed to explore the potential harms and benefits of remaining silent in the high-
school classroom.
Given the nuanced and knotty social and cultural rules of secondary school life, to preserve
students’ mental health and well-being, educators and researchers need to help adolescents to
navigate the silences. That is, youth need to learn how to decide when and where to speak up, and
to whom. They also need to learn to decide what to speak on. Especially in this information- and
noise-saturated society, adolescents should be taught to learn how to savour, instead of shun, the
silence in their school life. Thus, to this day, Roman emperor Claudius’s 2,000-year-old statement
‘Say not always what you know, but always know what you say’ (Claudius, Roman emperor,
10 BCE–CE 54) remains wise advice.

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 12

Creativity, Concentration and Silence

Teresa Olearczyk

Introduction

The twentieth century began, and the twenty-first century continues a new era in the history of
humanity – the era of chaos and noise. A person fascinated by technology and new possibilities
loses the balance between attractive modernity and nature and peace. Generally speaking, we live in
an era not only of a peculiar confusion, chaos, accelerated changes of ‘everyone and everything’ –
in many cases irrational and uncontrolled, with its consequences that are not completely
predictable, or even unimaginable; we live in a civilization not only of unsettling wilderness
and not sufficiently chosen development paths, a civilization of ‘spectacle, manipulation and
violence’, unprecedented technological and IT progress, increased technocratization and
mechanization of life, converting almost everything into profit, the universal requirement of
profitability and economy but also – and above all – in times of universal crisis; crisis in almost
all spheres of human life and activity (Ricoeur, 1990).
Noise and chaos are the most symptomatic of our epoch, but still insufficiently perceived as dangerous
and disturbing, and even deliberately concealed and neglected phenomena. With omnipresent noise,
even on a ‘desert island’ we are no longer alone, and thanks to the newest communication technology
we belong to a global village. We live next to each other, not with each other. We have more and more
friends, but less and less relationships based on mutual understanding, trust and closeness. Thanks to
the internet, we have a false impression of closeness and existence in a global community. We create
a world that is increasingly difficult for us to live in. Many have rediscovered, following Kierkegaard
(1990), the value of silence, as a remedy for inner diseases. Many publications about silence are
published, ‘Houses of Silence’ are opened, offering silence and calmness (including the one in Tyniec),
and many books on silence appear in bookshops, which is an expression of longing for silence. Many
have discovered the healing effect of silence and practice of Eastern meditation techniques (Grun,
2019). Internal calmness promotes concentration and creativity, and reduces the level of emotional
tension of children and adults.
As an escape from noise that has recently become quite common, meditation appears in many
versions, including Christian meditation (Christie, 2012), participation in the Ignatian retreat,
 Creativity, Concentration and Silence

the journey of young people to Taize. There are many meditation centres and many books on this
subject (Kaplan, 2015; Main, 2016; Thích, 2008). John Paul II, in his speech to educators and
parents, said, ‘it is essential that the child be guided to a real and profound inner silence, which is
the first condition for listening’ (John Paul II, 1984).
Understanding and appreciating silence comes with age, which does not mean that children
and teenagers do not need silence. On the contrary, silence is necessary – because it allows
people to control excessive emotions, has a positive effect on the nervous system, gives rest to
confused thoughts and helps to choose the life path. Chaos clearly hinders the full and multilateral
development of a person; reduces the quality of functioning and interpersonal relations; and
inhibits the full development of personality, mental and spiritual potential. The lack of silence is
felt more and more; it is time to raise a rebellion over the dictatorship of noise.

Silence and Keeping Silent

Reflection on what silence is, and on its social context, is extremely topical (Olearczyk 2010,
2014, 2016). Both silence and keeping silent refer to people as unique beings, individually
experiencing life. Silence has a positive effect on the development of the individual; favours
concentration, reflection and creativity; allows communing with oneself and is mentally and
socially beneficial.
When noise triumphs, silence escapes. A new perspective on silence as a positive phenomenon
that opens up thoughts and hearts is needed. Silence is an essential element in the life of every
human being; it enables concentration, protects against loss of identity and promotes creation and
creativity. If you want to get to know yourself and understand yourself, your identity, you need to
remain silent and go deeper. In important moments of life, silence becomes our necessity. A silent
person has a much greater ability to listen.
However, although silence and keeping silent can sometimes be difficult, they allow for self-
recognition, they show reality that is sometimes hidden. Reflecting in silence makes us begin
to get to know and form ourselves, our space, consciously selecting elements that, mixed in
our individual space, will shape our world. In order to be able to perceive the reality that we
create more clearly, it is necessary to know the truth about ourselves, drawing on the source
of the benefits brought by silence and keeping silent. The thought of self-recognition and self-
acceptance penetrates deeply into the truth about humanity. Both self-recognition and self-
acceptance, occurring during silence or keeping silent, move people towards balance, helping
them achieve inner peace, a sense of balance and harmony.
Silence, just like keeping silent, is not emptiness, it is subject to praxeological, psychological
and ethical evaluation – it is not indifferent; it can be positive or negative, depending on the
intention and context used. Christian education, which became the basis of the tradition of
European education, introduced the formation and development of the spirit (Pius XI’s
Encyclical on the Christian Education of Youth). Silence leads to reflective thinking, the
ability of self-control and control of emotions, helps in asking questions about own existence
or searching for the meaning of life. In getting to know and introducing silence, the key
role should be played by family upbringing and school education, as a conscious process of
the person’s development and changes in social relations (Czerepaniak-Walczak, 1999: 8).
Silence is conducive to activities such as the ability to control oneself and proper interpersonal
communication; it is helpful in making well-thought-out, own choices and decisions

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(Czerepaniak-Walczak, 2005:11). Meeting another person is impossible without controlling

own silence (Sarah, 2017: 77).
Pedagogy puts great emphasis on recognizing what constitutes the image of contemporary
education and participation in social life. The point is to look at the value of silence, the problems
and anxieties, and the hopes of modern people. Pedagogy is based on an integral and personalistic
vision of a human being at the centre of social life. As conditions for genuine participation, it
recognizes respect for personal dignity, recognition of the right to education, upbringing, taking
up duties, a culture of behaviour and freedom.
The diversity of contemporary knowledge about the need for silence and the harmfulness
of noise encourages us to ask questions about the role of silence and meta-reflection over it.
Silence cannot be read only as a normative requirement; it must be referred to the justification for
introducing it, including it in the educational and creative process, as it is necessary in creativity,
in the culture of words, images and sounds.

Need for Silence as a Source of Creative Thinking

Creativity (from Latin – creatus) as a mental process involving the emergence of new ideas,
concepts, new associations, connections with already existing ideas and concepts is associated
with silence. Creativity is one of the most interesting features of the human mind. Thanks to it,
we can create philosophical works, physical theories or works of art. Although the number of
creative works over the centuries is unimaginable, psychological research on the phenomenon
of creativity began relatively recently, while the problem of creating one’s self in relation to
perfection is rarely undertaken in pedagogy. Creativity is not limited to science and art. We can
be creative on various levels: family, social and professional.
It is important to look for non-obvious solutions to problems, break away from limitations
and go beyond the pattern of action and thinking that is typical for us. So, creativity is the art
of unusual and effective solving of life, social and artistic tasks and problems. Creative silence
is solitude, free from fear. The creation itself is an absolute and unique value. The possibility
of accomplishing a work can evoke very positive thoughts. Silence also contains an element of
tension and surprise that can be felt in contrast to its inconspicuousness, supporting the process of
creation. Many experts of creative thinking believe that creativity is a continuous trait. Everyone
has it, but to a different degree. In other words: some people are more creative, others less, but
everyone has some ability to think creatively. I am also a supporter of this egalitarian concept of
creativity, an idea for improving ourselves and the surrounding reality.
As children, we are all creative, it is enough to look at how a child behaves while doing a creative
activity – the child is focused, involved in creative projects (e.g. moulding from plasticine, painting,
arranging rhymes) and finding new uses for objects (e.g. a tent made of two chairs and the blanket),
how the child reacts when we disturb in creativity – we disturb the silence of creation. The child
learns quickly and has a great desire to explore the world. Most people become less creative as they
age. It is worth asking yourself first, what limits our creativity (noise, chaos, excessive haste)? Are
these mainly external or internal factors (e.g. the belief that I am not creative ‘by nature’)?
Many have enormous potential, competences and creativity, but fatigue, distraction, an
excessive amount of stimuli, contacts, disenable focus, reflection and creativity. Art is the fruit
of reflection in silence: delight, admiration and silence work in conjunction with each other.

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Therefore, it will be absurd to talk about creativity in noise, while active life preceded by silence
gives excellent results. In the physical dimension, a person can only find a respite in silence, so
we go to the mountains, listen to the sound of the sea, look for quiet places, because the silence
of big cities is unattainable even at night.

Solitude, Thinking, Creativity

Solitude is often noticed negatively, confused with loneliness. We cannot cope with loneliness
when we have a vibrating interior, the noise outside causes us to forget about the strength and
power that is in us, which can be released by the silence of loneliness. Solitude does not mean
isolation, but being with ourselves, constantly getting to know ourselves, reaching the depths
of our personality, for example in prayer meetings with one’s God. Solitude changes the optics
of looking at oneself and the world; many things change their meaning, minimize themselves,
become secondary or unnecessary, so the character of a person changes. Being in the silence of
solitude should be learned every day; it is the best regeneration of physical, mental and spiritual
strength. Robert Sarah writes: ‘Silence and solitude are places of spiritual warfare . . . they must
be protected against all parasitic noise’ (Sarah, 2017: 124).
In people’s actions and decisions, the person is always alone (sometimes after consulting,
but always alone), takes action and is responsible for the words and actions taken or not taken.
Solitude gives us the time that takes away the noise and external chaos of our everyday life.
Silence is a human right, it is necessary for individual development and the experience of
personal separateness. The perception of the external world is more and more dependent on
images, on visual sensitivity over text and content. Therefore, it is worth considering whether the
richness of forms and content is an opportunity for education and upbringing or creating needs.
Silence and solitude create a specific bond that fosters creativity. The shared silence of solitude
between loved ones is filled with understanding and exchange of thoughts; it is silence with
understanding. The noisiness of the conversation prevents attention.
Silence is not unproductive, it is creative – the Holy Spirit, as it were, acts silently, and does
great things. The loneliness of maturing requires focus and intellectual effort; it gives rise to
ways of solving various issues. There is a certain inconsistency in a person – duality, a crack and
sometimes a tear, the need of solitude, to resonate in the silence of the ‘broken self’. It is usually
a conscious choice of the individual.

The Sphere of Silence and Keeping Silent

There is a lack of listening skills in which people can’t hear their own interior, meet themselves,
learn the power and strength within themselves. Undoubtedly, Socrates was right when he
repeated the Delphic maxim ‘know yourself’, which is possible in the silence of the solitude we
have within. The lack of silence is tiring and does not allow people to stop over the meaning of
their destiny, their creativity.
All kinds of habits and addictions are a serious threat to silence and our concentration. More
and more people (and what’s wrong, children and adolescents) use the help of psychologists,
psychiatrists, therapists, forgetting about the possibilities of the silence of their own interior.
Silence brings relief to the overloaded, even crowded human mind. Many professions, especially
creative ones, require working alone. The trick is to remain lonely among people, not distancing

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them at the same time, but bringing them closer to each other, appreciating creativeness and
creative solitude as an act of choice.

In Silence and Solitude

Solitude, the same as silence, accompanies a person from the very beginning. The problem of
solitude was noticed already in antiquity. The following wrote about it: Epictetus, Seneca, Cicero,
Master Eckhart, Petrarch, de Montaigne, Pascal, Bacon, Hume, Rousseau, Voltaire, Mandeville,
Burke, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Tillich, Levinas, Guardini, Bergson. One can also find the
problem of loneliness in the existentialism of Kierkegaard, Jaspers, Marcel, Camus, Shestov,
Buber and Cioran. We observe this phenomenon of human existence in the philosophy of the
twentieth century; it is also considered from a psychological point of view, and then we do not ask
about the essence of solitude, but about the accompanying experiences, reflections and emotional
preferences. Solitude opens up memory, the deepest layers of experience, allows one to look
closely and from a distance, and multiplies spiritual strength. There are times of solitude in our
community life, and sometimes we even experience loneliness.

Understanding Solitude and Experiencing Solitude – these two concepts are synonymous,
but not monosemous, because solitude is closely related to both biological and psychological
predispositions, as well as to the volitional and creative sphere.

Creativity – one of the areas of mental activity – seems to be a good way, but it is difficult to close
it within a rigid framework. The creative process is anchored in the imagination and experiences of
the individual, in personal sensitivity. The student can use the freedom of creativity, imagination,
freedom of action aimed at development. For many years, realism in the field of creation has
been abandoned; there is no longer any doubt that imagination, reflection and individual activity
are important in creating. The concept of creative potential is equated by researchers of creativity
with creativeness understood as the ability of a person to generate (invent) new and valuable ideas
(brainwaves, concepts, solutions) (Szmidt, 2010: 8). According to this approach, creativity refers
to the activity of the subject, to its causative activity bringing new value (Szmidt, 2010: 8–10).
Creative silence brings a new value – thought, work.
It is enough to look at the works of Krzysztof Penderecki, Vincent Van Gogh and Jan Matejko,
whose creative achievements in a specific style and time are the result of solitary work in silence
and solitude, as pointed out by Edward Nęcka (Nęcka, 2001: 11). ‘For a pedagogue, psychologist,
what matters is the creative process and the personality of the person (child), the subject of such
activity, not whether its products are new to others, and whether this potential brings something
new to science, art or culture’ (Nęcka, 2001: 19–23). The sheer creation, reflection and thought
are important. It is not difficult to see that it is necessary to create circumstances, opportunities
and conditions in which the student could develop and grow. Hence, in the literature, there are
numerous reflections on the activities of educators and teachers, among others: ‘the task of
educators is to properly shape the personality factors of the pupil, awakening his [sic] spirituality,
so that it can dominate the whole, and on this basis, forming the full humanity in a comprehensively
developed human personality’ (Kunowski, 2001: 26).
In pedagogical activities, the importance of silence and activity in both preschool and school
education should be emphasized, in the activities of the peer group, family and the wider social

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environment. Teachers’ self-reflection on the meaning of the right balance between human
activity and silence, silencing, nonspeech and contemplation should be aroused. The challenge
facing the educator is to stimulate self-reflection. Danuta Czelakowska notes:
creative activity is creating something original, useful and socially valuable in the field
of art, music, literature, etc. – it is an objective understanding of the concept. And in the
subjective sense, creative activity is the production of something new and valuable for
oneself, i.e. new knowledge, skills, beliefs, as well as new verbal, musical, artistic products,
etc. (Czelakowska, 1996)
The value of silence is most appreciated by artists who are aware of the importance of entering
silence and the impact of creativity and focus. Silence and solitude enable the creator to perfect
oneself and one’s work.1 The artists show a strong need for a space where, calm, they would turn
to the inner world, talk with their ideas. The poet Rainer Maria Rilke, who considered silence to
be an essential component of poetry, knew about the need for such a space. According to him, it
is thanks to silence that words can ‘act in all the breadth and fullness of meaning’ in the work;
only in this way, through silence and in silence, is it possible to ‘fully imagine the song of life’
(Farkašová, 2009: 121). If you listen to the experimental works of John Cage, it is easy to feel
what value this composer of silence ascribed as a space that allows external sound signals to
itself, but at the same time leaves space for the imagination of the audience and attracts (one
might even say: seduces) it with its ‘emptiness’.
The phenomenon of silence (keeping silent) and its various realizations can also be found in
contemporary literature. But this is a separate topic that requires a broader study.

Silence and Keeping Silent as a Way to the Development of the Human Being

Silence consolidates everything into one whole – it brings people closer to their God, it combines
what is ancient and humanistic, what is active and what is creative. ‘Silence’ as a category has
not lost its importance, even though it was present already in ancient times. The idea of silence
exists and functions in both public and intellectual discourse. Due to its interdisciplinary nature,
the topic of silence is analysed from a philosophical, psychological, pedagogical, moral and legal
perspective.
For the ancients, being silent was not a problem. It was easy for the initiated to enter into broad
expanse, areas of fauna, green space, psychological and physical space, without noisy tools. For
centuries, education has been close to nature, in low-density areas, close to the family, surrounded
by the silence and sounds of nature. Monasteries were places of organized silence zones, but the
need for silence as a tool for human development was also respected by pedagogues. Korczak
organized a ‘silent room’, Montessori conducted lessons of silence, contemporary Benedictines
in the Tyniec monastery conducted Christian meditation in silence and many schools, also in
Poland, introduce meditation for their students. We can see the need for silence in more and more
aspects of our lives: ‘quiet zones’ are being implemented in trains and planes.
‘Pure’ silence is impossible to survive, that is why I would like to look at silence in the
context of diverse cultural phenomena which, together with artistic elements, include the space
of intellectual discourse. I would like to reflect upon what made silence a deficient article,
despite being one of the most important human needs? How do silence and solitude affect human
development? What is the relation between silence and solitude (chosen, creative, reflective)? For

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this purpose, I will explain the meaning of silence and the difference between silence in terms of
quiet noise and in terms of keeping silent. The first kind of silence – silent hush – continues to
fascinate and divide scientists. I will deliberately ignore the negative aspects of silence, as they
do not serve the integral development of the person, and I will focus on the positive influence
of silence on personal development. Reaching the depths, I would like to focus on the following
aspects:

(1) Culture of chaos and noise;

(2) The concept of silence and keeping silent;
(3) The phenomenon of silence;
(4) Types of silence;
(5) Need for silence;
(6) Silence, the way to personal development.

Silence as a fathomless phenomenon continues to fascinate and divide scientists. The quality
of the silence is that it is not heard. Silence can be identified with the state of peace and inner
balance. That is why the saints encouraged contemplation and meditation.
The concept of a social agreement, a communal social living, requires respect for silence
understood as a calming distraction, a state of harmony and peace of mind. Being silent can also
be associated with the Absolute. The limits of silence are defined by autonomy, that is, to be
subject only to the laws that we have set for ourselves. Frankl, the father of logotherapy – healing
through ‘meaning’ – wrote in his book Man’s Search for Meaning (2006) that happiness is always
a by-product of an act of kindness. To undertake any activity, that means, to get involved in
human activities, there is a need to think and focus, which are both associated with silence.
In forming and educating people, it is essential to establish boundaries. First, it is necessary to
set boundaries and then teach the children freedom, leave them with more and more space to act.
It must be taught that there are consequences of excessive noise, excessive freedom and excessive
tolerance; that everything in life has its place, its time and its context to be considered.

Life in Times of Cultural Chaos and Noise

Living in a specific historical time allows us to look at silence from a contemporary perspective.
Formerly omnipresent, today destroyed, unwanted, misunderstood, but at the same time urgently sought
after. The unprecedented dynamic development of science, technology and media, all are related to
noise and contribute to many changes both in nature and human behaviour. The faster pace of life and
the will to possess, the uncertainty of tomorrow intensify the anxiety of modern people. Under the
influence of noise, anxiety arises in the human mind – a fact already noted by ancient philosophers
who taught peace and balanced wisdom. They spoke not only with words but also with silence.
External factors, such as the number and movement of vehicles and people, contribute to
the feeling of disorientation, excessive nervousness, aggression and a feeling of loneliness. A
person locked in a space full of rush, a mess of mechanical sounds, bombarded with an excess of
information that is often mutually exclusive, forgets that human life is limited by time, and this
fact obliges us to reflect on the meaning and quality of our life (Woolf, 2013). There are more
devices and goods of all kinds around people, and consequently the tiredness of modern people
living in the chaos of everyday life is noticeable.

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Silence and Keeping Silent in Literature

The lack of an unambiguous definition of the concept of silence and keeping silent causes
difficulties in discourse. Accurate translations of terms cause some difficulties, confusion and
misuse of terms. However, we must recognize the fact that we can remain silent even when there
is noise; nevertheless, it kills the silence and harms the human being. Silence has the power to
emphasize spoken words and provides a space for concentration of meanings. By being silent, we
consider what has already been said or is about to be said. In some cases, keeping quiet is more
meaningful than the loudest words. Silence can ‘scream’ – we use the saying ‘silence is ringing
in the ears’. Words can express untruth, a lie, while silence can’t.
Silence can also be a special way of talking through body language as communication shifts
from verbal to silent. In Dostoyevsky’s novel The Brothers Karamazov (2002), the silence of the
main character says much more than any verbal statement. In the story of the Grand Inquisitor,
Dostoyevsky puts Christ in the position of a silent listener. Jesus does not speak at all, and his
silence can be understood as a gesture of deep focus on the words of the opponent, leading to
empathetic insight into his thoughts. But it may also indicate the awareness that the refutation of
the Inquisitor’s belief cannot be put into words properly.
Woolf, the English writer and essayist, in her writings, has devoted much space to silence
(silence, breaks, pauses) sealed by the symbolic order of words she has inserted into the narrative.
That way, she does not take silence as a synonym for ‘absence’ or ‘desertion’, but uses silence
as a special form of representing ‘Being’s existence’. Using silence or ‘keeping silent’ as means
of communication, she describes her characters more clearly than by describing their external
features. Thanks to silence (suspending dialogues, gestures or appearance replacing words,
ingenious punctuation systems), characters communicate better than when they use words. The
characters often emphasize that ‘it was impossible to say’ and, alternatively, ‘many things were
left unspoken’.
Silence is often presented as the final resort – the person is silent in the face of a mystery,
pointing to something that cannot be explained in discursive language. There are many different
types of silence. ‘Silence can take many forms. There is silence of those who have nothing to
say, silence of despair, silence filled with love and miracle. There is also silence of those who
do not have courage to speak, stay calm while others suffer and die’ (Lash, 2009: 72). There
is also silence caused by extreme experience, strong feelings and emotions, silence caused by
cowardice, silence in the face of evil. Of course, there may also just be the silence of emptiness.
Sartre (1988), the French playwright and philosopher, did not locate silence in some supra-
linguistic realm or as opposed to language, but rather as a phenomenon of language. Silence does
not have to mean a denial of the voice, a negation of ‘presence’. On the contrary, it is possible to
find in silence a place of great creative potential, and the potential rises up without the noise of
rocket engines (Farkašová, 2009).

The Need for Silence in Many Forms

Modern people have a great need for a physical and mental space in which it is possible to enter
their own inner worlds. Both the need for silence and its continued existence depend on human
maturity. Silence is different for a student, it is different for a teacher, it is somehow different for
a politician and it has a different meaning for a creator or an elderly person. The space of silence

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can be filled with external sounds of nature, birds singing, the sound of a stream, sound signals
and at the same time there is a place for imagination, reflection on listening to the words of others
and our brain is intensely looking for a solution to the situation in which we find ourselves.
Medieval monasteries are indeed model examples of the interdependence of time, silence and
a place where the rhythmically measured time played an important role in the functions of the
holy space. Today we are saturated with conversations, phone calls, radios and televisions, not to
mention the latest technological gadgets that provide noisy entertainment: tablets, iPods, music,
sharp sounds of various technical devices. Jacek Filek points out that relative silence has many
forms. Due to the nature of the ‘before’, ‘after’ and ‘in between’ events, silence assumes different
shapes. The silence is different ‘before the storm’ and different ‘after the storm’. Silence can also
appear as a pause (Filek, 2014).
Silence is not a monolith, there are various dimensions of silence:

●● External silence is a condition for hearing the other person’s voice, but also becomes a
challenge for us.
●● Inner silence is an object of inner listening, it is necessary for the spiritual development
of the human being; the condition of listening to the voice of conscience, for some, the
voice of God. It becomes a part of us, it is the opposite of the cry of desires, the struggle of
emotions. It helps to regenerate strength, both psychological and physical.
●● Silence of dialogue – understanding without words, such silence may exist between people
close to each other, expressing attitudes and feelings through gestures.
●● Pantomime is an act without words, a play.
●● Threatening silence means ‘silent treatment’ – silence as a way of showing anger, it is a
form of speech. Being silent, keeping the moment of silence can be very significant (Filek,
2014).
●● Silence as a space of inner freedom (internal emigration).
●● Absolute silence is the silence of death in which we have no participation.

We have an intuitive awareness of the value of silence for human development, but we recognize
it only when we begin to long for silence. The value of silence is mostly appreciated by artists for
whom it is a prerequisite for their work. This group is the most aware that entering into silence
and isolation is associated with concentration and creative solitude.

Solitude and Loneliness

It frequently happens that solitude is mistakenly treated as loneliness, while the difference is
fundamental. In social sciences, solitude is often understood as isolation, which entails the lack
of emotional and social contacts with others, as a threat; however, it can be and is a chance for
the proper mental development of a person. In fact, each stage of human life requires a certain
rhythm of contact and solitude. The sciences dealing with solitude and loneliness have not yet
developed a common, transparent, unambiguous and precise terminology. Many authors talk
about solitude in terms such as ‘loneliness’, ‘isolation’, ‘separation’ and ‘aloneness’.
Kmiecik-Baran (1988), on the basis of many research projects on the phenomenon of
solitude, says that ‘loneliness can be situational or related to a person’s character’ and ‘situational

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loneliness occurs when the person has been cut off from the family, partner or close friends by
fate’ (Kmiecik-Baran, 1988: 1080). It can be an occasional bodily response due to an inability
to maintain the desired social interactions (due to the specific situation), and it can change over
time as the situation changes. Situational loneliness is often called ‘existential loneliness’ in
American literature and is considered an unavoidable part of human experience. Similarly, Weiss
(1973) distinguishes between emotional and social loneliness. Emotional loneliness is caused
by the inability to establish close interactions with the chosen person. This type of loneliness
is connected with the loss of a loved one caused by death or relationship breakup. On the other
hand, social loneliness is the result of not having a group of friends to share experiences and
common interests.
According to Sochaczewska, ‘loneliness is a sad feeling accompanied by anxiety, fear, and a
sense of threat’ (Sochaczewska, 1987: 162–3). However, loneliness can be a choice free from fear
because it is an act of human will, a personal decision about solitude, conscious exclusion from
others for a specified period of time. The ancient Greeks had two terms to express this reality:
‘monose’, signifying solitude, and ‘monachia’, signifying isolation. On the other hand, Latin
gave an even more precise distinction between the two terms: loneliness, solitude/solitaria and
isolation (alienation). In Polish we have ‘solitude’ (a state created by introverted self-reflection)
and ‘loneliness’ (a state/sense of abandonment and rejection), ‘isolation’ (a state of being apart,
separated from others) and ‘alienation’ (a state of alienation, a sense of being ‘different’, not
one of the group, doomed to isolation and rejection). Each of these terms has a different, unique
meaning and connotation. Undoubtedly, each in some way relates to what we generally call
‘solitude’ (Domeracki, 2006: 17).
Solitude, being alone by choice, means that we can always come out of it and come back to
it, while loneliness is understood as isolation, associated with exclusion, marginalization, and
being forgotten by others. It is true, however, that isolation can make us feel lonely, but not by
choice. Solitude, noticed as a physical and spiritual separation, is a protection of intimacy. It is a
condition for freedom, mutual assistance and creating unity (Ślęczek-Czakon, 2006: 511). Both
solitude and isolation are related to silence. However, the silence of isolation is heavy, prevents
development and can be painful.

Positive Aspects of Silence: Creative Silence

The diverse approach to silence and keeping silent makes us aware of the actual state of affairs, and
thus draws our attention to various challenges, while sensitizing us to the creative value and effort
that should be put into enforcing elements of silence in the education process. The insignificance
of our life from the perspective of the outer space, and yet its uniqueness, incomprehensibility
and fragility, provoke us to consider how to live the best in the most useful and reasonable way.
To be able to do this, there is a necessity to introduce silence into the maturation process of the
human being.
Learning to be with ourselves and dialogue with our own ‘I’ allows the inner ‘I’ to meet the outer
‘I’. These are the conditions necessary for the analysis of life mistakes as well as opportunities
inherent in human nature. This fact causes many challenges and changes. In this perspective,
silence and keeping silent take the appropriate rank and become an important element of human
life. Realizing both the need and importance of silence allows us to better understand what role

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it plays in creating our lives. Both silence and noise reach the brain through the ear, causing
specific changes (beneficial, calming or destructive in the case of noise). The ear is awake, so it
listens and hears sounds that the brain processes even when we are asleep.
Skilful use of silence, the ability to combine with sound (not to be confused with noise),
contributes to emotional and spiritual development and is also an expression of the culture of
being. Therefore, silence should be introduced as a method of self-discipline, control over one’s
own emotions, a space for silence in dialogue, which can be a certain horizon for reflection on
actions in order to provide personal development. It seems that such a broad approach allows
us to find a common denominator for various concepts, and at the same time clearly reveals the
essential dimensions of silence and keeping silent, which should be reduced to the purposefulness
of interaction, which implies not only prior reflection, but also having the necessary knowledge
about a person and externalities of interaction, which in turn requires the existence of objective
patterns and various types of stimuli. In both cases, it is about the development of a person not
only in the physical, but also psycho-spiritual and creative spheres.
Education is the most important in shaping a person’s development and therefore should be
given special attention. Any theory of education must necessarily answer the basic question about
the purpose of education – exerting an influence from outside, initiating the real development of
a child or young person.

Silence as a Relation between Physical and Spiritual Life

Montessori (1985), Steiner (1924) and (in a negative, punitive form) Herbart (1850) all pointed
to the coexistence of movement and silence as essential elements in education. Silence facilitates
well-adjusted behaviour by balancing the processes of stimulation and inhibition. The first source
of silence is nature, the experience of peace, opening to another dimension of existence and a
new perspective of reality. The second source of silence is the experience of creativity. Finally,
the third source from which silence comes is the possibility of an encounter with God. The
silence of the meeting is something extremely important, it stimulates new ways of perceiving
and expressing yourself.
The need for silence arises when we want to be alone with ourselves, we need to work, create,
rest, think. The lack of the necessary silence is often caused by the excess of words we say. It
is worth containing the talkativeness, thinking before uttering and choosing the right words.
Silence, like the air we breathe and the water we drink, is an essential element in the life of every
human being. Our body needs it as much as it needs oxygen and water. We feel the need to cut
ourselves off from the chaos of everyday life and excessive information. Many people begin to
practice meditation by participating in the Ignatian retreat, where the participant only talks to the
spiritual leader. They look for something that can help maintain the inner balance.
People who have problems with self-control of their emotions, desires, sense of meaning and
the truth are afraid of silence; thoughts are pushed to the edge of their consciousness, lest they
be forced to learn the truth about themselves. They are afraid of remembering situations in which
they chose the wrong path. They avoid the moment when they have to answer to themselves what
they are doing, how they are doing and why. The excess of accumulated emotions without the
possibility of relieving them in silence leads to aggressive behaviour.

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The Importance of Silence in Public Discourse

The experience of noise is much more common than the experience of silence. Noise has become
part of our lives, and also a lack of good manners. In the chaos, the mutual, parallel presentation
of one’s arguments or rights, no one listens to anyone, the words ‘slip away’, they do not record
the contents in the memory. Silence, as an expression of concentration and respect for the
interlocutor, fosters the process of thinking and forming one’s own thoughts. Silence can be both
refraining from speaking and being a mute, nonverbal statement (it is worth recalling the meeting
of Jesus with Magdalene,2 he wrote in the sand, without saying a word, his silence caused the
accusers to depart), containing content that has not been verbalized, but which has resounded and
made it understandable to others.

Educating for Reflection through Silence

Silence has its own melody, it does not exclude sound, it is present in music. Silence is a way and
a certain life skill, an act of the will. Silence is, in fact, fundamental in education and creativity;
it teaches us to listen to what happens in a person and in the environment, and it leads to growth.
Experiencing and practicing silence as the basis of personal development is a favourable state.
Principles to be followed in teaching silence were presented by Montessori (Standing, 1957: 132;
Montessori, 1985: 172; Miksza, 2004).
The school regulates clearly defined norms, rules of time and behaviour (requirement of
specific behaviour) related to the curriculum and structure of particular subjects and the private
rules of the teacher (their particular teaching style, being and expectations). All of this requires
a certain discipline and inner peace to make possible for both teacher and student to dialogue.
Many schools have established quiet zones, and some have had a ‘quiet room’ (silence zones are
in all schools in Poland in the Niepołomice district, and in Wawrzeńczyce).
A difference between imagining silence and finding silence inside ourselves is in existence.
Emotional calming can occur, among other things, through the habit of writing every day,
listening to the ocean waves (even from a recording), walking in silence in the rooms during
one of the breaks, jogging in silence, fishing, chess – all these promote the development of the
personality and concentration.

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 13

Silence and Sexuality in School Settings

A Transnational Perspective

Helen Sauntson and Rodrigo Borba

Introduction

As stated in the Introductory chapter, this volume explores and brings together research relating
to three specific forms of aloneness: solitude, silence and loneliness. Contributions in the
volume are united in considering how these forms of aloneness develop over time across the
lifespan. This chapter focuses on the silence dimension of aloneness in the early stages of
the lifespan and in relation to the social dimension of sexuality – it specifically examines the
silences experienced by young people in school in relation to sexuality. The discussion draws
on our research experience at UK and Brazilian schools and, thus, provides a transnational
perspective to the issue at hand. Moreover, the chapter explores silence from the disciplinary
perspective of linguistics and discourse analysis.
As Stern notes in the Introductory chapter to this volume, silence can refer to the omission of a
particular topic and to ‘disengagement’, as well as to the literal absence of sound. It is the ‘unsayability’
of particular topics relating to sexual diversity and identity in schools, which is the focus of the current
chapter. In her work on schools, Lees (2012) distinguishes between ‘strong’ and ‘weak’ silence with
‘weak’ silence involving denial, shame and fear. This kind of ‘weak silence’ is particularly relevant
to the discourses of sexuality which frequently circulate in schools. In work on the role of silence in
sexuality-based asylum hearings, Johnson (2011: 57) refers to the ‘ambiguous and textured quality
of silence’, arguing that it can either be a productive site of resistance or can function to mute the
voices of subjugated actors. These, as we will see, are key themes which emerge from linguistics-
based literature on language and sexuality in relation to school settings. The silences around sexual
diversity in schools are experienced by young people (and some teachers) as overwhelmingly negative,
oppressive, imposed and difficult to challenge.
In previous literature on sexuality and schooling, Epstein et al. (2003) observe that sexuality
is both everywhere and nowhere in schools. They identify schools as sites where heterosexuality
 Silence and Sexuality in School Settings

is constructed as normal and sexualities which transgress this norm are silenced, often tacitly
rather than actively. A range of routine silencing and regulatory discourses in a range of schools
in international contexts have also been explored by Francis and Msibi (2011), Moita Lopes
(2006) and Sauntson (2013), among others. Moreover, Liddicoat (2009) observes how the
language classrooms examined are dominated by a ‘heteronormative framing of identities’ and
that heterosexuality is always potentially present in the classes. Eckert (1996) has commented
that secondary schools are particularly marked sites for the production of heterosexual identities.
According to Eckert, the transition into a heterosexual social order in secondary school brings
boys and girls into an engagement in gender differentiation and encourages boys and girls to
view themselves as ‘commodities’ on a heterosexual market. All of this work suggests that the
unmarked and constant presence of heterosexuality contributes to the routine silencing of other
forms of sexual identity in schools.
What we see in schools, then, is that on the one hand, sexuality in the form of heterosexuality
is highly visible and permeates numerous aspects of the school environment. On the other hand,
LGBT+ identities, and sexual diversity more broadly, are marginalized and often rendered
invisible. Paradoxically, sexual diversity becomes visible in schools only when it takes the
form of homophobic verbal abuse and other forms of sexuality-based bullying. Recent policy
changes in the UK and in Brazil – despite their differences in scope – may bring changes in this
disparity of visibility across different sexuality identities in schools. In the UK, for example, the
2010 Equality Act made discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation illegal in schools
and other areas of public life, and the Relationships and Sex Education (RSE) guidance now
includes a section on the positive teaching of LGBT+ identities and relationships.
The legislative scenario in Brazil is slightly more convoluted than this since gender equality
and sexual diversity have become of interest to policymakers, teachers and activists only due to
the re-democratization process initiated in 1985. With the end of a twenty-one-year US-backed
military dictatorship during which schools were used as battlegrounds to inculcate the conservative
values espoused by the military junta in the citizenry, matters related to human rights, gender
equity and sexual diversity timidly crawled their way into education laws. Sanctioned in 1996,
the Lei de Diretrizes e Bases da Educação (Education Guidelines Law), for instance, ranks
respect for freedom and tolerance as principles to be followed in schools without ever mentioning
gender and sexuality – erasure is a much-used silencing strategy. This situation was to be slightly
redressed only in 2014 with the Plano Nacional de Education (National Education Plan) which
includes the necessity of eradicating all forms of discrimination, but again sexual diversity is not
explicitly mentioned which is striking in an extremely LGBT+phobic country as Brazil (Borba &
Milani, 2017). As a significant number of teachers were schooled and/or trained during military
rule, recent research shows they are wary (or outright dismissive) of matters related to these
issues (Castro & Ferrari, 2017; Mattos, 2019; for exceptions to this trend, see, however, Fabrício
& Moita-Lopes, 2019).
In both the UK and Brazil (as elsewhere), frictions between acknowledging sexual diversity
in schools and its silencing in policymaking and public discourses constitute a fertile ground for
critical scrutiny. In this context, this chapter provides an overview of research from the disciplines
of linguistics and discourse analysis which has explored silence in relation to sexuality identities
and considers how these disciplinary insights have helped to develop a broader understanding
of how silence functions in relation to identity. In particular, the chapter pays close attention to

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how silence around non-normative sexuality identities is experienced and enforced in school
contexts and in early life. We start by outlining the UK and Brazilian contexts as they relate to
issues around sexuality, particularly in schools. We then consider some key work on silence and
sexuality within linguistics and discourse analysis. We then go on to provide illustrative examples
of what linguistic analysis can reveal about sexuality and silence from our own work in schools in
the UK and Brazil respectively. The UK case study focuses on a linguistic analysis of silence and
sexuality in the 2020 RSE guidance. The Brazilian case discusses how the Escola sem Partido
(Non-Partisan School) movement has fuelled the public sphere with vocabulary whose aim is
to eradicate sexual diversity from schools through curtailing teachers’ voices and autonomy.
The linguistic analyses of these texts and the macro-political contexts from which they emerge
demonstrate how silence may be loudly imposed as a strategy to counter recent advancements in
gender equity and sexual diversity in contemporary societies.

UK Context

There have been many recent advances in terms of LGBT+ equality in the UK. Most notably,
there have been legislative changes which enable same-sex couples to marry and have the same
adoption rights as heterosexual couples. Also, more public figures are openly LGBT than ever
before. But recent research by the UK LGBT rights charity Stonewall still shows that homophobia
and heterosexism are still prevalent and pervasive in many UK secondary schools (Bradlow et al.,
2017). Beyond schools, homophobia is also still prevalent.
For example, widely reported incidents of homophobic violence on a London bus1 and in
Liverpool2 in 2019 have highlighted the precarity of a hard-won equality for LGBT+ people
in the UK. This is highlighted further by high-profile protests against the teaching of LGBT
relationships outside Birmingham primary schools which took place in 2019. Those who
participated were specifically protesting against the No Outsiders equality programme for schools
which is designed to teach children about differences in religions, families and relationships in a
positive and accepting way. Protesters primarily argued that the subject matter of the programme
contradicted the Islamic faith (although there were also a small number of protesters from other
faith groups) and also argued that primary school children were too young to be made aware of
same-sex relationships. The programme was suspended following the protests. Although protests
took place only in Birmingham, the National Association of Head Teachers (NAHT) reported
that up to seventy schools in England had encountered varying degrees of resistance to the
programme from parents. These events were (and continue to be) significant because the issue
of parental control over what is and is not explicitly spoken about in schools has formed a key
part of the protests. Essentially, the protests are based around the argument that sexual diversity
(anything other than heterosexuality) should be silenced in primary schools and left within the
remit of the family.3
The historical context is important for understanding these ongoing issues relating to silence
and sexuality in UK schools. A significant piece of legislation relating to sexual diversity issues
in schools in the UK was the 1988 local government act. Section 28 of this act made it illegal for
homosexuality to be ‘promoted’ in schools. Non-heterosexual relationships were described as
‘pretended family relationships’. In many ways, this act set the ground for providing RSE which
focused exclusively on heterosexual (family) relationships and for creating and maintaining a
silence around any other forms of sexual identities, relationships and family structures. Section 28

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was finally repealed by Britain’s Labour government in 2003, but there still appears to be a
‘legacy’ from Section 28 which has resulted in a pervading silence and fear of openly discussing
non-heterosexual identities and relationships in schools (Ellis & High, 2004; Malmedie, 2012).
The persistence of this legacy has been one of the driving forces behind the inclusion of LGBT+
identities and relationships in the new RSE guidance which operates in schools in England from
September 2020.
Arguably, the rhetoric of the recent school protests against LGBT+ inclusion in RSE sits
alongside language reminiscent of the 1980s and Section 28, stoking fears of ‘sexualization’
and ‘indoctrination’. Although Section 28 is ‘silent’ in that it is not explicitly invoked as part
of the rhetoric of the protesting groups, it is ‘spectral’ in that it is implicit in the language used.
This spectrality and the way it manifests in language will be explored in more detail later in this
chapter.

Brazilian Context

After twenty-one years of silencing by the dictatorial regime, human rights, gender, race and
sexuality shyly made their way into public discourses especially with regard to education. Since
the re-democratization of the country in 1985, however, there has been resistance to these small
(but powerful) changes. How this kind of opposition moved from quiet corridor murmurs to
strident public criticisms against ‘indoctrination’, ‘teacher’s freedom’ and ‘sexualization’ is
telling of the silencing strategies used to curb democratic practices nowadays.
Between 1985 and 2016, the Brazilian citizenry witnessed the instantiation of timid, but
nonetheless, relevant laws and policies for the enfranchisement of vulnerable populations who,
under the military junta, had absolutely no voice. In 1996, Lei de Diretrizes e Bases da Educação
(Education Guidelines Law), for instance, made the teaching of African-Brazilian history and
religions mandatory. Although sexual diversity is not explicitly mentioned, respect for freedom
and tolerance are listed as guiding principles of pedagogical practices. Such progressive
discourses gained more prominence during the left-wing governments, which ranged from
2003 to 2016. During this period, policies for the protection and empowerment of women and
LGBT+ constituencies were implemented. These include the creation of the Ministry of Women,
Racial Equality, and Human Rights,4 the criminalization of domestic violence, the National
Human Rights Plan, the legalization of same-sex marriages, and Brasil sem Homofobia – a
nationwide programme to fight discrimination against non-heterosexual identities. As part of
this programme, in 2011 the Ministry of Education prepared a booklet with anti-homophobic
content to be distributed to public schools as a way to overcome the silence regarding this matter
in a country where, according to the NGO Grupo Gay da Bahia, there is a homophobic-driven
murder every twenty-three hours. The production of the anti-homophobia booklet was followed
by two important developments in 2013: the legalization of same-sex marriage by the Supreme
Court and the debate about the new National Education Plan.
Not coincidentally, a week after same-sex marriages were legalized, a group of Neo Pentecostal
and Catholic politicians made a stir about a supposed ‘gay kit’ which would allegedly teach
elementary school children to change genders at their own volition, thwarting, thus, the content
of the anti-homophobia material whose aim was to foster respect for LGBT+ individuals. Their
coordinated action had an impact on public opinion which led the then-president Dilma Rousseff

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to veto the distribution of the booklet and later allowed the ‘gay kit’ spectre to influence the election
of a far-right outspoken homophobe as president in 2018.5 The anti-homophobia booklet was
never made public which allowed unscrupulous politicians and conservative social movements
to keep manipulating its aims, scope and content so as to whirl a public commotion against
progressive policies in education. As the moral panic about the ‘gay kit’ took hold of the public
sphere, the National Education Plan had started to be discussed by government representatives
and the civil society. Two points of controversy were at the centre of the debate: the character of
religious education and sexual diversity. Conservative politicians strived to make religion (i.e.
creationism as well as Catholic dogma) a mandatory school subject and took issue with terms
such as ‘gender’ and ‘sexual diversity’, which they wanted to be dropped from the document.
According to Miskolci (2018), this produced a fertile niche for the Escola sem Partido (Non-
Partisan School) movement to thrive. Created in 2003 as a parent control association against what
they identified as ‘Marxist indoctrination’ at Brazilian schools (a clear reaction to the election of
a left-wing president), the ESP movement gathered political and public momentum only after it
embarked on the conservative bandwagon against a supposed sexualization of children in schools
which was strategically linked to the political left, fuelling a general distrust towards progressive
ideas. Undergirding these efforts was the offensive against what these groups identify as ‘gender
ideology’.6 Serving as a rhetorical device used against the political left and the institutionalization
of gender equality and sexual diversity in curricula, the discourse of ‘gender ideology’:
aims, first, to refute claims concerning the hierarchical construction of the raced, gendered,
and heterosexual order; second, to essentialize and delegitimize feminist and queer theories
of gender; third, to frustrate global and local gender mainstreaming efforts; fourth, to thwart
gender and LGBT+ equality policies; and finally to reaffirm heteropatriarchal conceptions of
sex, gender, and sexuality. (Corredor, 2019: 616)
Corrêa and Kalil (2020) note that the phrase ‘gender ideology’ gained impetus and political weight
during the discussion of the National Education Plan in 2013. Anti-feminism, anti-LGBT+ and anti-
Left lawmakers and protesters came together in a raucous effort to silence gender equity and sexual
diversity matters and erase them from the plan. Part of their strategy to silence progressive changes in
education were obstreperous and violent street protests. For example, in 2017 a group of anti-gender
ideology demonstrators burned an effigy of Judith Butler while the philosopher visited the country.7
Their strategy was successful. The words ‘gender’ and ‘sexuality’ were removed from the
document. Consequently, the 2017 Base Nacional Comum Curricular (the national basic
curriculum) has no mention to gender equity or sexual diversity. This scenario paved the way for
the ESP to inspire a slew of law projects whose aim is to prohibit ‘ideological indoctrination’ which
allegedly gets materialized in critical pedagogical practices especially with regard to gender and
sexual identities. These law projects employ words of order, rhetoric and discursive strategies that
purport to curb critical pedagogical enterprises by mongering fear and, thus, silencing teachers’
voices. A detailed analysis of this language and, more broadly, the ESP’s silencing strategies are
provided in the Brazil case study, below.

Language and Sexuality in Schools

Work in the field of linguistics recognizes that homophobia is not always overt and is actually
more often construed as an effect of silence and invisibility, especially in organizations such as

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schools and universities. There is now a growing body of international academic research which
explores the routine silencing and regulatory discourses around sexual diversity in schools as
well as overtly discriminatory language. It is now more recognized that homophobic language
and behaviour in schools are often ‘covert’ and sometimes difficult for teachers to even notice.
In recent research on sexuality in schools (Mattos, 2019; Sauntson, 2013, 2018), young
LGBT+ people have repeatedly reported in interviews that sexual diversity (and especially
homosexuality) is ‘not talked about’ and ‘ignored’ and that this has a negative emotional effect
on them which, in turn, decreases their motivation to attend school. Recent research in the UK
and Brazil (Mattos, 2019; Sauntson, 2018) highlights how this raises two points of tension. One
is that the routine silences around non-heterosexual sexualities in schools sit in tension with the
fact that sexual diversity is actually very visible elsewhere (e.g. in the media). The other tension
is that while positive and inclusive discussion about sexual diversity is often absent, homophobic
language is present and pervasive in schools. In order for homophobic language to exist, there has
to be an acknowledgement that homosexuality exists – otherwise, there is nothing to discriminate
against. However, linguistic absence produces the effect of erasing sexual identities which are
not normatively heterosexual. To use Butler’s (1990) term, particular identities are rendered
‘unintelligible’ through their repeated silencing and absence.
Butler herself draws on linguistic theory to argue that linguistic acts bring identities (including
gender and sexual identities) into being. The idea that silence itself can operate as a speech
act has been further developed in queer theory by Sedgwick (1990). In sexuality-focused work
in linguistics, scholars have argued that silence as a linguistic act can produce the effect of
homophobia when that silence functions to exclude non-heterosexual identities when there is no
logical reason for doing so. Morrish (2011: 328), for example, states that ‘homophobia may still
be the result even when overt homophobic messages are not part of the text’s content’.
Sauntson (2013) has examined this phenomenon of homophobia being enacted through
linguistic silencing in interviews with teachers and LGBT students in UK secondary schools.
Ferrari (2011) has done similar work in Brazil. In spite of the different sociopolitical contexts,
both researchers identify instances where teachers and pupils would have expected LGBT
identities to be explicitly discussed or made visible, but they are not. In the UK context, for
instance, this occurs particularly in the delivery of the English and PSHE (Personal, Social and
Health Education) curricula. In Brazil, Ferrari shows a similar silencing process in Brazilian
schools in which LGBT+ topics were brought up in backstage interactions among students but
ignored by teachers. Stonewall and other LGBT rights organizations and charities continue to
do much valuable work in schools around how to tackle sexuality-based bullying. While this
work undoubtedly has a positive effect, scholarship in linguistics suggests that tackling explicitly
homophobic language can only take us so far. We need to try to use language in a way which
does not normalize heterosexuality or present it as dominant or ‘better’ in any way. We need to
consistently use language which includes, rather than excludes, LGBT+ identities (e.g. when
the term ‘marriage’ is used, be mindful and explicit that this can apply to same-sex as well
as opposite-sex couples). Arguably, in educational contexts, we need to create spaces for new
language to emerge, rather than closing down possibilities for linguistic expression or subsuming
such possibilities under normative heterosexual experience.
Some research in linguistics has examined the efforts made so far by some schools to put this
into practice. Sunderland and McGlashan (2012), for example, examine the use of picture-books

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in early years’ education which contain representations of same-sex relationships and LGBT
identities. This research has shown how useful these sorts of picture-books can be; they normalize
same-sex families and relationships through positive representations of LGBT+ people. This, in
turn, helps to normalize LGBT+ identities in children’s minds as they get older. The authors
argue that this could, ultimately, be significant in helping to challenge and reduce homophobic,
biphobic and transphobic bullying in schools.
The review of RSE provision takes these efforts even further by explicitly directing teachers
to include LGBT+ identities and relationships in their teaching in a positive way, thus breaking
the pervasive silences around sexual diversity. However, we argue that the way that LGBT+
inclusion is presented in the 2020 guidance continues to be problematic. The next section focuses
on different dimensions of silence and sexuality in the 2020 RSE guidance for England, as a
UK-based example of how language-focused empirical research can further understanding of how
silence and sexuality operates in the school environment and during the early part of the lifespan.

UK Case Study: Silence in the 2020 Relationships and Sex Education Guidance
Documents for England

As stated previously, some groups in England have recently mobilized against the inclusion of
positive teaching about LGBT+ identities and relationships in the new RSE guidance. The protests
held by groups outside schools in Birmingham and elsewhere suggest that, although there is
overwhelming support for the new guidance, including its section on LGBT+ identities, there are
still groups in society who are opposed to teaching about this dimension of equality. Their voices
are being heard in ways that could potentially ‘re-silence’ the opening up of positive teaching
about sexual diversity. Given these conflicting reactions to changes in RSE, it is particularly
important that the language used in the guidance is as positive and inclusive as possible. The
new guidance was published in 2019 after a two-year review period and will be implemented in
schools from September 2020 (we refer to it in this chapter as the ‘2020 guidance’ to reflect its
implementation date in schools).
Scrutiny of the 2020 guidance reveals that, despite the inclusion of sex relationships and
LGBT+ identities, this occurs only in a small section (two paragraphs) and the language used
in these paragraphs is vague. While the reforms are welcome and undoubtedly a positive step
forwards, there is still work to be done in terms of making LGBT+ identities and relationships
even more visible in the guidance, and finding a way of ensuring that this aspect of the guidance
is consistently being delivered in a positive and inclusive way by teachers. Moreover, the vague
language of the new RSE guidance means that the implementation of it by teachers is likely to
be highly variable.
Sauntson (2018) has argued that linguistic presence in the form of inclusion in the curriculum
legitimizes certain subject content and ideological positions, while linguistic absence may
function to delegitimize certain positions. The concept of silence in relation to power relations
and homosexuality has been well documented (e.g. Sedgwick, 1990). Drawing on Austin’s (1962)
distinction between locutionary speech acts (what is said) and illocutionary acts (the action
that is performed when something is said), Langton (1993) distinguishes between locutionary
silence (what is not said) and illocutionary silencing (the action performed when something
is not said). In previous work, Sauntson (2013) has argued that ‘illocutionary silences’ around

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sexual diversity routinely occur in various aspects of schooling, including in the curriculum and
curriculum guidance documents for teachers.
Significantly, ‘sexuality’ as a topic is one which is clearly and explicitly addressed in the
RSE curriculum as a central part of its remit. In an analysis of the preceding version of the RSE
guidance (2014), Sauntson (2018) conducted a linguistic analysis and found that there was little
which actively encourages teachers to incorporate positive teaching around ‘sexual diversity’.
The analysis revealed that the semantic profiles created around concepts such as ‘sexuality’ and
‘health’ were fairly restricted. Moreover, the findings showed that a predominant discourse of
‘risk’ and ‘disease’ is created around sexuality and sexual behaviour. Furthermore, heterosexual
marriage is highlighted as ‘important’ and ascribed positive value. This sits in tension with the
fact that the 2014 guidance explicitly prohibits the ‘promotion’ of sexual orientation. Without
specifying which sexual orientation should not be promoted, the association of marriage and
sexual activity with reproduction, and the overwhelmingly positive values ascribed to these,
strongly imply that it is homosexuality which should not be ‘promoted’. The text therefore
embodies heteronormative and even homophobic values.
In the revised 2020 guidance document, there have been some welcome changes which address
some of the previous omissions. For example, the 2020 guidance now covers sexual harassment,
sexual violence, consent and internet safety. There is the inclusion of the two paragraphs on
including positive teaching about LGBT+ identities and relationships. Paragraphs 36 and 37 of
the guidance are as follows:
36. In teaching Relationships Education and RSE, schools should ensure that the needs of all
pupils are appropriately met, and that all pupils understand the importance of equality and
respect. Schools must ensure that they comply with the relevant provisions of the Equality
Act 2010 (please see The Equality Act 2010 and schools: Departmental advice), under which
sexual orientation and gender reassignment are amongst the protected characteristics.
37. Schools should ensure that all of their teaching is sensitive and age appropriate in approach
and content. At the point at which schools consider it appropriate to teach their pupils about
LGBT, they should ensure that this content is fully integrated into their programmes of study
for this area of the curriculum rather than delivered as a standalone unit or lesson. Schools are
free to determine how they do this, and we expect all pupils to have been taught LGBT content
at a timely point as part of this area of the curriculum.8
While this is a positive move in terms of challenging previous silences around sexual diversity,
what is worrying is that the revised guidance appears to have retained implicit references to the
long-repealed Clause 28 legislation. In fact, a side-by-side comparison of the original Clause 28
text and the reformed RSE guidance currently in use shows how similar they are in how they deal
with sexual orientation. In Figure 13.1, we have underlined the specific areas of similarity.
Sauntson (2020) has argued that this comparison reveals that the ‘spectre’ of Section 28 is clearly
evident in the language of the documents which are currently directly informing the teaching of
RSE in schools. Closer examination reveals that it is specifically the use of the verb promote and
its collocation with sexual orientation which creates the spectrality and its accompanying negative
prosody around sexual diversity. In fact, when we look at a concordance9 of promot*10 as it is used
in the 2020 RSE guidance, we see that co-occurrences of sexual* and promot* always appear in
negative constructions, that is the texts advocate not promoting sexual orientation. In the concordances

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Figure 13.1  Comparison of Clause 28 and 2020 RSE documents.

Table 13.1  Sample Concordance of promot* As It Is Used in the 2020 RSE Guidance
as with any professional, to promote sexual orientation. They will be
sexual health. It is not about the promotion of sexual orientation
support. There should be no direct promotion of sexual orientation
would be required to actively promote same-sex marriage. During
that the proprietor must actively promote the fundamental British values
and that schools must actively promote the specified principles
that schools are not required to promote same-sex marriage: Teaching
teacher, is under a duty to support, promote or endorse marriage of same-sex
requirement for schools to actively promote principles which encourage
arising from the concept of active promotion. The inevitable result
requiring schools to actively promote British values have provoked
and sexual health. It doesn’t promote early sexual activity
support. There should be no direct promotion of sexual orientation.
PSHE should be taught in a way that promotes equality as defined
and sexual health. It does not promote early sexual activity or any
bullying which should support and promote the inclusive and tolerant
a wider preventative approach to promoting inclusive, tolerant school
ways to work with boys and girls to promote gender equality and both
and reflect the key principles in promoting tolerance and inclusion

in Table 13.1, we can see that the verb promote mainly collocates negatively with sexual orientation
and with same-sex marriage, and positively with equality and inclusion. In effect, this means that not
only are schools expected to not promote sexual orientation, they are also expected to not promote
same-sex marriage. This produces an ideologically contradictory position in which legal practices are
silenced, and that silencing itself is a homophobic and, therefore arguably, illegal practice under the
2010 Equality Act which governs schools.
If we look at the context of some of the promot* concordances in Table 13.1, more of the
‘spectrality’ of Section 28 is revealed, as shown in the examples herein (from Sauntson, 2020).
These examples show how promot* collocates negatively with sexual orientation and same-
sex marriage in the document. We have underlined the specific parts of the text in which these
wordings appear.
It is inappropriate for youth workers, as with any professional, to promote sexual orientation.
They will be expected to respect this guidance when dealing with school age children.

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It is about the understanding of the importance of marriage for family life, stable and loving
relationships, respect, love and care. It is also about the teaching of sex, sexuality, and sexual
health. It is not about the promotion of sexual orientation or sexual activity – this would be
inappropriate teaching.
. . . teachers should be able to deal honestly and sensitively with sexual orientation, answer
appropriate questions and offer support. There should be no direct promotion of sexual orientation.
Some campaign groups, including the Coalition for Marriage, interpreted the reforms as
meaning that schools would be required to actively promote same-sex marriage.
No school, or individual teacher, is under a duty to support, promote or endorse marriage of
same sex couples. Teaching should be based on facts and should enable pupils to develop an
understanding of how the law applies to different relationships.
Sex and relationship education (SRE) is compulsory from age 11 onwards. It involves
teaching children about reproduction, sexuality and sexual health. It doesn’t promote early
sexual activity or any particular sexual orientation.
This was updated in June 2014, and states that schools are not required to promote same-sex
marriage: Teaching about marriage must be done in a sensitive, reasonable, respectful and
balanced way.

It is widely recognized that the underlying problem with using promote to refer to sexual orientation
is that it implies that sexual orientation is a choice. Given the history of the Section 28 legislation, this
phrase clearly means ‘do not “promote” homosexuality’ in the teaching of RSE. This conflicts with
the fact that schools are now governed by the Equality Act which clearly prohibits discrimination on
the grounds of sexual orientation. The phrase also sits in tension with the fact that (particular kinds of)
heterosexuality appears to be ‘promoted’ all the way through the guidance because of the prevalence of
positive reference to heterosexual reproduction. It is perhaps not surprising that teachers are confused
and apprehensive about how to address issues of non-heterosexual identities and relationships in SRE,
given the retention of this phrase. We can therefore deduce from this that when the document prohibits
teachers from promoting sexual orientation, heterosexuality is, in fact, exempt from this. Thus, the
semantic profile of promot* functions to effect a discourse of heteronormativity which concurrently
silences any other forms of sexuality. This silencing may, ironically, contribute to the perpetuation of
sexuality-based bullying in schools through its prioritizing of heterosexuality and its retention of the
Section 28 directive not to ‘promote’ sexual orientation.

Brazil Case Study: Escola sem Partido and Its Silencing Strategies

During the twenty-one-year US-backed military dictatorship in Brazil, LGBT+ individuals

were ferociously chased, incarcerated and tortured (Green, 1999). Homophobia is still rampant.
However, the country never had any legislation prohibiting the ‘promotion’ of homosexuality and
same-sex marriages at schools like the UK’s Section 28 or 2020 RSE guidance which, as shown
above, despite bringing some advances, still surreptitiously disguises its homophobia. Perhaps
this kind of official policy in Brazil was not seen as necessary due to the extremely strong public
character of heterosexuality as the only acceptable norm (Miskolci, 2012) which, in turn, silences
other expressions of sexuality from being legitimately addressed in the public sphere.

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In fact, research shows that schools are the prime loci for the naturalization of heterosexuality
since it is ‘seen but unnoticed’ – it is everywhere and nowhere – acting thus as a tacit norm
orienting teachers and students (Epstein et al., 2003; Ferrari, 2011; Liddicoat, 2009; Mattos,
2019; Moita Lopes, 2002). Following this trend, Ferrari (2011) and Mattos (2019) note that
Brazilian teachers tend to be quite wary of gender equity and sexual diversity as these topics
tend to be strategically ignored or explicitly dismissed despite their ubiquity in students’ off-
class conversations. This locutionary silence (Langton, 1993) about gender equality and sexual
diversity in schools has not stopped the ESP movement from thriving, though. ESP supporters
and activists take advantage of the homophobic character of Brazilian society to stir moral panic
about the ‘sexualization’ of children. This can be directly linked to the enfranchisement of LGBT
and feminist movements during the left-wing governments of Lula da Silva and Dilma Rousseff.
Between 2003 and 2016, such movements had an important voice in setting public policies such
as the Brasil sem Homofobia programme. This unprecedented phenomenon, in turn, was seen as
challenging the public character of heterosexuality and provoked strong parliamentary and social
reactions. In fact, the ESP movement, which was created in 2003, gathered significant public
notoriety only during the debates about the new National Education Plan in 2013. Engaging with
previous efforts to curb the silencing of non-heterosexual identities as materialized in the anti-
homophobia kit the Ministry of Education had previously prepared (but never got to distribute),
proposals to include gender equality and sexual diversity as part of the national basic curriculum
(an attempt to curtail the silence surrounding these topics at Brazilian schools) were met with
accusations of promoting ‘gender ideology’, a phrase which became a trademark of the ESP
movement.
In order to understand the discursive and political impact of the ESP, it is important to scrutinize
how its vocabulary has infiltrated the public domain. A quantitative analysis provided by Google
Trends, which shows the frequency of online searches for given terms at specific time periods, is
useful for this purpose since it measures the public interest in certain topics and gives evidence of
the presence of such terms in people’s repertoire. The following graphs illustrate how the ESP and
its anti-gender and anti-LGBT+ (i.e. ‘gender ideology’ and ‘ideological indoctrination’) agenda
gained momentum in 2013 during the time the new national curriculum was being discussed with
lawmakers and civil society (Figures 13.2–13.4).
These graphics demonstrate how the phrases ‘Escola sem Partido’, ‘ideologia de gênero’ and
‘doutrinação ideológica’ moved from a relatively unknown status to become incorporated in the

Figure 13.2  Google searches for ‘Escola sem Partido’.

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Figure 13.3  Google searches for ‘Ideologia de gênero’.

Figure 13.4  Google searches for ‘doutrinação ideológica’.

public discursive repertoire, a rising trend that has put these terms in people’s understandings of
teachers and their jobs. Taking advantage of this momentum, the ESP modernized its website,11
which showcases its eye-catching motto: ‘We need a law against abuses of teaching freedom.’
Following this opening, the website makes explicit the ESP strategies to silence teachers who
may be seen as promoting ‘ideological indoctrination’. In its website, the ESP advances at least
three main illocutionary silencing (Langton, 1993) strategies parents and pupils may use: (1) a
detailed explanation of its law project, (2) channels to report teachers and schools (a WhatsApp
number and an online form) and (3) a model extrajudicial notice parents may download, fill
in and present at schools. Miguel (2016) has analysed the types of extrajudicial notices ESP
supporters and parents have presented at schools. As Miguel (2016) notes, this type of document
has no legal binding, but is commonly used to coerce individuals who may have broken the
law. If a school is notified extrajudicially it only means the parent intends to take the case to
further legal spheres and acts, thus, as a prime example of how the ESP works by stirring fear in
teachers, which, in turn, may silence any potential attempt to bring sexual diversity (and critical
pedagogical practices more broadly) into the classroom.
The ESP law project has served as a blueprint for more than 200 similar law projects that
have been presented in the different levels of the federation (municipalities, states and the federal
government) since 2014 and have fed the public discursive repertoire with phrases and words
which aim to curb teachers’ voices and critical teaching. At the time of writing, fifty-seven ESP-

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inspired laws against ‘gender ideology’ and ‘ideological indoctrination’ at schools have been
sanctioned in several municipalities and fifty-three are waiting to be voted. The penalties vary
greatly: teachers who are seen as promoting sexual diversity and ‘ideological indoctrination’ at
schools may be fined, sacked or incarcerated. Several of these law projects have been vetoed or
rejected at the municipal and/or state level.
At the federal government level, the ESP project was first presented in 2014. In its first
incarnation, the law project explicitly prohibited ‘gender ideology’ from schools. It also provided
students and parents with more control over pedagogical practices by allowing classes to be
recorded without the consent of teachers. Due to its attacks on freedom of speech and the lack
of clarity of what is meant by ‘gender ideology’, the project has been archived by the Supreme
Court. However, a new version of the ESP project was presented to the Lower House in February
2019. The most recent instantiation of the law project does not include ‘gender ideology’ in
its text. Given the intimate imbrication of ‘Escola sem Partido’ and ‘ideologia de gênero’, as
illustrated by the aforementioned graphs, the omission of this phrase hardly makes any difference
since, in the public discursive repertoire, ESP equals a fight against ‘gender ideology’ in schools.
Despite this change, the ESP project makes it clear that teachers’ voices and critical teaching
may be surveilled in order to avoid ‘gender dogmatism and proselytism’. This is justified by the
fact that
teachers and textbooks writers have been using their classes and their books in attempts to
obtain students’ participation in certain political and ideological waves as well as to make
them adopt judgement patterns and moral conduct – especially sexual morals – incompatible
with those their parents or caretakers teach.12
As mentioned earlier, research in Brazilian schools demonstrates teachers’ unwillingness (or fear)
to discuss gender equality and sexual diversity (Ferrari, 2011; Mattos, 2019). The law project is
thus at odds with the reality of most schools in the country and, what is worse, puts teachers in a
vulnerable position, which, in turn, may have consequences for their pedagogical practices and
job satisfaction.
As an illocutionary speech act, fear mongering has a powerful silencing effect. The ESP project
stokes fear and insecurity by attempting to establish an even more explicit panoptical surveillance
at schools. In the law project, this is materialized in two ways: (1) the possibility of students
to record classes without the teachers’ consent and (2) the establishment of a federal hotline
for reporting teachers. Importantly, urging the population to report teachers who are seen as
promoting ‘gender ideology’ and ‘ideological indoctrination’ depends on feeding the population
with discursive tools that may serve that purpose. Stretching the public discursive domain with
vocabulary that curtails the possibility of discussing sexual diversity at schools is an important
silencing device the ESP movement and its supporters have explored successfully. As can be
seen in the following graph, ESP-related vocabulary (i.e. ‘gender ideology’ and ‘ideological
indoctrination’) has, since 2013, entered the public discursive repertoire and may be activated by
anyone who fears teachers may be indoctrinating their children (Figure 13.5).
With their raucous street protests and frequent media attention, since 2013 the ESP
movement has been successful in changing the discursive repertoire of the country with
semantically slippery terms such as ‘gender ideology’ and ‘ideological indoctrination’ which
may mean basically anything that is at odds with parents’ beliefs. In fact, as Corrêa (2018)

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Figure 13.5  ESP-related vocabulary Jan/2020-Mar/2020.

explains, these terms are ‘empty signifiers’ that may be filled with whatever parents and
pupils feel disagrees with the moral and ideological systems they nurture at home. Because
of the semantic elasticity of these terms, teachers see themselves in a double bind: if they do
anything to produce a more LGBT+ friendly teaching environment and to curb homophobic
bullying, they may be reported and lose their jobs; if they turn a blind eye to the rampant
homophobia in Brazilian schools, LGBT+ students’ school experiences may be traumatizing,
to say the least. In fact, the counter-movement Escola sem Mordaça (Schools Without Gags, in
English), which gathers teachers, parents and students against the ESP proposals, notes that
since 2014 the number of teachers reported, sacked or physically assaulted for ideological
reasons has risen exponentially.
On 24 April 2020, the Supreme Court of Justice found the ESP law project unconstitutional
for it breaches teachers’ freedom of speech. Minutes after the unconstitutionality of the project
had been voted, the ESP posted the following message to its 114,000 Twitter followers (in
translation):
Declaring the unconstitutionality of law projects against gender ideology at primary schools,
the Supreme Court may end up forcing parents to take the law into their own hands in order
to defend their kids’ psychic and moral integrity and their sacred right of educating them.
Teachers beware.
Despite the fact that ESP law projects have been judged unconstitutional, by feeding the public
discursive repertoire with terms whose pragmatic force is to silence teachers and curb advances
in gender equality and sexual diversity, it has opened avenues for teachers’ voices to be curtailed
and the pedagogical needs of LGBT+ students to be ignored. The Brazilian case study illustrates
that attempts to silence progressive teaching practices with regard to sexual diversity may be
quite noisy and violent.

Concluding Remarks

School forms a major part of the early life experiences of most young people in the UK and Brazil
(and elsewhere in the world). In the UK, schools have a legal duty to teach inclusive curricula
and provide equality of opportunity to all. The Public Sector Equality Duty requires public

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bodies (including schools) to eliminate unlawful discrimination, harassment, victimization and

any other conduct prohibited by the Equality Act 2010, which has included ‘sexual orientation’
as a protected characteristic since 2006. Understanding, accepting, respecting and celebrating
cultural diversity is integral to Ofsted’s13 school inspection criteria with regard to Spiritual, Moral,
Social and Cultural (SMSC) development. In Brazil, the lack of legislation contemplating anti-
discrimination on the grounds of sexual identity seems to be a double-edged sword. On the one
hand, including unspecific references to the promotion of tolerance and respect as pedagogical
goals, the National Educational Plan opens avenues for teachers to bring gender equity and sexual
diversity into the curricula. On the other, it allows leeway for unscrupulous social actors to devise
strategies to silence critical pedagogical practices whose aim is to foster respect for sexually and
gender non-conforming students. In other words, anti-discrimination legislation is a necessity in
Brazil so as to prevent schools from becoming labs for bigotry.
We argue that in order to implement these legal duties in the respective countries, it is necessary
to not only tackle overt forms of homophobia but also to fill the silences around difference and
diversity which currently pervade schools. The explicit and positive inclusion of sexual diversity
and the equally positive presentation of different sexual orientations and relationship types within
these will better prepare students for engaging in their own sexual and romantic relationships,
as well as for understanding those of others which may be different from their own. In order
to positively and effectively change what happens in schools, a contributing factor may be the
insertion of a greater diversity of meanings into the ‘exclusionary and silencing language’ of
school curricula.

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 14

Silence and Educational Places and Spaces

Eva Alerby

Introduction

In modern society, low volume levels – peace and quiet – are often in short supply, and the
societal noise levels are gradually increasing. This is something that concerns many people,
whose daily lives are often full of loud and disturbing noises. People of today are, according to
Mendes-Flohr (2012), surrounded by ‘the cacophony of urban life’ (p. 12). Some even argue that
one of our greatest contemporary public health issues is noise pollution (Passchier-Vermeer &
Passchier, 2000; WHO, 2011). According to Englund (2005), this may lead to quietness being
re-evaluated, enhanced and refined. It is, nevertheless, hard to find quietness and stillness in
today’s society. The same is true for today’s educational settings: silence is in short supply in
schools and universities.
In this chapter, the relationship between silence and educational settings – more precisely, in
the form of university places and spaces – will be illuminated, elaborated on and discussed. The
exploration has taken some university students’ voices, in the form of a narrative, as a point of
departure. The narrative has been constructed as a paradigmatic case (cf. Pavlich, 2010), and it is
based on real events and quotations that illustrate collective experiences emanating from previous
studies on the significance of educational places and spaces (e.g. Alerby, 2016, 2019a, 2019b,
2020a, 2020b; Alerby & Bergmark, 2016). The setting for the narrative is a university course in
one of the teacher education programmes at a Swedish university.

The Narrative – Places and Spaces of Significance for Learning

As a course task in the teacher education programme, the students were asked to reflect on
their study environment, specifically on places and spaces of significance for their learning. A
group of students were therefore discussing their experiences in these places and spaces using the
course task as a point of departure. The following conversation took place:

●● This place is one of many places in the university which are important to me.
The Bloomsbury Handbook of Solitude, Silence and Loneliness

The place the student was referring to is located in a corridor in one of the university buildings.
The design of the place is not very advanced; it consists of an open space, a few armchairs, a table
and the opportunity to look out a window. The student continued:

●● Here I have the chance to sit comfortably in peace and quiet, and to have interesting
chats with my classmates. I sit comfortably and relaxed in the armchairs and I can look
out over something other than work. I can drift away, for a moment at least, and gather
my forces.

One of her peers continued to elaborate on the same place:

●● Yes, I totally agree. This place feels somehow like freedom. Maybe it reminds me of being
at home, and for me, being at home means security, and security is a necessary condition
for being able to study effectively, I think.

Another student chimed in, claiming that some places and spaces at the university are scary or
emit a sense of ‘insecurity’:

●● The places that scare me most in the whole university are the exam halls. These halls are
problematic for me. The actual room itself contributes to this problem. The rooms are often
impersonal and stark. This produces a sterile feeling. The feeling I get when I think about
exams is just as scary as the feeling I get when I see a hall where people sit exams. The
feeling that builds up in my body when I have to be in such rooms makes my heart race, I
feel pressure and feel a terrible anxiety.

A student furthered the discussion by following up on what her peer just said, stressing the lack
of calm and quiet places at the university:

●● But actually, we have not so many places to get away, to get peace and quiet . . . I mean, it
is almost impossible to avoid the unpleasant feeling that some of the large rooms or halls
often create, especially if the sound level is high. Just look at the cantina, the body of
people there during lunch time feels like a mob of frantic creatures locked up in the same,
too confined, pen.

The other students were quiet for a while, considering what had just been said, and then one of
them took the floor and continued the discussion by arguing:

●● Yes, that’s true . . . but on the other hand, I’m not sure I agree that there aren’t any calm and
quiet places at the uni. I mean, you can always go to the library. The library is always quiet,
which kind of symbolises what a library is, right?

The student continued, saying:

●● I think the low sound level creates a calming feeling that produces a peaceful working
environment which feels stimulating and motivating. I remember when I was a child, I think
it was in third grade, me and my friend used to go to the library just to find peace and quiet.

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Another student chimed in to say:

●● I think the same. It’s easy to focus in the library because it is secluded and it is quiet and
calm there, with few disturbances . . . and that enables my learning. The library exudes a
positive atmosphere which works as a positive driving force, and that is really motivational.

One of the students continued the discussion by introducing another kind of quiet and calm place
at the university, pointing at the nearby coffee shop:

●● I personally think that these kinds of oases are quiet and calm zones of freedom where you
can disconnect the brain from studying. The ability to relax is very important to create a
pleasant learning environment, I think.

His peer added:

●● Absolutely, quiet places for relaxation and contemplation are really important. I need it to
be quiet in order to focus, to actually learn what I need to learn.

The students continued to discuss whether there are places and spaces of stillness and peace,
contemplation and relaxation on the campus. One of the students concluded by emphasizing the
importance of such places and spaces with the following words:

●● I think it’s so important that I can relax and let my thoughts ‘fly freely’ at a tranquil and still
place. I have found such a place at a corner in the main building. It’s like my own hidden
place . . . it’s often free . . . not so many students know about it. There I can let go of the
stress and don’t have to worry. I can think about things other than my studies and all the
homework. Just sit back and let go of the soul for a while, let the soul ‘heal’, for example,
after an exam period.

In connection to the aforementioned narrative, it is worth recalling that the task was to reflect on
places and spaces of significance for learning, which, in these examples, are places and spaces
outside the classrooms and lecture halls. The places the students described are all spaces-in-
between, places and spaces that are used beyond class time and lectures. Additionally, the places
and spaces the students value and appreciate all embrace silence and stillness, tranquillity and
quietness. The students in the narrative expressed desires for peace and quiet within the walls of
the university – places and spaces for reflection and contemplation, where thoughts can ‘fly freely’
and the soul can ‘heal’. They also stressed the importance of places and spaces in the university
transmitting a feeling of freedom and security, and even a feeling of ‘being at home’ – a feeling
of belonging.

Theoretical Considerations and What Is to Come

Theoretically, the exploration in this chapter is based on different philosophical and theoretical
directions used in a rather eclectic way – a completely conscious choice. However, two theorists
and scholars who may stand out are the French philosophers Maurice Merleau-Ponty and Gaston
Bachelard. Merleau-Ponty (2002) is probably best known for having developed the theory of
the lived body. He emphasized that the lived body is both nature and culture, immanence and

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transcendence. In line with the phenomenological approach, he moved away from the dualistic
dichotomy between body and soul. Body and soul, spirit and matter, are not either-or, but are
seen instead as a whole, as both-and. He even went beyond both-and towards a conflation which
is more than merely the sum of its parts (Merleau-Ponty & Lefort, 1968). For him, humans are
intertwined with everything in the world: ‘the world is wholly inside me and I am wholly outside
myself’ (Merleau-Ponty, 2002: 408).
Merleau-Ponty (1995), however, talked and wrote not only about the lived body but also about
silence. He emphasized that there is something that exists beyond what is said, which cannot be
communicated verbally, and which he termed a silent and implicit language. Bachelard (1994), as
one of his directions, related phenomenology as a philosophical method of the field of architecture,
and he based his analysis on lived experiences in these kinds of places and spaces. In particular, he
focused on personal and emotional responses to different buildings. For example, he declared that
for a space to be inhabited, it must, at the same time, hold the spirit of the concept of home. The
question is, however, whether educational places and spaces – for example, a university building
– can be considered places or spaces where silence and stillness are noted and valued, and also
whether a university can, and should, be compared to the concept of home.
Within the framework of this chapter, the exploration of silence and educational places and
spaces is connected to the previous narrative, and the students’ voices are entangled throughout
the discussion. The following section starts with an exploration of people’s needs and desires
for silence and stillness before narrowing the subject down to the role of silence in educational
settings. Thereafter, silent places and spaces at universities are outlined and discussed, followed by
an exploration of the feelings of belonging in relation to educational places and spaces. Finally, I
conclude by arguing for the value of silence and stillness in various university places and spaces.

People’s Needs and Desires for Silence and Stillness

Throughout the ages, people have expressed desires and needs to be in silence and stillness
when this silence is pleasant and longed for. On the other hand, the opposite is also true: in some
situations, people express discomfort with silence, and sometimes even fear. In these situations,
the silence may be perceived as unpleasant or as a mere nuisance: something to avoid. Whether
silence is perceived as pleasant or unpleasant, it can be regarded as a multifaceted phenomenon.
Silence can, for example, be experienced in different ways by different people at different
times. A similar silent situation, or even the same silent situation, can be experienced in totally
different ways by different people, or by the same people but at a different time. According to
Foucault (1978), there is a multitude of silences, not just one. Silence therefore embraces various
dimensions, but as von Wright (2012) expressed it: ‘[s]ilence “as such” is neither good nor bad’
(p. 94). The interpretation comes down to how people perceive the silence (if there is any). In
the following sections, some of the multitudinous dimensions of silence will be explored and
elaborated on, with a focus on people’s needs and desires for silence and stillness in modern
society.
As pointed out in the introduction, people today often find silence, peace and quiet to be in short
supply. A reason for this is that societal noise levels are increasing over time. However, not all sounds
are disturbing; when it comes to sounds and silence, Cooper (2012) claimed that silence is ‘the absence,
not of sound per se, but of noise which is obtrusive or salient’ (p. 55). When people express a longing

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for silence and stillness, they often refer to places and events such as walking in the forest or along the
sea shore in the early morning. Places such as these, however, are not totally free from sounds: there
are always sounds of rustling leaves in the forest or rippling waves at the shore. Although places such
as these are never totally quiet, there are, in most cases, no noises that are obtrusive or salient when
people express a longing for silence and stillness during a walk in the forest or at the shore. A question
to raise is, therefore, whether complete silence – the lack of sounds – ever exists. The answer is, most
likely, no: there are always some audible sounds, not the least of which originate from the human for
as long as they live. Complete silence can never exist, as the human body, through blood circulation,
breathing and digestion, always produces sounds.
There are, however, so many more dimensions of significance when exploring silence than
solely focusing on the absence of sounds. People are, for example, searching for and choosing
silence for a multiplicity of reasons. An example of chosen silence is finding a quiet and tranquil
place that promotes meditation and consideration. Silence can also be used to protect another
person from someone or something, or someone can choose silence as a means of protest. Silence
can therefore be self-imposed, but it can also be enforced, which in turn reveals the dimensions
of power that embrace the phenomenon of silence (Alerby, 2020a). Given this, there is a dualism
immanent in the phenomenon of silence.
Even though silence is often in short supply in today’s society, as well as in different educational
settings, it can simultaneously be hard to avoid silence – silence is, more or less, always around
us. A question to ask, however, is whether we notice, or hear, the silence. Sometimes, the silence
is not at all noticeable, even if it is there, and at other times, the silence cannot be avoided; instead,
it is deafening. To really hear the silence, we might need to sharpen our listening but also be open
and responsive to its message. For that, silence is needed; or, as Cooper (2012) stated: ‘To be a
good listener requires an ability to remain silent’ (p. 54).
The issues of listening are of significance in various educational settings, in schools and
universities, by teachers and students. Schultz (2010) stressed this importance with the following
words: ‘[u]nderstanding the role of silence for the individual and the class as a whole is a complex
process that may require new ways of conceptualising listening’ (p. 1). Expressed in other words:
one has to listen to the silence and the message it conveys.
A message is, however, most often conveyed by spoken or written language, but even a person who
is silent conveys a message. Dickinson (2007) stressed that it is the silent message that often says the
most, and Bateson (1987) claimed a similar thought by stressing that a non-message is also a message.
Buber (1993) emphasized that a true dialogue between two people, by its nature, is both spoken and
mute, and a mute dialogue is sometimes referred to as speaking silence. However, even if a person
is expressing herself with spoken words, by speaking continuously, it is not certain that the person
in question has something to say. On the other hand, a silent person, a person who is not expressing
herself verbally, says a great deal (Heidegger, 1971). If it is so that even the silence conveys a message,
it is of utmost importance to really listen to the silence and take its message under consideration,
especially in different educational contexts and settings – places and spaces.

The Role of Silence in Educational Places and Spaces

The role of silence, and maybe even more specifically, silent messages, is something that needs
to be observed and addressed in educational situations. Can, for example, a university student

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convey a message without expressing herself in words, instead remaining silent? If a student is
quiet, and remains silent even though she or he knows the answer to the teacher’s question or has
opinions on the ongoing discussion, it is crucial to listen to the silence and facilitate silent spaces
so that those students may enter the conversation; in other words, to create spaces where silence
can prevail, and even be appreciated.
In the previous paragraph, the dualism immanent in the silence was emphasized. An additional
example of the dualistic character of silence is that someone, such as a university lecturer or
teacher, can both give and take silence from someone else, such as a student. The teacher has the
power to give the words to the students by asking questions or asking for an exploration of the
topic of the lecture. By the same means, the teacher also has the power to allocate the silence by
deciding which students are asked to talk and which are thereby asked to remain silent.
In addition to this reasoning, a further dimension of silence and its effects in educational
settings is to consider what may happen if a student remains quiet after hearing the teacher’s
question, request or orally assigned task. On the one hand, the teacher expects the students to
reply to questions, show their knowledge on an orally assigned task and actively take part in
discussions during class or lectures. On the other hand, however, the teacher wants the students
to be quiet and alert during instructions and briefings. There is an immanent paradox in the
intertwining of silence and education – to be quiet or not. For students, it is also a question of
talking at the right time and at the right place (and also about the right things).
Worth mentioning, however, is that all human communication depends on the interplay between
given and taken silence – without silent pauses in a conversation, there is no true conversation (it
is perhaps a monologue). It is in the silent pauses, or moments, in a conversation that reflection
and consideration can emerge, and the quality of the conversation increases (Scollon & Scollon,
1987). It is also in silent pauses that the other person is given the space to be invited into and
enter the conversation.
To be regarded as silent is, however, not the same as not speaking, according to Merleau-
Ponty (2002). To be silent is something different from not speaking or making one’s voice heard,
and Merleau-Ponty claimed that a person – for example, a university student – needs to have
the ability, or freedom, to express themself orally. If instead of doing that, the person chooses
to remain silent for some reason, it is only then that the person can be regarded as silent. In
connection to this argumentation, it is also of interest to address the so-called silent students.
How are the other people in the space, such as teachers, lecturers or other students, reacting to
a silent student? Previous studies on silent students have shown that these students might risk
being regarded as a problem, and some studies have even referred to them in pathological terms.
In opposition to this, von Wright (2012) instead described the silent students in rational terms.
Educational places and spaces are filled with educational relationships, and in these relationships,
there are always aspects of silence, most often embraced by uncertainty and expectations.
Silence in education can also be used as a teaching strategy. For example, there is the probably
well-known teacher’s trick of staying calm and quiet in front of an unruly group of students
instead of trying to maintain order and quietness by raising their own voice (Alerby, 2020a).
In connection to educational places and spaces, it is moreover of interest to be observant of
the time that passes between the teacher’s question and the students’ answer. How long does
the teacher remain silent after asking the question, and before answering it themself, or asking
another question? Rowe (1974, 1986) called this time between the question and the self-response

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‘wait-time’. Teachers are often too quick to answer questions themselves, or to ask new questions,
instead of remaining and resting in silence. When the teacher allows it to be quiet for a while,
the answer from the students increases in both length and complexity (Rowe, 1974, 1986). It
is, therefore, an advantage if the teacher permits silence in the classroom or lecture hall as one
way to elicit tacit language and tacit knowledge, something that both Merleau-Ponty (2002) and
Polanyi (1969) claimed exists in every human being.
It is not uncommon for people in today’s society, and university students in particular, to
choose silence as a search for stillness and peace; a silent space for contemplation and self-
reflection, as one of the students in the narrative emphasized: ‘I can relax and let my thoughts
“fly freely” at a tranquil and still place.’ A question is, however, whether these places exist in
contemporary societies, or maybe more crucially, in the life of the university student.

Places and Spaces of Silence and Stillness at the University

Educational places and spaces, such as university buildings, are of significance for the people –
be they teachers, lecturers, scholars or students – staying within them. Places and spaces influence
people in the moment, but also in the future. The places and spaces within a university, therefore,
embrace temporal dimensions, and these dimensions manifest as follows, according to Bachelard
(1994): ‘Past, present and future give the house different dynamisms, which often interfere, at
times opposing, at others, stimulating one another’ (p. 6). Merleau-Ponty (2002) also emphasized
the importance of linking different temporal dimensions, such as the past, the present and the
future, which he phrased ‘the intentional arc’. To connect this reasoning to the university, it can
be stated that the building itself was designed and built in the past, prior to people entering and
inhabiting it. It will affect these people in the present, when they stay at the university, but it will
also have an impact on them for a significant amount of time into the future. Questions to raise
are how – in what way – the time at the university influences the humans, and how, for example,
the students experience their time there.
Reports from the lives of university students in Sweden indicate that the pace is often very
intense and stressful, including lectures, independent study work, examinations and assessments,
but also social relationships and interactions with peers as well as with teachers, lecturers and
scholars. The students’ workloads have increased in recent years, and the university environment
is also often very noisy (Söderlund, 2017). The high sound level was pointed out by one of the
students in the aforementioned narrative:

I mean, it is almost impossible to avoid the unpleasant feeling that some of the large rooms
or halls often create, especially if the sound level is high. Just look at the cantina: the body of
people there during lunch time feels like a mob of frantic creatures locked up in the same, too
confined, pen.

Additionally, their schedules are often demanding and may also require moving between
different places and spaces within the university. These circumstances commonly result in
university students experiencing stress and having symptoms of depression and fatigue (Public
Health Agency of Sweden, 2018). One way to mitigate these conditions, instead promoting
students’ well-being during their study period, is to create supportive places and spaces that
enable students’ stillness and contemplation. As one student in the narrative expressed: ‘Here

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I have the chance to sit comfortably in peace and quiet, and to have interesting chats with my
classmates. I sit comfortably and relaxed in the armchairs and I can look out over something
other than work.’
In previous studies, students described university places and spaces which evoke feelings
of calm and stillness, something they value and appreciate (see, e.g. Alerby, 2016, 2019a,
2019b, 2020a, 2020b). The university library is such a place, which one student described in
the narrative as follows: ‘The library is always quiet, which kind of symbolises what a library
is, right?’ The quietness at the library also enables students’ learning: ‘it’s easy to focus in the
library because it is secluded and it is quiet and calm there, with few disturbances . . . and
that enables my learning’, as another of the students in the narrative expressed. Furthermore,
another student emphasized that it is both stimulating and motivating to study in the library.
The students did, however, find other places and spaces in the university that they appreciated
because they were silent and calm. The university library is not the only place where the
students can find stillness and peace for the sake of silence. Instead, the students find their
‘own’ places and spaces of peace and silence. ‘I think it’s so important that I can relax and let
my thoughts “fly freely” at a tranquil and still place. I have found such a place at a corner in the
main building. It’s like my own hidden place . . . it’s often free . . . not so many students know
about it’, as a student in the narrative emphasized.
There is, however, a distinction between the silence a person may experience at the actual
place (so-called outer silence) and the silence they experience within themself (so-called inner
silence). For some people, it is easier to eliminate and ignore external disturbing noises than it
is for others. It is worth noting that some of today’s students may have problems finding silence
and stillness even though it actually exists, as they experience too much inner noise. This inner
noise may make it impossible to find silence even when the person in question is located in quiet
surroundings (Alerby, 2020a). Whether a student has difficulties finding inner or outer silence,
the silence itself is most often a necessity for contemplation and reflection, which is an important
foundation for learning. Places and spaces of quietude are of significance for students and their
learning, as one of them emphasized in the narrative: ‘I need it to be quiet in order to focus, to
actually learn what I need to learn.’
Another of the students in the narrative stressed the importance of having the opportunity to
stay in a place that enables contemplation: ‘I can drift away, for a moment at least, and gather my
forces.’ To have the ability to ‘drift away’ and maybe daydream is something Bachelard (1994)
argued for, because through contemplation and daydreams, the person is transported from the
immediate world to an infinite world. Maybe it is only there that the student in question can
‘gather [her] forces’.
For Bachelard (1994), there is a close connection between the building – the house – and
memories. He considered the building to be a metaphor for the human. It is within the body of the
house, with all its rooms and spaces, that several of a person’s memories are housed. According
to Bachelard, memories actually originate from the rooms and spaces within the house (or the
human body), and it is, among other things, through daydreams that the person can recall the
memories. Foran and Olson (2008) also stressed the connection between memories and places
and spaces at, for example, schools and universities. Students’ experiences of such places and
spaces, not limited to classrooms and lecture halls, but also spaces-in-between, may awaken
memories. Some of these places and spaces may be characterized by silence and stillness: ‘I

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remember when I was a child, I think it was in third grade, me and my friend used to go to the
library just to find peace and quiet’, as a student in the narrative expressed.
Past experiences, memories and the feelings that arise in connection to a building’s spatial
design, its places and spaces can be so strong that they cause bodily symptoms. For example,
these symptoms can come in the form of anxiety and palpitation, as another student emphasized:
‘The feeling that builds up in my body when I have to be in such rooms makes my heart race;
I feel pressure and feel a terrible anxiety.’ According to Merleau-Ponty (2002), as humans, we
are always in our body; in the world: ‘the body is our anchorage in a world’ (p. 167). The body
is always with us; the body inhabits the world. Thus, the body is both a prerequisite for and a
part of the experiences human beings have in the world, as well as what memories and feelings
are evoked.
The students, however, not only expressed feelings of anxiety and stress in connection
to university places and spaces; they also expressed their experiences and feelings about the
university buildings in terms of quietude, calmness and a sense of belonging. When expressing
the need for quiet and peaceful places and spaces, the students stressed the importance of these
places and spaces in the university transmitting a feeling of freedom and security, and even a
feeling of ‘being at home’. Then, what characterizes a ‘home’, and what does it mean to ‘be at
home’ and be embraced by a feeling of belonging?

The University Place – a Feeling of Belonging

A ‘home’ can, according to Hung (2010), be defined and described as an intentional construction,
and whether it is a physical building or a mental place, existential meanings are always embedded
within the place called home. Hung also claimed that ‘[h]ome is a place providing us with a
fuller privacy, safety and intimacy than any other place’ (p. 234). Whether a home, in an everyday
sense, can always be considered a safe place can, however, be debated. For a huge amount of
people around the world, their homes are rather the opposite – unsecure places that are perhaps
not suitable to be called ‘home’. However, within the framework of this chapter, this will not
be further discussed. Instead, the concept of home will be explored in relation to the students’
expressions in the narrative. One of the students said that a place in the university that she
appreciates is one that reminds her of being at home, which gives her a sense of safety: ‘for
me, being at home means security.’ This student also stressed that security is an essential part of
studying: ‘security is a necessary condition for being able to study effectively, I think.’
Every space that is truly inhabited holds, according to Bachelard (1994), the actual spirit, the
essence of the concept of home – a place where we belong. As a university can be considered a
public place, a question to raise is whether such a place can ever carry the meaning of the private
place – a ‘home’ (Hung & Stables, 2011). One way to view these issues is, as Roberts (2008)
claimed, that a school or a university becomes a ‘pedagogical home’ during the students’ time
there. He also stressed that, in this pedagogical home, the students are guests and the teachers are
hosts: ‘As the years go by, we [e.g. a university] “host” many students who become “guests” in
our pedagogical “home” for different periods of our lives’ (Roberts, 2008: 540). Hopefully this
pedagogical home embraces the feeling of belonging. Nevertheless, a place one feels a sense of
belonging to, and feels at home in, may not be the dwelling place (Heidegger, 2001). We do not
always find ourselves in places and spaces where we feel a sense of belonging, or, as Bollnow (1961)

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put it: ‘the space where a man finds himself at the moment may not be the space to which he
belongs’ (p. 32).
The question is whether the places and spaces in a university are ‘truly inhabited’ and thus are
included in the contents of the concept of home – a space in which one belongs. Perhaps more
important to consider is what an inhabited space is. Bachelard (1994) maintained that inhabited
space transcends geometric space. Linked to an educational building, Bengtsson (2004) pointed
out that a school – or in this case, a university – cannot be understood and explained only as an
architectonic and material building. The phenomenon of a school or a university transcends the
building itself.
According to some of the students in the narrative, a ‘home-like’ feeling and a sense of
belonging are important dimensions in their university lives, and experiences like these are both
appreciated and valued. The students equated a feeling of home with a secure place, just as
Hung (2010) did. To feel secure and at home, but also free, are important aspects of the learning
process, as one of the students in the narrative stressed: ‘This place feels somehow like freedom.
Maybe it reminds me of being at home.’
According to Løvlie (2007), all learning is linked to situations, to different places and spaces,
and all education requires a frame. This frame can be in the form of a physical building; for
example, a university, which contains a variety of places and spaces. However, it can also take the
form of spaces limited to the ether, such as web-based education or online learning, where the
teaching takes place in completely different places to where the physical classroom is located.
No matter the conditions, learning takes place in different types of spaces, and in these spaces,
experiences occur and memories form, which leave different forms of traces or tracks. Sometimes
these tracks are both clear and deep, whereas sometimes they may be so weak that they can be
difficult to detect (Alerby, 2016).

Some Concluding Considerations

This chapter is largely structured around the narrative and the students’ voices as presented
in the introduction. It is worth recalling that the students in question were asked to reflect
on their study environment, places and spaces of significance for their learning. It might
seem natural and obvious that they would have mentioned classrooms or lecture halls in
connection to learning places, but they instead focused mostly on spaces-in-between, such
as an open space in a corridor, the library (even though a library can be viewed as a learning
place, it is not an ordinary classroom or lecture hall), a coffee shop or their own ‘hidden’
places. It is likely that on a daily basis, both students and teachers use these places and
spaces, which both receive and give meaning. As mentioned by Bengtsson (2004), these
meanings concern us as people.
The students, however, mentioned not only places and spaces they appreciated and valued but
also the opposite – places and spaces they did not appreciate and value at all, and these places and
spaces were all characterized by being crowded, noisy and sometimes even frightening. These
conditions, in turn, can cause bodily effects and purely physical symptoms to arise, such as a
racing heart and anxiety, as one of the students stressed. A crucial dimension to these negative
experiences and feelings is the lack of silence and stillness. The need for quiet and peaceful
places and spaces at the university was clearly emphasized by the students in the narrative:

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I think it’s so important that I can relax and let my thoughts ‘fly freely’ at a tranquil and still
place. . . . There I can let go of the stress and don’t have to worry. I can think about things other
than my studies and all the homework. Just sit back and let go of the soul for a while; let the
soul ‘heal’, for example, after an exam period.
A library, which most universities have, can be seen as an organized place for, among other things,
silence and stillness, contemplation and recovery; part of the nature of the library is silence
and stillness. However, nowadays, some universities (e.g. the University of Manchester, UK; the
University of Padova, Italy) are also organizing for silent places and spaces outside the actual
building in the form of silent gardens. These gardens, located in different university campuses,
are to be considered restorative and contemplative silent spaces that can reduce stress and increase
students’ (and staff’s) well-being (e.g. Su et al., 2021). Other examples of silent places and spaces
within university campuses are various kinds of silent rooms, often connected to church rooms
on the campuses. These are all official places and spaces organized by the universities in order
to promote silence and stillness, quietude and tranquillity. The students themselves highly valued
these kinds of places and spaces, stressing that they are of great importance for reflection and
consideration, which are essential for the learning process. Additionally, these kinds of places
and spaces are also of significance for the students’ sense of security due to the fact that they are
reminiscent of being at home – a feeling of belonging – that is also of importance for learning.
Whether there is a shortage of silence and stillness in society in general, and at universities
specifically, it is of significance to note that if places and spaces of silence are not officially
arranged, the people within the settings will search for them, finding or creating their own places
and spaces of quietude and calmness. What was made obvious through listening to the students’
voices, is that unofficial places and spaces which are not organized by the universities are just as
important as the organized ones, perhaps even more so.
A desire for silence and stillness, however, is not something that is sought exclusively by
these students, but something that many – perhaps most – people appreciate and value. This
may be because the soundscape has increased in today’s society, and silence and stillness are in
increasingly short supply. In that case, this is something to question. People’s needs and desires
to be in places and spaces of peace and quiet are profound; therefore, people will find their own
ways to locate and stay in these kinds of places and spaces – be they official or unofficial.
As mentioned previously, it is of high importance to be observant as to how the silence is
perceived – as good or bad, as pleasant and longed for or as unpleasant and a nuisance. However,
it is also necessary to be attentive to that which cannot be spoken, which can be just as important
as what is able to be said. Even a non-message is a message – the silence is speaking. Ultimately,
if silence is present in society in general or in university places and spaces in particular, what
may be most essential is to not consider silence as something to fear. Rather, it is an opportunity
to listen with curiosity and use silence in a fruitful and beneficial way.

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 15

The Quiet Professional

On Being Alone/Together in Higher Education

Anne Pirrie and Nini Fang

Introduction: ‘I want to be alone’

In an article published in Life magazine in 1955, Greta Garbo, that most eloquent star of silent
cinema, set the record straight on the phrase that has since become so closely associated with
her public and private personas. ‘I never said “I want to be alone,” . . . I only said “I want to be
let alone!” There is all the difference’ (Bainbridge, 1955: 113; italics in the original).1 Garbo
uttered the words ‘I want to be alone’ in the role of the dancer Elizaveta Grushinskaya in the
film Grand Hotel (1932). In the many decades since, that phrase has done much to forge an
indelible association between solitude and melancholy in the public imagination. Further light is
cast on the Garboesque association between solitude and melancholy in another silent medium:
namely the letters written by Garbo to her close friend and confidante, the Austrian actress and
writer Salka Viertel. Only the letters from Garbo survive – a testament, perhaps, to the sense of
isolation that so often accompanies fame. In 2019, sixty-five intimate letters written by Garbo to
Viertel between 1932 and 1973 were put up for auction.2 In these letters, which were handwritten
in pencil, Garbo revealed the extent of her isolation. ‘I go nowhere, see no-one’, she wrote to
Viertel in 1937 during a trip to her native Sweden. She added that it had been the same when
she was in Hollywood, and confided that ‘it is hard and sad to be alone, but sometimes it’s even
more difficult to be with someone.’ These are words that will resonate with many in the era of
Covid-19.
Garbo’s remarks on the theme of being alone/together hint at the sense of impingement she
was referring to in that famous statement. ‘Impingement’ is a term used in the psychoanalytical
literature, and has its origins in the seminal work of the paediatrician and psychoanalyst Winnicott
(1896–1971) (1953, 1958). Impingement can be defined as ‘the attack on subjectivity through
the imposition of a relationship’ (Levine, 2017: 75). Perhaps what Garbo was objecting to was the
threat to her original vitality, her true self, posed by stardom. She clearly regarded this as a form
 The Quiet Professional

of encroachment, the infringement of a selfhood subordinated to a public persona. Or maybe she

was making a psychoanalytic point, namely that there is ‘a self one is true to in solitude, and a self
one is true to in company’ (Phillips, 1999: 87). Then again, perhaps what she was objecting to was
projection, not in the literal sense related to the medium of film, but in the metaphorical sense
used in psychoanalysis. In psychoanalytic terms, projection is regarded as ‘the most primitive
form of object relation, or, more accurately, a transitional form that makes objects part of a
subjective world’ (Levine, 2017: 74).
‘All the lonely people, where do they all come from?’ asked the Beatles. More to the point,
where do they go? Perhaps they go to the cinema, where they afforded ample opportunities to
sit alone/together in almost total darkness and to project their social isolation and existential
loneliness onto the silver screen. There they gather round an absent presence, and experience
intimacy at a safe distance, silently. The very notion of a ‘screen icon’ conjures up the idea of
a façade, an empty shell, a representational object without substance, bereft of a subject, as it
were. It is, of course, foolhardy to attempt to psychoanalyse a dead movie star. Nevertheless, it is
tempting to suggest that what Garbo was experiencing was a sense of personal loss. Perhaps what
she was objecting to was the fact that in the public imagination, her luminous screen presence
eclipsed the sense of loneliness and existential confusion that pervaded the rest of her life. It is
as if this star of the silent screen were screaming ‘see me!’ Garbo retired at the age of thirty-five,
having appeared in twenty-eight films. Needless to say, calling it quits at thirty-five is not a viable
option for most ‘quiet’ professionals (or even for noisy ones). Try asking anyone who works in a
university, particularly those who are employed on no-fixed hours casual contracts, with no job
security.

Correspondence: Relationality in Solitude

It is particularly telling that Garbo’s revelations of loneliness and isolation appear in the context
of an intimate exchange of letters. Correspondence in this literal sense is by definition a silent
medium. According to the psychoanalyst Phillips (1999: 88), ‘reading literature is a relationship
conducted in silence.’ Letter writing is another way of entering into relationship with an absent
presence. Garbo’s correspondence is rendered even more poignant because the letters from her
confidante are no longer extant. Garbo comes into her own, as it were, in the company of a friend
who is not there. Perhaps her star burned so brightly that it obscured the view of lesser stars. The
notion of correspondence – which in its broadest sense carries echoes of response, responsibility
and responsiveness – sheds new light on the state of being ‘alone together’. Correspondence,
defined both as a form of communication through the exchange of letters and as the action or fact
of corresponding, provides a useful vehicle through which to consider ‘quiet professionalism’ in
the context of higher education. The latter definition of correspondence, that is attunement, or the
creation and maintenance of a particular form of ethical relation, encapsulates our mode of working
as co-authors with different academic backgrounds (the arts and humanities and counselling and
psychotherapy, respectively). In broad terms, we were drawn (in)to thinking (together) about how
loneliness, alienation and pleasurable solitude set their stamp on our particular variety of ‘quiet
professionalism’. We shall explore here how these various forms of aloneness and togetherness
are responses to external pressures to adapt to the demands placed upon us by the university
system. We shall also consider the creative tensions between being on one’s own and thinking with
another person. The capacity to embrace both solitude and ‘ethical loneliness’ (Stauffer, 2018)

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within the ambit of quiet professionalism is a necessary precondition for the ability to converse,
in the sense of turning towards the other as well as talking and corresponding.
As regards the former definition of correspondence, the exchange of letters, the subsequent
musings of Greta Garbo shed some light on the peculiar variety of loneliness that can emerge in
a relationship. In contrast, our emerging relationship as co-authors was an antidote to the sense
of loneliness that we experienced in our professional lives (see Pirrie & Fang, 2020). The sense
of ‘ethical loneliness’, alienation and isolation that we explore further below is encapsulated
in the following observation by Judith Butler (2004:15): ‘I am other to myself precisely at the
place where I expect to be myself.’ At the moral level, our personal and professional relationship
demonstrates that ‘our relationship to ourselves [is] inextricable from our relationship with
others’ (Phillips, 1999: 81). Alone/together is a Janus-faced notion. In Garbo’s case, it speaks of
restless nights in grand hotels, glitzy restaurants and oyster shells. Our encounters are played out
in more mundane circumstances, for instance in a coffee shop near the university where one of
us works, in the city where both of us live. Meeting and corresponding with each other enable us
to hold on to what we cherish about our work. It is only through working with and through each
other that we are able to remain alert and open to arousals of pain, discomfort and anxiety that
are part and parcel of quiet professional practice.
In Garbo’s correspondence with Viertel there is an intimation of an alternative and more
affirmative version of solitude, something that for her at least remained tantalizingly out
of reach. This offers us a glimpse of a form of solitude that is associated with strength and
endurance. The latter term might be defined as the ability to remain with a situation until
one has found one’s way into its deepest recesses (Pirrie & Fang, 2020). Until relatively
recently, this might have been considered a hallmark of ‘quiet’ academic practice. In Garbo’s
correspondence, there is the merest suggestion of a readiness to embrace the capacity to be
alone, a desire to protect the self from the demands of those intent on creating a fantasy world.
Garbo’s correspondence with Viertel might be read as an indication that it was entering into
relations with a confidante through the silent medium of letter writing that made it tolerable
for her to be alone. It is entirely in keeping with the Janus-faced nature of solitude (and its
close companions silence and loneliness) that the seminal work of Donald Winnicott suggests
the obverse: namely that the capacity to be alone, to feel at ease in the company of one’s
‘true self ’, is a prerequisite for being able to enter into relationships with others. And as we
shall attempt to demonstrate in this chapter, ‘corresponding’ with others (including in our case
corresponding with each other as co-authors) is a prerequisite for being able to embody and
enact the version of ‘quiet professionalism’ that we explore here.
We should make it clear at the outset that we use the word ‘quiet’ in the sense related to
the absence of impingement, that is ‘being free from disturbance; not interfered or meddled
with; left in peace’ (OED, 2005). This secondary definition of quiet resonates with what Garbo
referred to as being ‘let alone’. It is important to recognize that the sense of stillness associated
with the term need not imply settlement or quiescence, nor indeed a reluctance to cause a stir
or to question the status quo. Indeed, as we shall see, there is often a fair degree of disquiet in
the background. In short, the quiet professional can be a persuasive force for resistance, even
in the silent medium of text. Having put the record straight on what we mean by ‘quiet’ in
the context of academic work, we shall now clarify what we mean by professionalism and its
associated terms.

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A ‘quiet word’ on Professionalism

Throughout this chapter, we use the word ‘professional’ in its broadest contemporary sense,
that is to refer to ‘engaging in any occupation by which a person regularly earns a living’.3
The references to engagement in ‘one of the learned or skilled professions’, or the sense of
vocation that was evident in earlier definitions (e.g. OED, 2005) seem to have faded from view,
as have earlier references to ‘following an occupation as his (or her) profession, life-work, or
means of livelihood’. The reference to life-work suggests that at some point there may have been
scope for amateurism under the guise of professionalism. In recent years, professionalism has
become dreary and debased, and more closely associated with notions of efficiency, effectiveness
and ‘time-management’ rather than with passion or vocation. Nearly thirty years ago, Edward
Said (1994) drew attention to the forces that jeopardized the sense of excitement, discovery and
curiosity that animates us as academics, co-authors and friends. According to Said (1994: 74),
professionalism means

thinking of your work . . . as something you do for a living, . . . with one eye on the clock, and
another cocked at what is considered to be proper, professional behaviour – not rocking the
boat, not straying outside the accepted paradigms or limits, making yourself marketable and
above all presentable.

As academics, our immediate frame of reference is the contemporary university. This is an

environment in which noisy, shouty cock-eyed professionalism is clearly in the ascendency. In the
public imagination, universities have traditionally been associated with the practices of reading
and writing, teaching and learning, and research. (The latter often amounts to no more than
searching and searching again, with quiet and dogged determination.) These activities have been
increasingly subjected to various forms of regulation as a means of ‘professionalizing’ the sector
in a way that makes it inimical to a true amateur. Yet we hope that what we have to say here will
be of interest to anyone who is concerned with doing good work well in a climate of constraint,
whether they are employed in a small and medium-sized enterprise, in a large corporation or in a
health and social care setting. We anticipate that some of what we have to say will resonate with
those who are self-employed, particularly in some capacity related to the ‘knowledge economy’
(or even the plain old economy). The climate of constraint to which we refer can be attributed
to the irresistible rise of what has become known as neoliberalism. This has been defined as ‘a
complex, often incoherent, unstable and even contradictory set of practices that are organized
around a certain imagination of the “market” as a basis for the universalisation of market-based
social relations, with the corresponding penetration in almost every single aspect of our lives’
(Shamir, 2008: 3).
As we indicated earlier, ‘quiet professionals’ working in universities (and indeed elsewhere)
have increasingly been subject to ever-more rigid systems of ‘performance management’,
surveillance and control. Academic subjectivities are now governed by man-made (and we use
the term advisedly) systems of information management, professional development, annual staff
reviews and distorted by the relentless promotion of ‘research excellence’ and other dimensions of
a ‘policy technology . . . that links effort, value, purposes and self-understanding to measures and
comparisons of output’ (Ball, 2012: 19). The aim of these mechanistic systemic fixes is to render
‘more and more of the scholarly disposition . . . explicit and auditable’ (as well as audible and

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tweetable). The corollary of this is to render academic work more amenable to the relentless logic
of competition that pervades the university sector, militating against the possibility of relational
encounters that sustain us. Responding to the incessant challenges of reporting and recording
means that ‘social structures and social relations are replaced by informational structures’ (Ball,
2012: 19): we are increasingly subjected to audit and ‘enhancement’ rather than care and attention.
As we suggested earlier, our joint exploration of quietness in a professional context turns on an
apparent paradox: namely that the ability to enter into relationship is dependent upon the extent to
which we are able to ‘protect ourselves from relating’ (Levine, 2017: 69). Quiet professionalism
inflected by amateurism provides some immunity against the unintended consequences of the
ruthless audit culture that has taken root in recent decades. It seems that in order to be ‘alone
together’ in a manner that is both pleasurable and productive, we need to find ways of being with
others that nourish and sustain us, and enable us to forge a new relationship with what we do
and how we do it. As a prerequisite for this, we also need to be able to find a resting place in the
private environment of our ‘inner world’ in order to be able to keep the incessant demands of the
performance engine at bay. In short, we need to learn how to be alone, and to persuade others that
we need to be let alone. We also need to appreciate that the secret of our endurance might reside
in being quiet, and in being alone/together.
Below we draw on contemporary interpretations of psychoanalytic theory in order to explore the
hypothesis that the capacity to be alone is a necessary prerequisite for being together. This should
not be read as an alternative formulation of the well-known maxim ‘know thyself’. Nor do we
mean to suggest that it is necessary to know other people personally in order to be able to relate to
them effectively in a professional context. To claim as much would be significantly to misrepresent
the nature of the inner world, and indeed the nature of collaboration in the workplace. We suggest
that fully to inhabit one’s inner world entails circling doubt rather than grasping at certainties or
pursuing goals that are out of reach. The very notion of an inner landscape conjures up images of
pushing and probing through the gathering darkness rather than standing firm on solid ground in
broad daylight. It invites us to marvel at the disarray of seedlings cast to the winds as well as to
stare in admiration at embedded flowers planted efficiently the previous season. As the use of the
word ‘landscape’ in this metaphorical sense suggests, there is a mysterious, porous quality to this
interrelationship between the inner and outer worlds. Both can be hostile or benign, and neither is
complete in and of itself. As the Scots educationalist Nan Shepherd (2011: 3) (1977) observes in
relation to her ‘traffic’ with the Cairngorm mountains in the north of Scotland, ‘the mind cannot
carry away all that it has to give, nor does it always believe possible what it has carried away.’

Correspondence and the Quiet Art of Scholarship

As we saw earlier, in the professional environment that we inhabit reading and writing, teaching
and learning are key elements of academic practice. The manner in which they are interrelated is
inscribed in some of the words used in this context. For instance, a lecture is commonly understood
as a ‘discourse before an audience or class (e.g. in a university) upon a given subject’ (OED,
2005). As one of the contributors of this volume has pointed out, the lecture is a ‘special form of
human encounter’, a particular mode of address that is ‘modulated specifically for the hearing
of the student’ and is the ‘initiation of a dialogic relationship between teacher and student’.4 The
word ‘lecture’ is derived from the Latin legere, to read. A lecture might thus also be regarded as a

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way of giving voice to the experience of a prior relationship conducted in silence. The purpose of
a lecture is not (merely) to transmit knowledge. Rather, it marks a site of knowledge creation by
opening up the possibility of dialogical and relational encounters. As such, it is a process imbued
with the subversive power to reassess codified knowledge through the creative and inherently
risky enterprise of thinking together.
Reading is another example of a relationship conducted in silence. Quietly reading a book
was a commonplace activity for an academic, before noisiness, shouting and tweeting took over.
It is important to reinstate it as a practice associated with quiet professionalism, as a means of
‘experimenting with what is possible in the absence of the object, of finding out what [we] can do,
what experiences [we] can have, without the palpable presence of another person’ (Phillips, 1999:
87). In short, reading offers scope for drift. Inherently resistant to audit, drift opens up paths to
‘improvisational spontaneity, untiring gathering’. Reading, as a form of entering into relation with
a presence that is at once absent and silent, allows us to create a ‘hospitable habitat’. Perhaps most
importantly of all, it imbues us with an ‘ecumenical readiness to admit all-comers’ (Macfarlane &
Donwood, 2019:18). By the same token, writing (that other mainstay of quiet professionals in
academic circles) is also a form of dialogue that is subject to a variety of fluctuations. As the
novelist A. L. Kennedy (2012: 226) explains in her book On Writing, ‘the process of personal
commitment, exploration, loss, surprise and puzzlement fluctuates and coheres. Initial ideas are
shaped and re-shaped, sometimes consciously, sometimes – once again – in a rush of pressure
which can seem external.’ Like reading (and indeed lecturing), writing can be regarded as an
aesthetic process, a silent dialogue with an absent presence; an uncertain form of engagement
with an unknown terrain. Reading and writing are often regarded as solitary activities, yet as we
saw earlier, they both represent forms of engagement with an absent presence. They speak to the
ethics of collaboration (or in our case co-elaboration) rather than the neoliberal imperative of
competition.
Freud (1937) once described education as one of the ‘impossible’ professions, that is to say
one in which an unsatisfactory outcome is more or less guaranteed from the start. The other
two ‘impossible professions’ were psychoanalysis and government. According to Freud, the
impossibility of education and psychoanalysis resides in the fact that they are both oriented
towards co-constructing insights through relational, collaborative encounters between, say, a
lecturer and students, or an analyst and analysand. Furthermore, what makes both professions
attractive is simultaneously their unrelenting curse – the unpredictable journey towards
acquiring the knowledge of ‘the fears and anxieties, the fantasies and desires, the loves and
hates, the less than rational and the strange logics of our passions and our unconscious’ (Bibby,
2011: 3). Education and psychoanalysis offer challenging insights into the fossilized and often
implicit knowledge that we hold about the self, others and the world. In sum, the mission of
professional educators, including those employed in universities, might be considered as akin
to psychotherapeutic endeavours. Take the lecture, for instance. It too unfolds with a necessary
interspace, an ‘intimate distance’, that enables the emergence of ‘critical, appropriate, intimate
encounters’ (Pile, 2010: 493). Pile reminds us that none of us is immune from the need ‘to
please and be liked’ (Pile, 2010: 493). The intimate distance established in the course of ethical
educational or psychotherapeutic encounters safeguards the real work from the inevitable
desire on the part of the lecturer or the analyst to make thinking easy. The ethical question
for exponents of both professions is how to remain securely on one’s own in order to ‘think

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with’ who and what causes pain. In a climate dominated by institutional imperatives to ensure
‘student satisfaction’, it is all too easy to lose sight of the fact that thinking itself has the capacity
to generate suffering. The American humourist Don Marquis encapsulates and expresses the
plight of both educators and analysts in the following pithy epithet: ‘if you make people think
they’re thinking, they’ll love you: but if you really make them think, they’ll hate you’ (Ratcliff,
2016: unpaginated). But this is a digression, and in the meantime something very important
has occurred.
Nini, you’ve arrived! I thought you were never going to come.
If the practice of psychoanalysis ‘lives in the ruins’ as Kingsbury and Pile (2014: 8) suggest,
then it seems reasonable to suggest that the psychoanalytic insights to which education gives rise
might also emerge from the ashes.5 And so it was that Nini arrived for her meeting with Annie,
covered with ashes and dust, and with the scent of decay in her nostrils.

Quiet (Impossible) Professionals Alone/Together

The final day of teaching for the term is now done and dusted. On her way to her meeting with
Annie, Nini hastened past university buildings that ranged in style from gothic and neoclassical,
before finally arriving at the functionalist, modernist building of the business school, where
she and Annie had arranged to meet. ‘All the lonely people, where do they all belong?’ the
Beatles’ familiar, enigmatic refrain streaming through her headphones had served its purpose
by immersing Nini in the private, existential terrain of her overwrought mind. She immediately
caught sight of Annie, perched slightly off-centre, on the far side of the café. Nini shed her
headphones as she re-entered the world.
These days (that is to say, pre-Covid-19) Nini and Annie were generally content with a no-frills
greeting of ‘hi’, combined with an effortless smile and sometimes a hug. When they meet, neither
of them feels a particular need to rush (the other) into any organized articulation of inward
musings. The work takes its time, and they have become better at taking their time. They have
learned to sit alone/together in silence, which seems to be particularly conducive to incubating
the flowering of private thoughts. Gradually, in the mysterious course of things, elements of
their inner worlds morph into something that is worth sharing. How might these thoughts be
received, what kind of response might they invoke? Those moments of gentleness and attention
soften their experience of time and serve to mend the broken links between potential utterances
and mental events. Nini and Annie have developed a way of caring for themselves and for each
other that serves as a bastion against the fast-paced, auditable (and audible) demands imposed
upon them by their respective institutions. On this particular occasion, the intimate distance is
as ‘relational’ as Nini can bear, having come from her final lecture deeply unsettled and full of
doubts. She has been scorched by her passion in what she does – the kind of educational fervour
that is ultimately what keeps one going in the impossible profession of education. As Nini has
discovered to her peril, it is this very fervour that has the potential to arouse ‘epistemic anxiety’
in learners (Rustin, 2018). Epistemic anxiety is a state of being in which the desire to learn is
subordinated to an overwhelming anxiety about the threat that new knowledge may pose to the
subject’s sense of self. This is what happens when curiosity is stalled by ontological insecurity
evoked by situations of deep learning. Nini knew that she had prompted such a response yet

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again. In response, one of the students had become overtly antagonistic and questioned whether
Nini had ‘gone too far’ this time. This generated a wave of nervous exchange of glances among
students. (See Pirrie and Fang (2020) for an account of how Nini has struggled with her capacity
to disrupt, how she gets into hot water and how she never learns her lesson.) Her intention for
the session, and any session, for that matter, had been to help students to understand that sense-
making is political; and how, through working with that awareness, it can be a transformative act
that helps us to shape visions of alternate realities. How, in turn, might that emerging awareness
afford scope for more meaningful, reflexive encounters with the fuller range of psychological and
ontological states that had previously been guarded (Waddell, 2002: 61)? Yet again, her passion
had seemed out of proportion, excessive even, to the learners’ desire to think with her in this
final session of the term. ‘Enough is enough.’ Whose thought was it that entered her head at
that precise moment? Enough is enough. She muttered the words into thin air, not fully grasping
where they came from, where they were going and to whom they belonged. She was relieved to
notice that the thought seemed to have transmitted itself to Annie, who has been there all along.
She is glad when Annie raises her head as if to ask, ‘what is it?’ She is glad because she realizes
that this moment, she could say anything to Annie about ‘enough is enough’. She does not have
to be chained to the origin of the thought. This alone/togetherness is capacious, enabling her to
free-associate, to dwell with what otherwise might have escaped her attention. She revels in the
freedom of not being held to account for what she says, not having to consider the consequences
or worry about whether or not she is displaying her academic credentials to good effect. Nini can
be defiantly alone with thoughts that defy any form of regulation or marshalling, knowing that
Annie will bear witness. It briefly crosses her mind how different this feels, this moment, from
her occasional encounters with Professor Somebody. On these occasions she feels compelled to
give a coherent account of the project she has been working on, even though Professor Somebody
does not appear to be that interested. In that kind of encounter, what matters is to demonstrate
that progress has been made, that impersonal theories and methodologies are in alignment. The
inexorable logic of temporal progression is encapsulated in the very notion of ‘providing an
update’. This being here with Annie is not one of those hierarchically coded interactions that
commonly occur between those styled as Reader (with a capital R) and lecturer. Just now she
appreciates how Annie is comfortable with a small ‘r’, that she is a reader at heart. A reader with a
small ‘r’ is a quiet professional who does not impinge on her early career counterpart’s hopes and
imaginations, as wild or modest as they are, with persistent invocations of seniority in relation to
her juniority. (The latter term seems awkward, as if it doesn’t get out in public enough.) This was
what she said to Annie in response to her curiosity about ‘enough is enough’. How senior (white)
people tend to speak to her like everything that comes out of their mouth is a droplet of wisdom
worthy of quotation and everything cohering in her racialized head worthy of correction. These
routine exchanges in the Anglophone academy carry with them an implicit expectation that she
should content herself with being a consumer of knowledge and not a co-producer.
Nini tends to go quiet on occasions like these, not by choice, as she is well aware that her
quietness only serves to reinforce a Western stereotype of demure Eastern femininity. She has
seen how being quiet affords those around her the confidence to pin her down further, to keep
her at a distance, to place her firmly on the receiving end. So much so that when she ventures
to speak about her work, she has to endure not only being questioned about the conceptual or
methodological detail, but also about the fundamental worth of her experiential understanding.

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‘How can you be so sure in those moments that your anger is politically evoked?’ ‘How do you
know if your anger speaks to that of other women of colour?’ ‘Aren’t there also oppressive forces
against women in the Taiwanese context and not just the UK?’ ‘Would you say you are an angry
person generally?’ ‘I just don’t understand it.’ These were common responses to hearing about her
inquiry into anger after she risked as far as to clarify that she’s interested in the kind of anger that
is provoked by intersectional oppression at work, in life. She believes that this kind of anger has
the potential to re-configure the social, interpersonal and institutional into emancipatory spaces
in which she can be both passionately engaged and authentically quiet without feeling coerced
into mute acceptance of a singularly framed ontology of the Other. Her wildest hope, on the
rare occasions when she dares to name it, is that by exposing ‘the apparent gestures of mastery
and certitude behind every production and assertion of the stereotype’ (Cheng, 2006: 101) she,
and all the ‘Others’, can defy the status quo and break free from the colonial grip on the social
imagination. This means tearing down the barriers placed by white people in charge that limit the
representation of racialized forms of lived experience and banish her as a ghost-like other from
relations of equitable exchange. But either as ‘the thingness of persons’ or ‘the personness of
things’ (Cheng, 2017: unpaginated), she is never meant to speak like this, like she has a mind of
her own, like her pain is real.
Sitting there with Annie, Nini can no longer keep track of what has been thought or said. Yet
it is in this apparently unproductive mano-a-mano, which is so exhilaratingly different from the
routine elaboration of ‘pathways to impact’ and ‘knowledge exchange’, that here she is finally
able to let her thoughts arise unrestrained and unsuppressed – and to be surprised by the creative
vitality of the process of thinking itself. ‘Impingement?’ Ah yes, she was talking to Annie about
impingement.

Impingement and Ethical Loneliness

To be alone, according to Winnicott (1953, 1958), is a capacity which should not be taken for
granted. The capacity to enjoy being alone arrives as a developmental triumph only after the
child has weathered the storms of pain, insecurity and anxiety associated with the inevitable
psychological tasks in early life. In essence, these amount to the process of differentiating
and separating oneself from others. In brief, the capacity to be alone is acquired as part of a
developmental process in which the child gradually comes to experience herself as existing
independently from the mother. She is gradually able to forego the all-embracing, comforting
sense of oneness with the mother, as the one who adapts to the child’s needs. The mother’s caring
adaptation and continual centring her child as what truly matters strengthens with time the child’s
inner security, preparing them for an eventual break away from the maternal universe towards
coming to ‘discover [their] own personal life’ (Winnicott, 1958: 418). Breaking away from being
engulfed by the mother allows the child to begin to explore the surrounding world as full of
uncertainty and exciting newness. It allows the child fully to experience herself as the creative
nucleus that conjures up an internal world and develops a deeper understanding of the external
world as a place of co-habiting with others. It is in this sense that Winnicott believes that our
capacity to be alone gives rise to our capacity to engage in social relationships. Yet, maternal
adaptation can never be a perfect act. A mother is also a real person confronted by multifaceted
challenges of life which limit her ability to always get it right with her child. Winnicott knows this

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well and reassures that the ‘good-enough’ mother depends ‘on her devotion, not on cleverness
or intellectual enlightenment’ (Winnicott, 1953: 94). It is her devotion that enables the child to
conjure a representation of a soothing motherly presence that can be invoked for a sense of safety
and reassurance when encountering the unknown.
If a good-enough mother is a devoted mother who cares for her child because she believes
she deserves it, impingement reveals the breach to such a devotion. Impingement emerges
by way of the mother’s continuous disruption rather than strengthening of the child’s process
of self-discovery. She makes the child realize that his or her developmental needs are
subordinate to her own happiness, and their welfare secondary to her own. A child can be
enabled by good-enough mothering to gain confidence in exploring the external world which
appears to correspond to their ‘own capacity to create’ (Winnicott, 1953: 95). Yet a child can
also be made aware through the process of impingement of the need to develop ‘a false life
built on reactions to external stimuli’ (Winnicott, 1958: 413). In the latter case, a child is
coerced to adapt to environmental demands in order to survive in a world which they come to
perceive as indifferent to their needs, values and desires. Garbo’s dictum ‘I want to be alone’
articulates the seeking of an enjoyable, relaxing state of solitude as what nurtures creativity
and self-discovery. In contrast, ‘I want to be let alone’ can be heard as a distraught cry that
draws attention to the impinging Other and to an environment that is at best indifferent and
at worst hostile, and in which the individual is held responsible for the fulfilment of their
unending desire.

(No) Last Words

The university is not Hollywood. Fame and stardom do not typically generate sufficient means to
support an early exit at thirty-five, as we jokingly remarked early on. However, like the denizens
of Hollywood, academics chase recognition and endure the existential mayhem constituted by the
impingement that arises from routine measurements of individual success in terms of their public
appeal. Academics are increasingly expected to adapt and adjust, requirements that have gained
fresh impetus in the era of Covid-19, and to identify themselves with a specialist comfort zone
that is then made readily accessible to the highest bidder. They need to ensure that they never
stray beyond it. This is a daunting prospect for those with a long way ahead of them. The road
ahead seems faintly silhouetted by tacky fluorescent signs announcing, ‘you said, we did.’ How
do we hold on to a vision of academic labour that is more expansive and eclectic, offering more
scope for curiosity and playfulness?
‘It is hard and sad to be alone, but sometimes it’s even more difficult to be with someone.’
This certainly rang true for us as co-authors. Notions such as ‘strategizing’, ‘smart working’ and
‘student satisfaction’ leave a sour aftertaste and only serve to entrench our desire to be let alone,
at a time when we face the manifold challenges of coming together to respond to the aftermath
of the pandemic. It is tempting to regard solitude as the way out, as the only way to harness the
emotional and conceptual resources necessary to resist entrapment in lifeless ‘productivity’. As
we have discovered, all too often the latter proves to be sterile and unproductive. Yet we gradually
became aware that being ‘let alone’ was not the whole story. But we struggled to find our voice,
or more precisely our pitch. We found ourselves facing the same challenges that Edward Said
pointed out in his 1993 Reith Lectures on representations of the intellectual:

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the intellectual ought neither to be so uncontroversial and safe a figure as to be just a friendly
technician nor should the intellectual try to be a full-time Cassandra, who was not only
righteously unpleasant but also unheard. (Said, 1994: 69)
We have attempted to forge a link between the psychoanalytic idea of impingement and the
cultural-political issues of contemporary university. This has led us to conclude that our capacity
to enter into meaningful relationships with others, either in social spaces or in solitude, also
depends on our capacity to protect ourselves from ‘damaging forms of relating as those develop
in political processes and institutions’ (Levine, 2017: 69). The latter are certainly in evidence
in an institutional climate in which mistrust has become the default setting. The capacity of
academics to enthuse, inspire and challenge future generations is premised upon a culture of
trust, in which we are let alone in order that we may generate explorative spaces where thinking
becomes possible – alone and together. In this sense, thinking is aligned with the ‘quieter
epistemic virtues’ outlined by Pirrie (2019). Thinking is a necessary antidote to blind ideological
assimilation. It beckons us to ‘surrender ourselves to the uncertainty of the elements and to open
ourselves to a perceived mystery’ (Pirrie, 2019: 65).
This is what drew us to academia in the first place. This is our heart’s desire: to lecture, read and
write, to withstand conformity and to ride the generative tension between value and knowledge that
plunges us towards research praxis that is unafraid of what feels too ‘close to home’ (Pirrie & Fang,
2020). The things that matter most for quiet professionals, namely, an ‘unquenchable interest in the
larger picture . . . making connections across lines and barriers . . . refusing to be tied down to a
specialty . . . caring for ideas and values in spite of the restrictions of a profession’, cannot be moved
by profit or reward (Said, 1994: 76). We have both felt lost and out of place in the maelstrom of late-
capitalist ideals sugar-coated in the discourse of efficiency, productivity and sustainability, and, in
the pandemic era, of mindfulness, ‘headspace’ and well-being. How we respond to the normalization
of oppressive violation in the form of impingement is an existential and a wider ethical inquiry that
is reserved for another chapter – or indeed for action that extends beyond text. For now, we have
chosen to embody quietness as a form of non-engagement with the impinging agenda that requires
us to produce and reproduce like battery hens. Quietness is our way of living with and attending to
the disquiet that we experience as a result of refusing to live a ‘false life built on reactions to external
stimuli’ (Winnicott, 1958: 413). We go on, doggedly, alone and together. As impossible professionals,
we steadfastly refuse to learn our lesson. We fail to comply with the incessant demand to sell our
services to the highest bidder. We are not immune to the state of ethical loneliness that has afflicted
others who have been ‘refused the human relation necessary for self-formation and thus is unable to
take on the present moment freely’ (Stauffer, 2018: 26; italics added). Self-formation amounts to far
more than the impoverished forms of ‘self-aggrandisement’ (Pirrie, 2019: 70) brought about by the
relentless logic of competition that pervades the contemporary academy. Self-formation, in our view,
speaks more to the explorative praxis within human relations towards reaching out to what ‘made a
call on our thinking attention’ and to ‘the manner in which it took us in and held us’ (Pirrie, 2019: 70).
In a final act of mischief, for now, we slip out from under the yoke of the quiet professional
and reinstate amateurism as the ancillary virtue of the unquiet intellectual. Only thus can we
speak truth to power, rather than genuflect to the truth of power. For now, we embrace, we wave
each other goodbye and resolve to continue our adventures in a new chapter. At this point in the
volume, our readers have the opportunity to do the same.

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 Part III

Loneliness


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Introduction

Christopher A. Sink

As Stern adroitly proposed in his Introductory chapter, the concepts of solitude, silence
and loneliness are deeply rooted in human experience and personhood. He speaks to their
interconnectedness and divergences. Framing the chapters in Part III, Stern documents the ways
loneliness, in particular, manifests itself across various disciplines, including the social sciences,
fine arts, spirituality, as well as philosophy and literature. Drawing inspiration from Stern’s
clarifying work and others, contributors to Part III of the book further explore the multilayered
notion of human loneliness. From their chapters, we discover that loneliness is not a modern
notion, but one that scholars and lay authors alike have long reflected upon. It is central to our
psychological nature (psyches) and, in a philosophical sense, to our ways of being (McDaniel,
2009; Mijuskovic, 2012). In fact, this phenomenon and perhaps its polarity – a heightened sense
of community and sociability, are fundamental to human personhood. Positive psychology
reinforces this notion, suggesting that meaningful human contact and other social connections
(e.g. human to animals) are essential to flourishing and healthy development (Lopez et al., 2018).
Although Stern defined loneliness, and other writers in Part III provided their own perspectives,
the phenomenon essentially relates to the manner in which individuals experience, process and
respond to the perceived lack of meaningful human interaction and intimacy. More specifically,
loneliness is a dysphoric condition that may result from the incongruity between a person’s ideal
and real social relationships (Cacioppo & Cacioppo, 2012).
As the contributors to Part III aptly point out, loneliness is not a circumscribed phenomenon,
but one that is perhaps ubiquitous, in one form another, among humans (Cacioppo & Hawkley,
2009). It is experienced across the age spectrum, ethnicities, genders and cultures. Loneliness is
also found in communal and individualistic societies, sometimes with alarming consequences
on day-to-day functioning. Although debatable, in Western nations, most noticeably, severe
loneliness appears to have reached crisis levels, with the percentages of the afflicted stretching
roughly from 5 to 15 per cent, depending on the international study and the people groups
surveyed. During the Covid-19 crisis and the isolation accompanying it, these loneliness statistics
may be much higher. Clearly, the research points to the need for concrete action. However, to
minimize ineffective strategies being attempted, scholars, health practitioners, policymakers and
The Bloomsbury Handbook of Solitude, Silence and Loneliness

laypeople should first grasp the broad trends and gradations of the phenomenon from a variety
of theoretical, philosophical, research and practical frames of references. These perspectives as
authored in Part III provide a robust foundation to plan, implement, manage and assess loneliness
prevention and intervention strategies. Importantly, most chapters include implications for
effective treatment.
Readers will note the chapters, as alluded to earlier, reflect various disciplines, and, thus, the
underlying messages conveyed by contributors will overlap to some extent as well as diverge. For
instance, most chapters include some musing about the philosophical undercurrents of loneliness
(e.g. James and Krakowiak, Horowski). Several chapters are more subjective or qualitative in
focus and analysis (e.g. Dubas), while others emphasize the synthesis of large-scale quantitative-
focused studies (e.g. Sink, George-Levi et al.). These adopt more of a social-psychological lens
to analyse pertinent loneliness research. Of course, these differing approaches for the most
part complement each other and make for interesting reading.
To summarize the contents of Part III, it commences with several chapters that provide a
rich and nuanced philosophical backdrop to loneliness, assuming varying conceptual angles.
Mijuskovic’s leadoff Chapter 16 entitled ‘Consciousness and loneliness’ addresses key
philosophical concepts (e.g. metaphysics and dualism, subjective idealism in relationship
to reflexive self-consciousness and transcendent intentionality). These are at least implicitly
connected to real-world loneliness. Significantly, the author suggests that persons have to believe
in the self for the notion of loneliness to have any real meaning. The role of the person shapes
the interpretation of loneliness. Later, Mijuskovic borrows from Hume’s doctrine of a universal
human nature indicating that loneliness is part of our very essence. The development and the
nature of consciousness and its relationship to loneliness are considered alongside a discussion
of existential loneliness. He draws upon Sartre’s philosophical orientation, suggesting that the
state of loneliness is perhaps a by-product of our radical freedom to make personal choices and
thus live as we choose. In closing, the philosophical-psychological roots of the phenomenon are
addressed from the narrow lens of psychoanalytic or Freudian literature. He argues that the ‘fear
of loneliness and the desire to secure intimacy are the two most powerful motivational drives in
both human consciousness and associations’.
Sink, in the following chapter (Chapter 17), broadens Mijuskovic’s discussion exploring the
psychological implications of loneliness from an ecosystemic perspective. As such, the topic
is examined through the various psychosocial structures that impact individuals’ functioning
commencing outward from their intrapersonal dynamics to their interpersonal worlds, and then
ultimately to the indirect established forces (e.g. governmental agencies and policies, education)
influencing loneliness. A research-based psychological definition of loneliness is provided,
adding to philosophical orientation of the previous chapter and others. Various large-scale,
global research studies are reviewed on the prevalence rates and risk factors associated with the
phenomenon, as well as the psychological and health ramifications of loneliness. Couched within
a multisystemic or social–ecological framework, Part III addresses real-world prevention and
intervention/treatment options that can be implemented at the local levels. Pertinent resources to
assist sufferers, family members, clinicians, as well as policymakers are provided.
Chapters 18 and 19 are well aligned, offering readers a thorough developmental perspective
on the topic, citing largely Western sources. Specifically, the contribution of George-Levi
et al. on the emergence and expression of loneliness in children and youth magnifies Sink’s

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discussion of the psychology of loneliness. The foundations of loneliness during childhood,

including risk and protective factors, are included. Moreover, it provides an expansive look at
various models (e.g. the social needs and the cognitive discrepancy models) and sources (e.g.
temperament, attachment, entitlement, environmental characteristics) of loneliness beginning at
an early age. For school-based support personnel, the authors review the elements and processes
that contribute to the socially isolating nature of educational institutions. Continuing with the
highly relevant discussion, loneliness and the role online communication (e.g. social media) are
examined. Finally, the narrative elucidates useful resources needed for loneliness prevention and
intervention.
The following contribution by Dubas (Chapter 19) examines post-adolescent (adult) loneliness.
Interestingly, she investigates the topic from a phenomenological-qualitative research lens, and
in the process recounts for readers the narrative-thematic data analysis method. She was able to
obtain various thought-provoking themes from ten adult participants (ages ranging from twenty-
three to sixty-seven years; eight women and two men) from Łódź, Poland. Specifically, the
narrative begins with a historical and philosophical exploration of the experience of loneliness,
reflecting on pertinent language and related notions (e.g. ‘aloneness’, ‘together’ and ‘solitude’)
and the ‘process’ by which they evolved into the concept of loneliness. Next, the theoretical
assumptions related to her investigation, or what I might designate as explanatory constructs
(ideas) underlying her qualitative analysis, are outlined. These include: (a) ‘together and alone’
as the key context in interpreting aloneness; (b) ambivalence and oscillations of aloneness; (c)
ontological source of aloneness and (d) shaping aloneness. Her overarching research question
was: What does the loneliness of the studied adults look like particularly in the context of the
two initial situations: Together or Alone? Dubas reported six major themes from the respondents’
narratives. The participants (1) had differing views on what is meant by aloneness and loneliness;
(2) experienced loneliness from the perspective of time; (3) discussed various memories of
experiences from childhood that shaped their views of aloneness and loneliness in adulthood;
(4) expressed other significant events forming aloneness and loneliness in adulthood; (5) shared
about their interpersonal relationships as the context of their loneliness and (6) spoke about the
importance of learning about life during their loneliness experiences. Brief research and practical
implications round out the chapter.
Horowski in Chapter 20 takes up the topic of the ‘Morality of loneliness’ or the threat of
loneliness and its relationship to individuals’ moral decision-making. This contribution includes
both nuanced moral philosophy and ‘helpful’ practical discussions for those readers who desire
everyday applications. For example, he alludes to the fact that loneliness provides commonplace
moral dilemmas that necessitate resolution; in the process, human choice and conditioning play
their parts in these circumstances. The basic assumptions underlying the philosophical analysis
are also elucidated for the reader. For instance, Horowski argues that ‘the actions of particular
persons are not always consistent with their beliefs about their moral obligations in given
situations’. Further, he contends: ‘I do not attribute to aloneness as such a positive or negative
moral value. I perceive aloneness on an ontic level as a morally neutral state.’ Essentially, the
chapter is divided into three parts. The introductory segment explores the distinctions between
morality and moral reasoning. Part 2 considers the associations between ‘moral decision-making
in the context of the threat of loneliness’, and the closing portion delves into the ‘making moral
decisions after experiencing loneliness’. Within the chapter, the topic of ‘forgiveness of loneliness

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as a condition for striving for good’ is also addressed. This is a salient area of reflection especially
in light of current moral circumstances.
With Chapters 21 and 22, the contributors present on various geriatric issues related to
loneliness. Wray (Chapter 21) focuses largely on the constructs of ‘communication’ and ‘social
reserve’ within the context of elderly loneliness and dementia. Subsequently, Iwański’s more
applied chapter speaks directly to loneliness issues and the effective caring of the elderly (Chapter
22). In particular, Wray’s introduction to her chapter examines key challenges this population
faces, including physical and social limitations and the need for adaptive skills to improve coping.
Perhaps most difficult for seniors is the onset and progression of dementia, which often leads to
the awareness of diminishing social relatedness and increasing social isolation and loneliness.
After explicating this challenging condition and its symptomatology, Wray transitions into a
complex and poignant discussion of ‘communication and the role of context’. Her major thesis in
Part III appears to be: ‘communication is a mechanism for making improvements to our physical,
cognitive and/or emotional state that would otherwise be beyond our control.’ This conceptual
argument is later further bracketed to the ‘real world’ of dementia and the concomitant disruptions
in human communication, which negatively impact sociability and connectedness. Prior to
enumerating various remediation strategies, Wray also tackles the linkages between ‘loneliness
and the absence of self-determination’ with dementia patients. In doing so, the various types of
loneliness (e.g. emotional, social, existential) documented in previous chapters are related to this
debilitating condition, including its communication-inhibiting processes and systems. Within
this context, various forms of ‘reserve’ (e.g. emotional, cognitive, social) that act as protective
factors are examined. She recommends that support professionals focus on alleviating loneliness
and enhancing well-being through creation of what she labels ‘emotional and social reserve’. For
practitioners especially, several examples of how this might be achieved are described.
Iwański’s follow-up contribution expands the previous discussion, where the conversation
shifts to the broader population of senior citizens and their need for support and assistance
with everyday functioning, and with reducing their sense of loneliness. The chapter is divided
into three segments. First, the author conceptually situates the key issues at stake, providing
a helpful definitional, demographic, sociological, psychological and socio-economic backdrop
for the ensuing narrative. For example, elderly solitude versus loneliness (and its dimensions:
situational, developmental and internal), independence and dependence, as well as health, health
care, and caregiver concerns are considered. Iwański’s then provides a research summary of the
‘various aspects, problems and issues related to loneliness in the advanced age’. In closing, like
Sink and other contributors to this volume, the author offers several exemplary practical and
systemic (macrosocial and household care) remediation and intervention recommendations to
alleviate the negative dimensions of loneliness. At the macrosocial level, for example, he argues,
not surprisingly, that public support systems (social security, education, geriatric health, social
services, housing, etc.) must be reformed to better serve the needs of the elderly. Social policy
in regard to this population must be re-examined and redrafted as well. Finally, the suggestions
for improvement in elderly care progress to the interpersonal or individual level. Iwański offers
‘hands-on’ ideas, for instance, to assist caregivers to provide effective support for seniors who
are institutionalized.
In closing out Part III (Chapter 23), James and Krakowiak look at the intersections between
mortality and loneliness and grief. This chapter considers key dimensions related to loneliness

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and how the condition affects disparate age groups. The authors contextualize the narrative from
a Western and European mindset, addressing first the relevant parameters and theories involved
in the concepts of attachment, loss and bereavement. Subsequently, various characteristics of
loneliness and their connections to grief across the lifespan are considered. The chapter provides
a fairly lengthy section addressing the implications for practice. At a macrosocial level, grief
and loneliness associated with loss are framed within the establishment of ‘compassionate
communities’, a holistic bereavement support model. The goals are to inspire members of
the community to (1) provide mutual assistance to alleviate feelings of isolation; (2) generate
meaningful social and emotional interactions; and (3) improve their overall health and well-
being. This operational framework is then applied to various age groups, including the elderly
and school-age children. This latter discussion is particularly useful for educators, for it provides
tangible suggestions for grief interventions.
To recap, this section focuses on the consequential topic of loneliness, a human condition
appearing in most, if not all, people groups. The construct is explored from a variety of conceptual
frameworks and disciplines, ranging from philosophical to social scientific perspectives. Readers
are encouraged to grasp the notion in the broad tapestry of personhood and how it meshes and
juxtaposes from the contours of solitude and silence. The chapters should be considered in light
of previous scholarship related to loneliness, such as The Handbook of Solitude: Psychological
Perspectives on Social Isolation, Social Withdrawal, and Being Alone (Coplan & Bowker, 2014)
and Mijuskovic’s (2012) Loneliness in Philosophy, Psychology, and Literature. It should be noted
that the rapid advances in biophysiological and neuropsychological dimensions of loneliness
(e.g. Quadt et al., 2020) are not fully addressed in this volume. The editors suggest interested
readers might include these areas to their knowledge base, for they provide another key thread of
understanding to this very human experience.

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 16

Consciousness and Loneliness

Ben Lazare Mijuskovic

Introduction

Ever since the Old Testament, the dialogues of Plato, the treatises of Aristotle and throughout
the millennium of the Christian Age of Faith until Descartes’s cogito and his declaration,
‘I think ergo I am lonely’, Western humankind has struggled with human loneliness. Most
researchers studying loneliness claim that it is caused by empirical conditions, including familial,
environmental, cultural, personal and even chemical imbalances in the brain and, therefore,
transient and avoidable. By contrast, I contend that it is constituted by the innate principles of
Kant’s reflexive self-consciousness and Husserl’s paradigm of transcendent intentionality. After
the biological drives to secure air, water, nourishment, sleep – and before sex – are met, the
instinct to avoid loneliness and secure intimacy are the most primary motivations animating
human consciousness and desire. In the 1950s, two philosophers, Kierkegaard and Nietzsche,
became especially relevant in expressing the human condition, the first in a religious context and
the second in an atheistic one. This was followed by the essays and novels of Camus and Sartre,
both writing during and the aftermath of the Second World War. In a famous essay published in
1949, in contrast to the traditional philosophies prevalent in Western culture, namely Materialism,
Dualism, and Idealism, Sartre defined existentialism as a philosophy that stressed ‘concrete
human existence before his presumed universal essence’. He characterized human existence in
terms of ‘meaninglessness’, people as ‘condemned to freedom’ in creating values for ‘themselves
alone’ and their intrinsic loneliness.
Since 1977, I have been studying loneliness in relation to human consciousness (Mijuskovic,
1977, 2012, 2015). The present chapter attempts to account for the loneliness of humans in terms
of consciousness.

The Evolution of Loneliness in Human Consciousness

Untold eternities ago, first animate cellular existence emanated from the lifeless dross of
material existence. And subsequently, during other eternities, consciousness arose and prevailed
over animate life. Dualism assumes, as a first principle, that there are two expressions of reality,
 Consciousness and Loneliness

two independent substances: there is extended and inert matter and there are immaterial and
active consciousnesses.
Although humans share self-consciousness and even loneliness with higher order animals,
they alone create and formulate motivational and cognitive judgments of value concerning
loneliness and intimacy.

Loneliness in Ancient Greek Thought

As early as Plato, he describes the solitary nature of human consciousness in a prescient passage
in the Sophist as it foreshadows the forthcoming perennial Battle between the Gods and the
Giants, between the Idealists and the Materialists, and the emphasis on the self in opposition to
the forces of nature.
Stranger: What we shall see is something like a Battle of the Gods and Giants going on between
them over the quarrel over reality.
Theaetetus: How so?
Stranger. One party is trying to drag everything down to earth out of heaven and the unseen,
literally grasping rocks and trees in their hands; for they lay hold upon every stock and stone
and strenuously affirm that real existence belongs only to that which can be handled and offers
resistance to the touch. They define reality as the same thing as body, and as soon as one of
the opposite party asserts that anything without a body is real, they are utterly contemptuous
and will not listen to another word.
Theaetetus: The people you describe are certainly a formidable crew. I have met a number of
them before now.
Stranger: Yes, and accordingly their adversaries are very wary in defending their position
somewhere in the heights of the unseen, maintaining with all their force that true reality
consists in certain and intelligible and bodiless Forms. In the clash of argument, they shatter
and pulverize those bodies which their opponents wield, and what others allege to be true
reality they call, not real being, but a sort of moving process of becoming. On this issue an
interminable conflict is going on between the two camps (245E–246E). (Plato, 1964, from
Cornford, 1964: 228–32)
Both historically and conceptually, Western philosophy evolved and bifurcated into two
camps. First, according to the principles of materialism (all that exists is matter plus motion);
mechanism (both the world and people operate mechanically); determinism (everything is the
result of physical and/or psychological causes and their effects and therefore predictable and
controllable); empiricism (all our ideas are the result of precedent sensations and experience);
phenomenalism (both the self and the world are constructions of sense data or qualia and
their psychological associations); behaviourism (all human conduct directly results from
incoming stimuli and their responses) and the current neurosciences (‘the brain is a computer’
programmed from without). The opposing camp, by contrast, supports dualism (both extended
inert matter and monadic immaterial and active psyches, souls, selves, minds, or egos exist);
rationalism (some concepts and inferences are known independently of experience, a priori);
idealism (all that exists is known reflexively, self-consciously and therefore it is mental, mind
dependent, or spiritual); while concluding that the soul or mind possesses either ethical free

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will or epistemic spontaneity. Accordingly, both subjective idealism and existential loneliness
follow.
Metaphysically, the critical issue is ‘whether senseless matter alone can think?’ And more
specifically, if the two substances, body and soul, or matter and mind share no property, predicate
or accident in common, how can the mind (a) epistemically know the body and (b) how can the
two substances interact?
John Locke tried to reconcile rationalism, empiricism and theism and rather paradoxically
proposed that conceivably God could have created ‘thinking matter’, thus committing himself
not only to empiricism and rationalism but to dualism as well (Aaron, 1965: 142–7). Locke
speculates that conceivably God has the power to create thinking matter; and his argument with
Stillingfleet led to serious charges by others who accused him of atheism, deism and Socianism,
the doctrine that the soul of a person is naturally mortal, that both the soul and the body expire at
the time of death, and that it is God’s gift of grace alone that ‘elects’ certain souls to be immortal
(Yolton, 1968: 8, 18, 132–7, 143–53, 163). Today the ‘problem of dualism’ continues. Russell
in his ‘critical naturalism’ phase argues that when two ‘dry’ elements, hydrogen and oxygen, are
combined, a ‘wet’ element can result. But the problem is that in this example, both are physical,
thus avoiding their qualitative differences.
Since Descartes, the ‘problem of dualism’, the mind–body paradox has bedevilled philosophers.
Malebranche, a priest and disciple of Descartes, formulates a theory of ‘occasional’ interaction
between thoughts and bodily motions, in which God intervenes by coordinating and synchronizing
the two acts and motions. When I think of raising my arm, God physically raises it for me. The
intervention is a continuous miracle. Leibniz posits a ‘pre-established harmony’ between self-
enclosed spiritual substances he calls Monads. When it appears that I’m talking to someone,
actually the entire ‘exchange’ is confined within our respective spheres of self-consciousness.
Meanwhile, Berkeley, an ‘immaterialist’, called the ‘Irish Malebranche’, maintains that ‘we see
all things and events in God’; it is God who orders ‘the laws of nature’ and the apparent exchange
between souls. He denies dualism; there is only God and human souls, a view that Hume criticized
as ‘admitting of no refutation but producing no conviction’. All three thinkers appeal to theistic
‘solutions’ in their failed attempts to solve the mind–body paradox.
Hume, however, contends that because of the radical physical contingencies that abound in the
universe, however inexplicably, it accounts for the immaterial, mental existence of impressions,
ideas and perceptions. In short, he substitutes Nature for God. It is matter plus motion that
accounts for and ‘produces’ – not causes – the rise of consciousness. He accomplishes this by
challenging the determinacy of the causal principle. Human thought itself consists of mental
impressions and ideas, collectively called perceptions. So there is both things and ideas.

This maxim is that an object may exist, and yet be no where; and I assert, that this is not only
possible, but that the greatest part of beings do and must exist after this manner. An object
may be said to be no where, when its parts are not so situated with respect to each other, as
to form any [Epicurean] figure or quantity; nor the whole with respect to other bodies as to
answer to our notions of quantity or distance. Now this is the case with all our perceptions
and objects, except those of sight and feeling [i.e. touch]. A moral reflection cannot be plac’d
on the right or on the left hand of a passion, nor can a smell or sound be either of a circular
or square figure. These [mental, ideal] objects and perceptions, so far from requiring any

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particular place, are absolutely incompatible with it, and even the imagination cannot attribute
it to them. (Hume, 1955: 235–6)
Hume asserts both the reality of physical objects and mental perceptions, and he draws a
critical distinction between physical quantities versus moral qualities, ‘reflections’ (earlier). But
then exactly what is the relation between our mental perceptions and their external physical
counterparts; and if it is indeed an empirical fact that the material external realm produces our
mental spheres of consciousnesses, how is it conceivable that both life and consciousness arise
from dead matter? His answer follows:
Any [material] thing may produce any thing. Creation, annihilation, motion, reason, volition;
all these may arise from one another, or from any other object we can imagine . . . Where
objects are not contrary [i.e. contradictory to a mutual existence], nothing hinders them from
having constant conjunctions, on which the relation of cause and effect totally depends.
(Hume, 1955: 173)
Again:
[T]o consider the matter a priori, any thing may produce any thing, and that we shall never
discover a reason why any object may or may not be the cause of any other, however great, or
how ever little the resemblance may be betwixt them . . . If you pretend therefore to prove a
priori that such a position of bodies can never cause thought; because turn it which way you
will, ‘tis nothing but a position of bodies; you must by the same reasoning conclude, that it can
never produce motion’. (Hume, 1955: 247)
And lastly:
We must separate the question concerning the substance of the mind from that concerning
the cause of its thought; and that in confining ourselves to the latter question we find that
by the comparing of their ideas, that thought and motion are different from each other, and
by experience, that they are constantly united; which being all the circumstances that enter
into the idea of cause and effect, when apply’d to the operations of matter, we may certainly
conclude , that motion may be and actually is, the cause of thought and perception. (Hume,
1955: 248)
Think of it this way, as humans, we need air to breathe and live, but fish live under water. Two
millennia ago, the Epicureans posited an element of chance as the atoms occasionally swerved
in their motions resulting in unpredictable events, both material brains and quantitative thoughts.
Hume was well versed in the philosophy of Epicurus.
Can senseless matter think? The critical question is whether we can reconcile matter and
consciousness? Chomsky, in his discussion of my treatment of Stillingfleet’s controversy with
Locke, cites my discussion of the Locke–Stillingfleet debate by connecting it to Hume.
In Hume’s judgment, Newton’s greatest achievement was that while he ‘seemed to draw the
veil from some of the mysteries of nature, he shewed at the same time the imperfections of
the mechanical [i.e. materialist] philosophy; and thereby restored Nature’s ultimate secrets
to that obscurity, in which they will ever remain’. On different grounds, others reached the
same conclusions. Locke, for example, had observed that motion has effects ‘which we can

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in no way conceive motion able to produce’ – as Newton had in fact demonstrated. Since
we remain in ‘incurable ignorance of what we desire to know about matter and its effects’,
Locke concluded ‘no science of bodies is within our reach’ and we can only appeal to ‘the
arbitrary determination of that All-wise Agent who has made them to be, and to operate
as they do in a way wholly above our understanding to conceive’. (Chomsky, 2009: 169;
Mijuskovic, 1974)

Locke is a dualist, as we indicated, but Hume is not, although he is committed to a qualified ‘dual
substance’ theory. He is not a dualist in the traditional, Cartesian sense because he denies the
reality of the self, of a personal, that is a moral identity. He affirms the immaterial nature of the
mind – its mental impressions, ideas and perceptions – but he rejects any suggestion regarding
its alleged simplicity, unity, identity and continuity. In The Achilles of Rationalist Arguments
(Mijuskovic, 1974), I trace the Platonic history of the simplicity argument, its immaterial essence,
from Plotinus to Kant and its implementations concluding that the soul is immortal; a unity of
consciousness; endowed with a uniquely personal identity; and serves as the ultimate premise for
subjective idealism. While adopting the principle that it is quite possible – indeed actual – for
‘senseless matter to think’, Hume rejects the implication that it has anything to do with the unity
of consciousness or personal identity.

I may venture of the rest of mankind, that they are nothing but a bundle or collection of
different perceptions, which succeed each other with an inconceivable rapidity, and are in
perpetual flux and movement. Our eyes cannot turn in their sockets without varying our
perceptions. Our thought is still more variable than our sight; and all other senses and faculties
contribute to this change; nor is there any single power of the soul, which remains unalterably
the same perhaps for one moment. The mind is a kind of theatre, where several perceptions
successively make their appearance; pass, repass, and glide away, and mingle in an infinite
variety of postures and situations. There is properly no simplicity in it at one time, nor identity
in different; whatever natural propensity we may have to imagine that simplicity and identity.
(Hume, 1955: 252–3)

The section Of personal identity directly follows Hume’s criticisms Of the immateriality of the
soul doctrine universally advocated by the Platonic dualists, rationalists and idealists. But Hume
is both an empiricist and a phenomenalist; the world and the ‘self’ are both merely fortuitous and
contingent constructions of mental sense impressions, appearances. But Hume, of course, is not
denying that we have a psychologically induced belief in our own identity, but it is not based on
either an intuitive (Cartesian) or a rationally demonstrative inference (Leibniz and the Cambridge
Platonists).
But notice in the previous passage, Hume confesses that he is conscious of a succession of
perceptions that ‘pass, repass, and glide away’. The problem is, as Kant will later catch him
up on, he admits experiencing a succession of moments, but this can only transpire if – and
only if – there is an ‘underlying’, substantial, identical, unified and continuous self to bind the
successive impressions within the same consciousness. This acknowledgement of an immanent
time-consciousness can occur only if there is a stable self to be aware that although the moments
are indeed fleeting, nevertheless they are connected in the same consciousness. Hume’s second
problem is, who is watching the theatre? He has focused on the contents of consciousness – that

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play before him--but not his acts. He is concentrating on what ‘he’ is observing but not on who
is doing the ‘seeing’.
Technically, Hume is classified as a qualified dualist and more specifically he is a Minimal
Mental/Physical Dualist.
Minimal Mental/Physical Dualism does not entail Strong Mental/Physical Dualism. It is
possible for the same individual to have both mental and physical properties; it may be the
case that whenever an individual subject has a mental property it also has a physical property.
Consequently, Hume argues that only impressions of color and solidity and the extended
objects they compose can stand in spatial [and material] relationships. Only they, among
our objects of experience, are capable of local conjunction. No other impressions, be they
impressions of sensation or impressions of reflection, are extended or spatial. These non-
spatial impressions confirm the maxim ‘an object may exist and yet be nowhere’ (T. I, iv
5, 235). One could hardly have a more fundamental distinction. Since extension was held
by many philosophers of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and since for Hume only
extended things and their indivisible unextended components are capable of standing in spatial
relationships and local conjunction, it is not far-fetched to claim that Hume is implicitly here
developing a fundamental and irreducible [dualistic] distinction between mental and physical
entities. (Cummins, 1995: 448–9)
After having said all this, after the publication of the Treatise, in his Appendix, Hume honestly
pleads and confesses his uncertainty about the self and its substantiality.
Most philosophers seem inclin’d to think that personal identity arises from consciousness;
and consciousness is nothing but a reflected thought or perception. The present philosophy,
therefore, has so far a promising aspect. But all my hopes vanish, when I come to explain
the principles that unite our successive perceptions in our thought or consciousness. I cannot
discover any theory, which gives me satisfaction on this head. In short, there are two principles
that I cannot render consistent; nor is it in my power to renounce either of them, viz. that all
our distinct perceptions are distinct existences, and that the mind never perceives any real
connexion among distinct existences. Did our perceptions either inhere in something simple
and individual, or did the mind perceive some real connexion among them, there wou’d be no
difficulty in the case. For my part, I must plead the privilege of a sceptic, and confess, that this
difficulty is too hard for my understanding. (Hume, 1955: 635–6)
The issue of the existence of a substantial self is of paramount importance to a theory of loneliness.
Simply put, without a self, loneliness is meaningless. If there is no self and then to declare that
there is loneliness without a self is a contradiction in terms.
In conclusion, I believe Hume is right about the contingent possibility that both matter and
motion can spontaneously create thought; that under certain conditions, inanimate matter can
‘produce’ animate living cells. Under further circumstances, immaterial consciousness can
emanate from animate life. These are qualitative possibilities that can naturally but spontaneously
arise from the dross of material existence.
Now we are in a position to address how these mental feelings qua perceptions are related
to Hume’s doctrine of a universal human nature and especially to loneliness. So, he declares his
conviction regarding loneliness.

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In all creatures, that prey not upon others, and are not agitated with violent passions, there
appears a remarkable desire of company, which associates them together, without any
advantages, they can ever propose to reap from their union. This is still more conspicuous in
man, as being the creature in the universe, who has the most ardent desire of society and is
fitted for it by the most advantages. We can form no wish, which has not a reference to society.
A perfect solitude is perhaps the greatest punishment we can suffer. Every pleasure languishes
when enjoy’d a-part from company, and every pain becomes more cruel and intolerable.
(Hume, 1955: 363)

Thus, although Hume has argued against the rationalist conception of a ‘personal identity’, he
nevertheless takes advantage of his belief in his ‘self’, as a fiction of the imagination, as sufficient
enough to allow him to formulate a principle of human nature describing a natural and universal
sentiment of affection for his fellow man. But once more, without a stable self, loneliness is
inconceivable.

Subjective Idealism: Reflexive Self-consciousness

Currently the neurosciences are the ‘coin of the realm’ in philosophy. They have essentially
reduced human consciousness to the brain, to billions of discrete neurons and electrical
synapses. Their reigning metaphor analogizes the brain to a computer. Nowadays cognitive
behavioural psychology rules in the social sciences. It is a deterministic system that endorses
a stimulus-response paradigm of the brain. Two important losses follow: human freedom and
human values.
The first reply to neuroscience is Kant’s reflexive self-consciousness. Moore, in ‘The
Refutation of Idealism’ (Moore, 1903), defines idealism as the conception that the entire universe
is fundamentally mental, spiritual or mind dependent. I would also add it is actively spontaneous,
reflexively self-conscious and transcendentally intentional, that is purposive. Although Leibniz,
Kant and Hegel are all three idealists, Leibniz’s and Kant’s idealisms are subjective, while Hegel’s
is objective, that is social and therefore intersubjective. In what follows, I will concentrate on the
former pair of thinkers.
Leibniz calls himself the ‘first idealist’ with good reason. In Sections 1–23 of his Monadology,
he formulates a number of critical assertions all aimed against the materialist’s counter thesis
that ‘senseless matter can think’. Rather he supports the active immateriality, the ideality
of consciousness; its active dynamic nature; its unity; its identity; its temporal quality; its
unconscious aspects and the fact that it is always thinking even in deep sleep (contra Locke and
later Hume). According to Leibniz, the soul or Monad is defined by its quality of simplicity,
that is its immateriality, unity, identity and continuity. He further describes it as ‘windowless’.
‘The Monads have no windows through which anything can come in or go out’ (Section 7). The
Monads are not in space and they act solely within their own subjective spheres of consciousness;
and through an ‘internal’ sense of time-consciousness. Basically, as spiritual atoms, they are
presumably uniquely created by God. Ellenberger credits Leibniz as one of the founders of
dynamic psychiatry (Leibniz, 1968; Ellenberger, 1970: 312). Latta (in Leibniz, 1968) endorses
this connection by connecting Leibniz’s theory of spontaneity with intelligence through Aristotle’s
concepts of dynamis and energeia.

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Aristotle, in Metaphysics 1075a, describes the Unmoved Mover as ‘absolutely’ immaterial,

active, self-conscious, self-contained and self-sufficient. It only reflexively thinks about Itself; its
thoughts are immanently spontaneous, that is they have no external causes. Correspondingly, so
are the thoughts of a person during certain periods of time, when the subject of its thinking and
the objects of its thoughts are the same, of himself or herself. In other words, if both God’s thought
and of the ‘windowless’ Monad are ‘confined’ within its own acts of self-consciousness, it follows
that the soul possesses an internal – and solitary – spontaneous origination. Metaphysically, it is
absolutely lonely. This is true of God and it is true of man.
Since, then thought and the object of thought are not different in the case of things that
have not matter, the divine thought and its object will be the same, i.e. the thinking will
be one with the object of its thought. A further question is left – whether the object of the
divine thought is composite [i.e. material]; for if it were, thought would change from passing
from part to whole. We must answer that everything that has not matter is indivisible [i.e.
immaterial=simple=a unity] – as human thought, or rather the thought of composite [bodily]
beings, is in a certain period of time . . . so throughout eternity is the thought that has itself
for its object.
This premise, that thinking is both immaterial and spontaneously active, that is reflexively self-
conscious, is the ultimate assumption of all dualists, rationalists and idealists. And it clearly
implies the absolute, solitary existence of both the divine Being as well as of the human soul.
None of the ancient Greek philosophers, neither the Pre-Socratics, Plato, Aristotle, Stoics, nor
Epicureans (‘nothing comes from nothing’), nor the Manicheans believed that creation ex nihilo
was possible. It is St Augustine who most notably speculates that it is God who first created
time and space before there was anything else. It is also St Augustine who endows people with
free will, separating the will and the intellect, and anchoring the soul in a fideistic immortality.
It is Descartes, who belongs to the Augustinian Oratory and is the first to assign an epistemic
– as opposed to an ethical and religious – role to free will in affirming or denying cognitive
judgements (Fourth Meditation, Descartes).
As Kantian commentators Kemp Smith and Paton suggest, in many ways Kant remained
strongly influenced by Leibniz’s subjective idealism. As Kemp Smith further comments in his
Commentary on Kant, we can emphasize either his phenomenalist tendencies or his subjective
idealism (Kemp Smith, 1962). In what follows, I intend to promote the latter interpretation.
According to Kant, there are two quite different ‘existences’: (a) there is the mind’s sphere
of subjective self-consciousness; and in opposition there stands (b) a separate reality, which is
unknowable and inaccessible to the human mind; a realm of transcendent noumenal entities.
(For Kant, this justifies us in postulating the existence of God; free will; and the immortality of
the soul for ethical reasons.) Previously to Kant, however, truth followed Aristotle’s version of
a ‘correspondence criterion’ of truth; truth occurred when the concept ‘in’ our mind ‘matched’
the independently existing object ‘outside’ our mind. Kant’s reversal, his Copernican Revolution,
instead forces the external realm of reality to conform to the subjective structures of our mind;
its ‘intuitions’ of space and time and the relational ‘categories’ of subject–object, cause–effect
and so on; in short, the ‘noumenal reality’ must conform, adjust to how the mind organizes the
incoming ‘data’; it must be organized by the innate, spontaneous and active structures contributed
by the mind and thus ultimately establishing a certain ‘coherence’ – instead of a correspondence –

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within the mind. It’s like the mind putting on a pair of blue glasses; then everything would appear
blue, although in reality it is unknowable.
We recall Hume’s paradigm of the ‘self’ as a disunified ‘bundle of impressions’, as a disunified
flux of successive impressions. Kant’s answer to Hume consists of two arguments based on two
different premises. Both premises are grounded in transcendental acts of spontaneity. The first
involves the immanent temporality of time-consciousness. Newtonian scientific time is caused
by an objective, that is intersubjective measurement of the movement of physical objects through
space. But internal human time is constituted – not caused – through a threefold, spontaneous,
synthetic a priori, series of acts unifying (a) the intuitive apprehensions of space and time; (b)
holding the apprehensions in the imagination and (c) retaining them in self-consciousness.
Whatever the origin of our [subjective] representations, whether they are due to the influence
of outer things, or are produced through inner causes, whether they arise a priori, or being
appearances have an empirical origin, they must all, as modifications of the mind, belong
to [our temporal] inner sense. All our knowledge is thus finally subject to time, the formal
condition of inner sense [as opposed to our outer sense of space]. In it they must all be ordered,
related, and brought into [a unified] relation. This is a general observation which, throughout
what follows [i.e. the remainder of the entire Transcendental Analytic], must be borne in mind
as being quite fundamental. (Kant, 1987; cf., Husserl, 1966)
The second answer to Hume relies on the principle of the unity of consciousness, the transcendental
theory of apperception.
It must be possible for the ‘I think’ to accompany all my representations; for otherwise
something would be represented to me which could not be thought at all, and that is equivalent
to saying that the representation would be impossible. That representation that can be
given prior to all thought is entitled intuition. All the manifold of intuition has therefore a
necessary relation to the ‘I think’ in the same subject in which this manifold is found. But this
representation is an act of spontaneity, that is, it cannot be regarded as belonging to sensibility.
I call it pure apperception [i.e. reflexive self-consciousness as opposed to empirical reflective
observation in the manner of Locke and Hume], to distinguish it from empirical apperception
[i.e. reflection] . . . The unity of this representation I likewise entitle the transcendental unity
of self-consciousness, in order to indicate the possibility of a priori knowledge from it. For
the manifold representations, which are given in an intuition, would not be one and all my
representations, if they did not all belong to one self-consciousness. As my representations
(even if I am not conscious of them as such), they must conform to the condition under
which alone they can stand together in one universal self-consciousness [i.e. mine], because
otherwise they would not all without exception belong to me. (Kant, 1987: B 132–3, from
Critique, second edition)
Several comments are in order. First, it is obvious that I am able – short of psychosis – to
know my representations are mine and not yours. Second, it is critical to realize that empirical
reflection is a mere observation of something other than the self, whether it’s a perceived object
or a thought; metaphorically a perception is directionally a straight line going forward; I observe
or visualize some thing or an event separate from my self. By contrast, reflexion is circular as
Aristotle states (Meta., 1075a earlier); the self knows its conceptual ‘object’ as essentially a

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unity within its self. Again, dualists, rationalists and idealists assume that all consciousness is
cognitively ideal; it knows that it knows and what it knows. This is possible only because of
the spontaneity of synthetic a priori acts binding, relating, unifying distinct concepts indelibly
together within the self. Short of that, ‘we’ are nothing but loose, disconnected bundles of
Humean impressions (cf. Critique, A 97 first edition; A 50=B 74, A 51=B 75, A 66=B 93;
and second edition, B 131–2, Kant, 1987). How vital the act of spontaneity is to idealism,
phenomenology and existentialism can be ascertained by consulting the texts of Fichte’s
Science of Knowledge and Vocation of Man; Hegel’s Science of Logic; Schopenhauer’s The
World as Will and Representation (1969), where it is disguised as the noumenal Irrational Will;
Husserl’s Ideas: General Introduction to Pure Phenomenology (1962); Bergson’s Time and
Free Will: An Essay on the Immediate Data of Consciousness and Sartre’s Transcendence of
the Ego.
In two previous articles, I explore the historical and conceptual development of consciousness
from its earliest roots in Plato until Kant’s speculation on the subconscious, which is situated
well below Freud’s theory of the unconscious. Leibniz and Freud’s ‘dynamic’ theories of the
unconscious, in contrast to Kant’s principle of the subconscious, are basically mnemonic;
it essentially consists of repressed memories that are in principle retrievable through Freud’s
interpretation of dreams and free association. If they were not, then Freud could not pretend that
psychoanalysis is therapeutic. Kant’s subconscious is not; it spontaneously and subconsciously
grounds thought itself; time-consciousness; and the unity of consciousness; and in turn the
categories of the understanding.
I know of no enquiries more important for exploring the faculty which we entitle the
understanding, and for determining the rules and limits of its employment, than those which I
have instituted in the second chapter of the Transcendental Analytic under the title Deduction
of the Concepts of the Pure Understanding. They are those which have cost me the greatest
labour – labour, as I hope not unrewarded. This enquiry, which is somewhat deeply grounded,
has two sides [i.e. depths]. The one refers to objects of pure understanding and is intended
to expound and render intelligible the objective [i.e. Newtonian, scientific] validity of its a
priori concepts . . . The other seeks to investigate the pure understanding itself, its possibility
and the cognitive faculties upon which it rests; and so deals with it in its subjective aspect.
Although this latter exposition is of great importance for my chief purpose, it does not form
an essential part of it. For the chief question is always simply this: what and how much can
the understanding know apart from all experience? not – how is the faculty of thought itself
possible? The latter is, as it were, the search for the cause of a given effect, and to that extent
is somewhat hypothetical in character (though I shall show elsewhere it is not really so); and
I would appear to be taking the liberty simply to express an opinion. (Kant, 1958: Critique, A
xvi–xvii; italics mine)
What occurs here is extremely important. The task of the Objective Deduction is to ‘deduce’, that
is to formally ‘justify’, transcendentally ‘validate’ Newtonian science, the realm of phenomenal
appearances. But the Subjective Deduction was originally intended to go beneath, below the
formal transcendental categories; to establish Newtonian science; but not to validate ‘how is
thought itself is possible’. This promise was never fulfilled. What Kant is suggesting is that there is
something spontaneously deeper, inaccessible, subterranean below not only human consciousness

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but even deeper than his famous transcendental concepts – some secret spontaneous activity;
dark, subterranean and fathomless initiating thought itself. Kemp Smith’s comments follow.
Kant appears to be unwilling to regard the ‘understanding’ as ever unconscious of its activities.
Why he was unwilling, it does not seem possible to explain. To the end he continued to speak
of the understanding as the faculty whereby the a priori is brought to consciousness. In
order to develop the distinction demanded by the new Critical attitude; he had therefore to
introduce a new faculty capable of taking over the activities which have to be recognized as
non-conscious. For this purpose, he selected the imagination giving to it the special title, the
productive [i.e. creative and spontaneous] imagination. (Kemp Smith, 1962: 264)
Kant is speculating about a ‘non-conscious’, that is subconscious force of inaccessible epistemic?
emotional? origin; something well below the Freudian unconscious. But Schopenhauer, who
admired and endorsed Kant’s noumena-phenomena distinction, transformed his predecessor’s
spontaneity into a subterranean Irrational Will, a source of narcissistic and egoistic evil (Conrad’s
Heart of Darkness and the madness wrought of loneliness, Kurtz’s ‘The Horror, the Horror’;
Jung’s ‘shadow self’).
Think of the ocean as a metaphor for Schopenhauer’s conception of human consciousness.
Sometimes the surface waters are calm and placid; at other times choppy and wavy; and still at
other times stormy and tempestuous. But as one descends more deeply into its dark and icy depths,
unrecognizable species of life take on increasingly grotesque forms of existence both primitive
and unpredictably adaptive. The surface symbolizes the phenomenal aspects of consciousness,
while the most profound depths stand for the noumenal Irrational Will. For Schopenhauer, the
Will ‘indirectly operates’; it ‘influences’ behaviour in this world but in-itself, noumenally it is
directly inaccessible; only its phenomenal appearances are manifest; and they deceive us by
appearing to be causally determined. In our shared phenomenal world, we are all locked together
by deterministic physical and psychological causes. But the underlying, unfathomable Will
in-itself remains completely unknowable and decipherable to human thought and penetration.
The world is my representation: this is a truth valid with reference to every living and knowing
being, although man alone can bring it into reflexive self-conscious abstraction . . . Everything
that in any way belongs and can belong to the world is inevitably associated with this being
conditioned [i.e. caused] by the subject and it exists only for the subject. The world is my
representation [i.e. appearance]. (Schopenhauer, 1969)
And then he adds:
Thus, everyone in this twofold regard is the whole world itself, the microcosm; he finds its
sides whole and complete within himself. And what he thus recognizes as his own inner being
also exhausts the inner being of the whole world, the macrocosm. Thus the whole world, like
man himself, is through and through representational [i.e. illusionary, fictitious], and beyond
this there is nothing . . . Every Will is a Will directed to something; it has as an object, an aim
of its willing; what then does it ultimately Will, or what is that Will which is shown to us as the
being-in-itself of the world striving after? The principle of sufficient reason, of which the law
of motivation is a [representational] form, extends only to the phenomenon, not to the thing-
in-itself . . . But if he were asked why he wills generally, or why he wills to exist in general
. . . he would have no answer; indeed, the question would seem to him absurd . . . In fact, the

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absence of all aim, of all limits, belongs to the essential nature of the Will-in-itself, which is
an endless [purposeless] striving. (Schopenhauer, 1969: 162–4)
The Will constantly persists throughout our lives through our superficial, surface ‘motives’
erroneously deluding us into thinking we are in control while the Will expresses itself by
manifesting itself as a blind impulse, an obscure, dull urge, remote from all direct
knowableness. It is the simplest and feeblest mode of [representational] objectification. But
it appears as such as a blind urge and as a striving devoid of any knowledge. (Schopenhauer,
1969: 149)
To be sure, one of the interpretational problems with Schopenhauer is he wants it both ways; both
that the Will is unknowable and noumenal and yet in the same moment that it is ‘immanently
operative’ within our ordinary self-consciousness but unknown by it (Schopenhauer, 1969:
272–3).
This dominance of the Will constitutes the most fundamental base of all our desires and
sexual lusts; and it directly leads to a narcissistic form of egoism; it is the source, ‘the starting
point of all human conflict and evil’ (Schopenhauer, 1969: 331; cf. 339, 369; II, 236, 538);
and Schopenhauer includes both physical evil, that is pain and suffering, and moral evils in his
pessimistic and extensive catalogue of all the ills that can befall humans in this realm of travail
and tears. But he is especially critical of moral evil as it pertains to egoism, essentially his term
for Freud’s narcissism.
Hence, we are all innocent to begin with and this merely means that neither we nor others
know the evil of our own nature. This appears only in the motives, and only in the course of time
do the motives appear in knowledge. Ultimately, we become acquainted with ourselves as quite
different from what we a priori considered ourselves to be; and then we are alarmed at ourselves
(Schopenhauer, 1969: 296). He is especially pessimistic and critical of the philosophical optimism
prevalent in Leibniz (and Rousseau), whom he regards as ‘the founder of systematic optimism’.
In the long run, however, it is quite superfluous to dispute whether there is more good than
evil in the world; for the mere existence of evil decides the matter, since the evil can never be
wiped off and consequently can never be balanced, by the good that exists along with it or after
it. (Schopenhauer, 1969: 576)
We are reminded in this connection of Aquinas’s preamble to his Five Arguments for the existence
of God, which scholastically begins with the position he intends to defeat, namely the atheistic
premise that God does not exist precisely because there is evil in the world. And it reminds us of
Dostoyevsky’s claim that even God cannot compensate for the evil done to an innocent child; for
even God cannot change the past (Albert Camus, The Plague).
But against the palpably sophistical proofs of Leibniz that this is the best of all possible worlds,
we may even oppose seriously and honestly the proof that it is the worst of all possible worlds.
For possible means not what we may picture in our imagination but what can actually exist
and last. Now this world is arranged as it had to be, if it were capable of continuing with great
difficulty to exist; if it were a little worse; it would no longer be capable of continuing to exist.
Consequently, since a worse world could not continue to exist, it is absolutely impossible; and
so this world itself is the worst of all possible worlds. (Schopenhauer, 1969: 583)

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Subjective Idealism Continued: Brentano’s and Husserl’s Phenomenological Transcendent

Intentionality

The original allusion is to Plato’s conflict between the Giants and the Gods, between the Materialists
and the Idealists, and between Neuroscience and Phenomenology. Consciousness exhibits two
spontaneous activities that are synthetically a priori related: reflexive self-consciousness and
transcendent intentionality. The first is metaphorically circular and the second is unilinear. The
latter is defined within the metaphysical dualism of Brentano, who accords to it a scholastic
heritage. Its acts are essentially mental and ideal.

Let us in conclusion summarize the results of the discussion about the difference between
mental and physical phenomena . . . We spoke of extension, which psychologists have
asserted to be the specific characteristic of all physical phenomena, while all mental
phenomena are supposed to be unextended. This assertion, however, ran into contradictions
which can only be clarified by later investigations. All that can be determined now is that
all mental phenomena really appear to be unextended. Further we found that intentional-
inexistence, the reference to something as an object, is a distinguishing characteristic of
all mental phenomena. No physical thing exhibits anything similar. We went on to define
mental phenomena as the exclusive object of inner perception: they alone, therefore, are
perceived with immediate evidence. Indeed, in the strict sense of the word, they alone
are perceived. On this basis we proceeded to define them as the only phenomena which
possess actual existence in addition to intentional existence. Finally, we emphasized as a
distinguishing characteristic the fact that mental phenomena which we perceive in spite of
all their multiplicity, always appear to us as a unity, while [extended] physical phenomena,
which we perceive at the same time, do not appear in the same way as parts of one single
phenomenon. (Brentano, 1973: 97–8)

Accordingly, it is the reflexive act of self-consciousness that secures the unity of consciousness.
Husserl picks up on this definition. Intentionality actively targets eidetic meanings;
consciousness is always aimed ‘at’ or ‘about’ or ‘of’ some meaning beyond or transcendent to its
self; but it always operates in an essentially Cartesian or Kantian framework.

28. The ‘Cogito’. My Natural World-about-me. It is then to this world, the world in which I
find myself and which is also my world-about-me that the complex forms of my manifold and
shifting spontaneities of consciousness stand related: observing in the interests of research the
bringing of meaning into conceptual form through description; comparing and distinguishing,
collecting and counting, presupposing and inferring, the theorizing activity of consciousness.
Related to it likewise are the diverse acts and states of sentiment and disapproval, joy and
sorrow, desire and aversion, hope, fear, decision, and action. All these together with the sheer
acts of the Ego, in which I become acquainted with the world as immediately given to me
through spontaneous tendencies to turn toward it and to grasp it, are included under the one
Cartesian expression: Cogito. (Husserl, 1962: 93)

I view Husserl as an idealist before his Heideggerian influence through the eyes of Paul Ricoeur
(Ricoeur, 1966, 1967; Spiegelberg, 1965).

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Husserl’s phenomenology is descriptive as opposed to explanatory and causal as in the

prevailing psychologies of his day. It seeks to understand ‘things’, that is feelings, judgements
and inferences from within; to gain insight into the intentional nature of human consciousness.
122. The Thema: A synthesis can be carried out step by step; it becomes, it arises through original
production [i.e. Kant’s creative, productive, synthesizing imagination]. This primordiality of
becoming [of emanating, of arising] in the stream of consciousness is a quite peculiar one.
The thesis or synthesis becomes, in so far as the pure Ego actually advances step by step; itself
lives in the step and [temporally] ‘steps on’ with it. Its free spontaneity and activity consists in
positing; positing on the strength of this or that positing as an antecedent or consequent and so
forth; it does not live within the theses as a passive indweller; the theses radiate from it [i.e. the
Ego] as from a [spontaneous primary source of generation. (Husserl, 1962: 315)
And he concludes in the Cartesian Meditations by citing
The Delphic motto, ‘Know thyself!’ it has gained a new signification. Positive science is
a science lost in the world. I must lose the world by epoche [by a suspension of cognitive
judgments] in order to regain it by a universal self-examination. As Augustine exclaims, ‘truth
dwells within.’ (Husserl, 1962)

Existential Loneliness

Although Sartre’s principle of intentionality is indebted to Husserl, existentialism is essentially

a counterpoint to traditional philosophical systems. Systems promote organized bodies of
knowledge. Existentialists, by contrast, are classically committed enemies of the ‘system’, ‘the
human herd’. This is a direct consequence of each of their unique loneliness and freedom.
In the conclusion to Being and Nothingness, Sartre synthetically and a priori ties together the
dualistic modes of being.
If the in-itself and the for-it-self are two modalities of being, is there not a hiatus [i.e. a
dualism] at the very core of the idea of being. And is its comprehension not severed into two
incommunicable distinct parts by the very fact that its extension is constituted by two radically
heterogeneous classes? What is there that is common between the being which is what it is,
and the being which is what it is not and which is not what it is . . . We have just shown in fact
that the in-itself and the for it-self are not juxtaposed. Quite the contrary, the for-itself without
the in-itself is a kind of abstraction; it could not exist any more than a color [with quality]
could exist without form [and extension] or a sound without pitch and without timbre. A
consciousness which would be a consciousness of nothing would be an absolute nothing. But
if consciousness is bound to the in-itself by an internal [a priori] relation doesn’t this mean
that it is articulated with the in-itself so as to constitute a totality and is it not this totality
which would be given the name being or reality. Doubtless the for-itself is a nihilation but as a
nihilation it is; and it is in a [synthetic] a priori unity with the in-itself. (Sartre, 1966: 760–1)
‘All colours are extended’ is used by both Plato in the Meno and Husserl as a prime example of
a synthetic a priori relation and judgement. Consciousness and Being are dualistically bound.
In Sartre’s Existentialism Is a Humanism, he proposes three existential categories (as opposed
to Kant’s transcendental dozen) as defining characteristics of the human condition. First freedom:

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a person is radically free; neither God, nor human nature nor conventional society can dictate
what he ought or ought not to do. People have no pre-existing essence; their existence precedes
their essence; they are thrown into the world without rhyme or reason; and each individual is
condemned to be free and therefore solely responsible for their choices and values. Second
forlornness: each of us is absolutely free; condemned to freedom; no one can help us; indeed
absolute loneliness is a necessary condition for freedom. Third despair. Both people and the
universe are meaningless; meanings and values are created and not discovered by reason nor
experience. Each of us is solely morally responsible for our choices.

Psychological Roots of Loneliness

Freud, in Civilization and its Discontents, introduces the speculative concept of the ‘oceanic
feeling’ as descriptive of the newborn infant’s first stage of consciousness (Part 1; it corresponds
to Hegel’s stage of Sense Certainty in the Phenomenology of Spirit, 1977). Initially it serves as
a sense of power; of allness; of boundless totality; illusional self-sufficiency; and delusional
omnipotence. It, the unconscious ego, is everything. As the infant develops, it separates its self
from a realm of objects, and more specifically it focuses its desire first on the mother’s breast as
an inanimate object, an intra-psychic relation. This is the beginning stage of self-consciousness,
self-object relation; Hegel’s stage of Perception. As the child further develops, it realizes that
the breast is attached; it is owned by a conscious being that has the power either to offer it
or withhold it. This sets up a struggle for dominance, essentially what Hegel describes in the
Phenomenology as the Lordship and Bondage dynamic, the Master–Slave relation; a completely
narcissistic desire for recognition of its desires at the expense of other self, hence interpersonal
conflicts (Hegel, 1977).
Freud, in Totem and Taboo, connects these libidinal wishes and fantasies with narcissism,
with a controlling desire within the self for unlimited gratification coupled with a drive for
greater aggrandizements and recognition. In Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego,
this is a direct inheritance from ‘the original narcissism in which the childish ego enjoyed self-
sufficiency’ (Freud, 1959: 42).
The first article written on loneliness as a topic in its own right is by a psychoanalyst, Zilboorg
(1938). According to Zilboorg, ‘narcissism denotes that state of mind, that spontaneous attitude
of man, in which the individual chooses himself instead of others as the object to love; he is
inwardly in love with himself and seeks everywhere for a mirror in which to admire and woo his
own image’.
Let us follow the beginning manifestations of the human infant. The child lies in the crib,
quiet, self-contained, serene and satisfied despite its precarious weakness and despite its total
dependence on others. All it has to do is to whimper, or squirm for a moment; it is omnipotent
because it always gets what it wants. Here is the seed of that which is stored away in the
invisible recesses of the adult human psyche as a paradoxical conviction of our greatness
and all-importance, of our essential megalomania (page 52). Let us turn to the crib where the
omnipotent baby peacefully rules the world with serene mastery. During its waking hours, it is
always observed by mother or nurse; it is played with, amused, taken care of, talked too, cuddled
and otherwise made to feel that the universe is ready to serve its pleasure. It learns the joy of
being loved and admired before it learns anything about the outside world . . . Here we have the

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quintessence of what later becomes a narcissistic orientation; a conviction that life is nothing
but being loved and admired – hence self-centeredness, self-admiration, which are difficult
to keep in abeyance in later life when adulthood asserts its allegiance to civilization. But now
he wants things; he is restless and unhappy; angry, and anxious and the tragedy resolves itself
with the first angry suck of his mother’s milk. Here is the nucleus of hostility, hatred, impotent
aggression of the lonely and abandoned. Here is the beginning of that intolerant anger which
some day civilization will have to subdue, or mental illness will discharge. And if we continue
from crib to nursery and kindergarten, we can observe, scene by scene, the enactment of the
story entitled narcissism, loneliness, and aggression. (Zilboorg, 1938: 53–4)

Zilboorg is establishing a synthetic a priori (i.e. universal and necessary) relation between
narcissism>loneliness>and hostility. Generally, we tend to think that lonely people are sad,
depressed. They are but at first, they are angry, and more than willing to punish others for
their suffering. Indeed, he contends that when loneliness is especially intense or prolonged, it
will frequently result in murder and/or suicide. He also believes that not only are individuals
narcissistic but also groups as well as nations. We need to remember that he is writing in 1938;
already the shadow of Nazism under Hitler is on the military horizon in 1933 with its predictable
aftermath of concentration camps and the Holocaust (Arendt, 1994 [1951]: 474–5). In René
Spitz’s writings on very young infants, he traces the physical and emotional disintegration of
unnurtured children, who were hospitalized so that their absent mothers could work in factories
in support of the war effort in England. Half of the children under the age of one died while others
were unable to develop adequately both physically and intellectually (Spitz, 1945, 1952, 1965).
The second article on loneliness is authored by Fromm-Reichmann, another psychoanalyst,
and published posthumously (Fromm-Reichmann, 1959; Mijuskovic, 1977). While Zilboorg
connects loneliness with hostility, Fromm-Reichmann relates it to the inability to communicate
with others as she describes an incident with a catatonic patient, who she is unable to engage until
she utters the phrase, ‘That lonely?’ But her second remarkable discovery is that loneliness and
anxiety are identical.

I have postulated a significant interrelatedness between loneliness and anxiety, and I have
suggested the need for further conceptual and clinical examination of loneliness in its own
right and in its relation to anxiety. I expect as a result of such scrutiny, it will be found that
real loneliness plays an essential role in the genesis of mental disorders. Thus, I suggest that
an understanding of loneliness is important for the understanding of [all] mental disorders.
(Fromm-Reichmann, 1959)

Fromm-Reichmann’s ex-husband, Fromm, in the Art of Loving, adds guilt and shame to the
dynamic equation of loneliness (Fromm, 1956: 8). Elsewhere I have argued that loneliness
exhibits a genus to species relation in which loneliness is the genus and the dynamics of hostility,
anxiety, depression, incommunicability, rejection, abandonment, jealousy, alienation (Hegel,
Marx), estrangement (Hegel, Kierkegaard) and so on are its species.

Therapeutic Measures

Empirical psychology aspires to be a science. All sciences are committed to a cause-and-

effect determinism. This is true of psychoanalysis, behaviourism, cognitive behaviourism and

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neuroscience. For the last three therapies, often medication is subscribed since the brain is the
locus of the treatment. But if the remedy is to address consciousness rather than the brain, then a
more humanistic approach is required.
Every significant concept must have a significant opposite. The opposite of loneliness is
intimacy, not love. I can love someone, but they don’t love me. Intimacy implies a mutual sharing of
emotions and thoughts. The force and efficacy of intimacy lie in empathy. The concept of empathy
first originated as an aesthetic theory in Theodor Lipps. As the mind spontaneously projects itself
into the object; it invests it with both desire and emotion as it derives its sense of pleasure.
Attention is not aware of itself; it is directed outward to the object and absorbed therein. But
what gives aesthetic import to the object, what constitutes the ground of its enjoyment is the
very act of contemplation. The mind unconsciously enlivens the outward form by fusing into it
the modes of its own activity – its striving and willing, its sense of freedom, power, and moods.
This may be analyzed into two factors. First, there is the inner activity, the emotion, the feeling
of freedom; second there is the external sensuous content as bare physical stimulus. The
aesthetic object springs into existence as a result of these two factors. The ego unconsciously
supposes itself at one with the object and there is no longer any duality. Empathy simply
means the disappearance of the twofold consciousness of self and object. (Lipps, 1960)
But the problem is that this account is one-sided. The subject enjoys the aesthetic pleasure of
freedom and beauty while the painting remains both static and mute.
Husserl, in the Cartesian Meditations, Fifth Meditation, attempts to exploit Lipps’s concept in order
to overcome the solipsistic position he had placed himself into. But he can only do so by appealing
to mediate ap-presentation and analogical inferences that violate his own principle of eidetic intuition
(Husserl, 1960; Spiegelberg, 1965a). The correct interpretation of empathy is that it is constituted by
two minds feeling, thinking and acting as one; anything less is either sympathy or pity. Intimacy is
grounded in mutual trust, mutual respect in decision-making, and mutual affection. It consists in a
reciprocal sharing of feelings, meanings and values. These synchro-syntheses result in two hearts and
minds feeling and thinking ‘as one’. Imagine, for example, a young couple experiencing the death of
their only child. Their identical grief is shared. Or an older closely knit couple learning that one of
them has been diagnosed with terminal cancer. Their despair is constituted as a unity.

Conclusions

Metaphysics
One of the advantages of committing to a principle that begins with the immaterial, spontaneous
activity of consciousness, with the mind, is that it allows for a wide range of metaphysical systems,
including dualism, idealism, mysticism, spiritualism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Christianity and Islam.
The other advantage of dualism is that it not only distinguishes the soul from the body but it also
differentiates material quantities (science) from mental qualities and, therefore, science from ethics
and aesthetics. By reducing everything to matter, motion, causality, mechanism and determinism,
psychoanalysis, cognitive behaviourism and the neurosciences, they have collectively eliminated
both ethics and aesthetics. Hume and Kant agree, for different reasons, that the Ought and the Is are
distinct; that Values and Facts share nothing in common. It follows, as Max Weber argues, that science
cannot tell us what is good and beautiful; indeed, everything that makes life worth living. Science can
only tell us how to make a hydrogen bomb but not why or when to use it.

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Science is meaningless because it has no answer to the only questions that matter to us: ‘What
shall we do? How shall we live?’ The fact that science cannot give us this answer is absolutely
indisputable. The question is only in what sense does it give ‘no’ answer, and whether or not it
might after all prove useful for somebody who is able to ask the right question (Weber, 2004).
The enormity of this question is impossible to overestimate.
For a full appraisal of Husserl’s real concern one must know of the great debate in Germany
of the early twenties raised by Max Weber’s lecture on ‘Science as a Vocation’, in which he
had stated bluntly that science was constitutionally unfit to settle questions of value and hence
questions of meaning for personal existence. (Spiegelberg, 1965b; Weber, 2004)
Values are qualitative; science is quantitative.

Subjective Idealism
I am convinced that the two motivational poles – namely avoiding loneliness and securing intimacy
– are best understood by gaining insight into Kant’s principle of reflexive self-consciousness and
Husserl’s paradigm of transcendent intentionality.

Existential Loneliness
Perhaps the earlier bonds that held humans ‘organically’ together were simpler but more solid and
durable. Now with eight billion human atoms flying in all directions and the threat of increasingly
destructive nuclear wars, we may have learned something much darker and dangerous since
1945. Loneliness is highly personal and so is intimacy. Consequently, I fear it is not possible to
solve issues of loneliness by implementing psychiatric medication, general interventions, social
outreach, housing, transportation and so on.
In sum, I believe that the fear of loneliness and the desire to secure intimacy are the two
most powerful motivational drives in both human consciousness and associations, and that
neuroscience’s reductive model of the brain as a computer is grossly inadequate in causally
explaining the richness, complexity, depth and the mystery of loneliness. Freud’s genius is
grounded in his ability to formulate a coherent and comprehensive system accounting for our
human desires, as they reach for sexual satisfaction, as based on a single principle: dynamic
libidinal energy. But the problem with psychoanalysis rests on three grounding principles. First,
Freud’s determinism as he posits psychic traumas as causing neurotic symptoms. Second, these
days sexual repressions are very much on the wane, while the extensity and intensity of global
loneliness has increased exponentially. Third, Freud’s goal is to free individuals from sexual
inhibitions and seek more pleasure. He is not concerned with judgements of value, only happiness
and unhappiness. But my induction in adding tertiary judgements and principles of valuations in
the equation brings to the fore the freedom in each of us to guide our goals in life in consideration
of the twin value poles between loneliness and intimacy.
Today, there is a growing global pandemic of loneliness. Today there are eight billion highly
mobile and transient nomadic individuals aimlessly circumnavigating the globe, uprooted
and isolated. The ancient ties of extended families, tribes and communal organizations have
disappeared and been replaced by employment competition (Marx), and the stability of the
family has been compromised by divorce and single-parent households.

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 17

The Psychological Implications of Loneliness

Christopher A. Sink

Introduction

Through the ages much has been written about loneliness or social isolation. One can find,
for example, a myriad of literary, philosophical, religious/spiritual and psychological works
addressing these related topics. Over one’s lifespan, it is not uncommon for individuals to
report feelings of remoteness, loneliness, alienation or the lack of community. Research, in
fact, suggests that youth, young adults, the aged and marginalized groups (e.g. people with
disabilities, ethnic/cultural minorities, the LGBTQ population) in many countries are particularly
vulnerable to feelings of significant loneliness and social isolation (DiJulio et al., 2013; Holt-
Lunstad, 2018; Rokach, 2019). The topography of loneliness is multifaceted, suggesting multiple,
interconnected causative factors as well as several theoretical or conceptual models that attempt
to explain the phenomenon. Concomitantly, psychological and sociological research on the topic
has documented its impacts on human functioning. Prolonged and profound feelings of isolation
and loneliness generally have deleterious effects on one’s sense of psychological well-being and
overall mental health.
Most alarmingly, loneliness is not a circumscribed phenomenon affecting only a small
percentage of individuals. Rather, by the mid-2010s, the situation had reached endemic
proportions in various countries (John, 2018). Leading governmental figures in Britain and the
United States speaking in their official capacities sounded the clarion call, alerting their respective
societies for need for immediate action to stem the tide of loneliness. By January 2018, the
then UK prime minister Theresa May appointed a Minister of Loneliness to create policies and
programmes to deal with the crisis. During the same time period, the former US surgeon general
Vivek Murthy, MD, (2020), repeatedly indicated that loneliness was also a serious health crisis
in North America. Similarly, writing for the research-based American Psychological Association,
Sliwa (2017) underscored Murthy’s assertion, further arguing that the prevalence of loneliness
and social isolation continues to grow in the United States, and these conditions may represent a
greater public health threat than obesity. Loneliness and social isolation are now global concerns
in most societies.
 The Psychological Implications of Loneliness

The primary aim of the chapter is to offer a primer on the psychological nature of loneliness
and the ways to overcome the condition. Initially, a working definition of loneliness is provided
followed by a summary of the key risk factors and prevalence rates. Next, the potential causative
factors associated with this condition using a social–ecological (ecosystems) framework as a
guide are elucidated. To conclude, restorative practices including positive coping strategies are
addressed. Resources for further discussion and application are included as well.

Definitional Considerations

Given that other contributors to this volume have added their informative voice to the constructs
under consideration (e.g. human solitude, silence and loneliness), we narrow our brief
definitional comments to the major features of loneliness, particularly as a multisystemic human
phenomenon. Characterizations of loneliness abound in literature with most relating the term to
the feelings of disaffection, social remoteness and the loss of meaningful personal connections
(see, e.g. Cacioppo, Grippo et al., 2015; Einav et al., 2015; Sha’ked & Rokach, 2015; DiJulio
et al., 2018; Holt-Lunstad, 2018; Rokach, 2019, for literature reviews). What follows is a brief
synthesis of these conceptualizations. First, according to Long et al. (2003), the concept is one
of three facets of solitude: inter-directed, outer-directed and loneliness. Whereas inner-directed
solitude is distinguished by the pursuit of self-discovery, self-reflection and inner peace, outer-
directed solitude is operationalized by seeking intimacy and spirituality. Both manifestations are
considered positive aspects of the human functioning.
In the case of loneliness, the third strand of solitude, it is an undesirable or negative
psychological state, one where people generally feel unhappy, embarrassment and desire to end
the emotional pain associated with the condition (Long et al., 2003; Murthy, 2020). Researchers
have identified three primary dimensions or types of loneliness found in various populations
around the globe (e.g. Weiss, 1973; Cacioppo, Grippo et al., 2015; Murthy, 2020). Each form of
social connection is needed to psychologically flourish. Most impactful, intimate or emotional
loneliness arises when one loses a close confidante or cherished partner, namely, a person who
that shares a strong mutual bond of fondness and trust. In other words, this dimension reflects
a perceived absence of a significant other or inner group of intimates that the person relies on
for emotional support during times of serious need. A person experiencing relational or social
loneliness perceives the absence of quality friendships or family connections that one receives
consistent social and instrumental support and encouragement from. Thus, socially lonely
persons have the strong desire to establish quality friendships, social companionship and personal
assistance. In the case of collective loneliness, the third dimension, lonely individuals express the
periodic need for a valued and active network or community of people who share goals, aims
and interests. The individual may perceive the loss of an important group identity (e.g. team
affiliation) that provides limited care and friendships.
More explicitly, loneliness is generally understood as a naturally occurring subjective and
discomforting psychological/emotional state of being, one that most individuals experience
during their lifetimes (Dykstra and Fokkema, 2007; Cacioppo & Hawkley, 2009; Holt-Lunstad,
2018). Other than the three dimensions of loneliness mentioned earlier, the condition has a
number of distinguishing facets. First, ‘loneliness emphasizes the fact that social species require
not simply the presence of others but also the presence of significant others whom they can trust,

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who give them a goal in life, with whom they can plan, interact, and work together to survive
and prosper’ (Cacioppo, Grippo et al., 2015: 2). Second, loneliness is a dynamic experience
that involves a person’s social–emotional and cognitive functioning. The social–perspectival
dimension is described as a sensed incongruity between one’s current social relationships and
the anticipated ones. In other words, lonely people commonly view themselves as less socially
connected and supported than they would ideally prefer, often leading to emotional turmoil. Third,
loneliness varies from person to person in intensity, frequency, duration and impact. Thus, the
experience can be short-lived/situational or long-term/chronic in nature. The fourth characteristic
of loneliness relates to the widespread nature of the condition, experienced by all societies and
cultures, with relatively similar manifestations. Finally, even though there is tendency to conflate
loneliness with social isolation (e.g. feeling shut off from others) and alienation (e.g. feeling
shunned by others), these emotions and perceptions are not identical (Holt-Lunstad, 2017), and
thus, a nuanced understanding of each construct should be attempted.

Risk Factors and Prevalence

Epidemiological researchers have documented the prevalence rates and risk factors contributing
to the feelings of loneliness and social separation (see e.g. DiJulio, et al. 2018; Holt-Lunstad,
2017, 2018 for reviews). Representative demographic variables studied as potential risk factors
are: various biophysical markers, age, partner status (married, long-term relationship, single,
widowed, divorced), gender, race/ethnicity, household income, residence (renting or owning;
living alone or with someone) and neighbourhood/community indicators (DiJulio et al., 2018;
Office of National Statistics, 2018). Of these dimensions, age seems to be the most influential
‘risk’ factor, explaining the preponderance of variance in measures of loneliness (Shovestul et al.,
2020). Interestingly, even though the elderly across the world are likely to experience loneliness,
they do not necessarily experience the greatest sense of social isolation and loneliness. Research
conducted with a large and comprehensive sample of US respondents, ages ten to ninety-seven
years, reveals that loneliness peaks at age nineteen, namely during the developmental periods
of late adolescence and early adulthood (Luhmann and Hawkley, 2016; Shovestul et al., 2020;
Whitley, 2020). A national survey of English participants found similar trends; younger adults
aged sixteen to twenty-four years reported feeling lonely more often than those in older age
groups (Office of National Statistics, 2018).
Other variables contribute to loneliness, including one’s physical and psychological health,
and level of social connectedness. Physical health problems associated with increased feelings
of loneliness include cardiovascular disease, malnutrition, poor sleep quality, amplified
hypothalamic pituitary adrenocortical activity, obesity, shorter life expectancies and deterioration
in cognitive functioning (Sliwa, 2017; Simon & Walker, 2018; Shovestul et al., 2020). Moreover,
lonely adults report experiencing negative life events in the past two years (e.g. a negative change
in financial status or a serious illness or injury). Other health-related behaviours, such as smoking
tobacco, alcohol consumption and the use anxiolytics and antidepressants, were associated with
increased loneliness.
Psychosocial risk factors involve social exclusion, feelings of alienation and marginalization,
and lack of social support. Loneliness, for instance, is more likely to emerge with women,
single adults (those without intimate partners), divorcees, widowers, as well as those with severe

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financial difficulties, limited meaningful connections with others beyond the nuclear family,
and inadequate technology that promotes social networking (DiJulio et al., 2018; Holt-Lunstad,
2018; Office of National Statistics, 2018). The English prevalence study mentioned earlier also
reported that transitoriness in living arrangements (renting), sense of not belongingness to a
neighbourhood and the lack of trust of others in their local area also contributed to respondents’
loneliness (Office of National Statistics, 2018).
Stepping back from potential risk factors associated directly with individuals, as noted
earlier, being part of a marginalized group increases the likelihood of experiencing loneliness.
Additional community-level or systemic influences, such as level of population density and
socio-economic status (SES), are robust correlates of adult loneliness (Shovestul et al., 2020).
For example, people residing in low-income neighbourhoods with higher crime rates, isolated
rural communities and high-density environments, especially those that lack meaningful ways
to interrelate are more susceptible to loneliness. Many of these risk factors are reported in the
prevalence studies summarized herein.
Loneliness incidence rates are particularly well studied in Western societies (e.g. Cacioppo, Grippo
et al., 2015; Beutel et al., 2017; Holt-Lunstad, 2017; DiJulio et al., 2018; Office for National Statistics,
2018) and to some extent outside these regions (e.g. China; Wang et al., 2019). Without providing
too much detail, large-scale investigations repeatedly demonstrate that loneliness occurs worldwide,
spanning all ages and people groups. For example, a study conducted in the United States, the United
Kingdom and Japan with over 1,000 participants from each country found that a sizable percentage
(US 22 per cent, UK 23 per cent and Japan 9 per cent) of respondents (eighteen years of age and
older) reported: ‘they often or always feel lonely, feel that they lack companionship, feel left out, or
feel isolated from others, and many of them say their loneliness has had a negative impact on various
aspects of their life’ (DiJulio et al., 2018: 1). About 5 per cent of those surveyed in the three nations
indicated that their loneliness was a ‘major’ problem for them. Underscoring the risk factors discussed
earlier, those most likely to feel lonely or socially isolated were marginalized populations, particularly
those that reported mental health issues, a debilitating chronic illness or disability, low SES and
unpartnered (single, divorced, widowed or separated). A UK government-sponsored loneliness study
reported similar results, suggesting that about one in five individuals suffered from loneliness (HM
Government, 2018).
Multiple prevalence studies have been conducted specifically with older citizens around
the world. For example, a study comparing loneliness rates of seniors in Western and Eastern
European countries suggested that the aged are vulnerable to the condition (Fokkema et al., 2012).
Specific incidence rates of loneliness among the respondent samples aged 60 plus were: 6.3 per
cent Denmark, 8.3 per cent the Netherlands, 8.5 per cent Germany, 13.4 per cent Belgium, 15.6
per cent Czech Republic, 17.8 per cent France and 20 per cent Poland. A later German survey
study included approximately 15,000 respondents ranging in age from thirty-five to seventy-four
years (Beutel et al., 2017). Of the sample, 10.5 per cent reported some degree of loneliness (4.9
per cent were slightly, 3.9 per cent moderately and 1.7 per cent severely distressed by feeling
lonely). As noted earlier, loneliness was more common in women and those respondents who
were low income, living alone or without partners (single). Finally, by way of comparison with
European statistics, a 2010 survey from Statistics New Zealand indicated that 33 per cent of
persons aged fifteen and above faced loneliness in the four weeks preceding the investigation
(Cacioppo, Grippo et al., 2015).

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Other sample studies conducted with Chinese and US elderly populations found a substantial
proportion of the samples were quite lonely. The Chinese researchers contacted 5,652 seniors
living in rural Anhui, China, finding a pervasive (nearly 80 per cent) sense of loneliness among
the respondents (Wang et al., 2019). Not unexpectedly, increased social support and healthy
family functioning provided increased protection against moderate to severe levels of loneliness.
The 2018 Loneliness Study sponsored by the US-based American Association of Retired Persons
(AARP) showed that approximately one-third of adults aged forty-five and older reported feeling
lonely (Anderson & Thayer, 2018). Clearly, loneliness is a pervasive international health issue
warranting deliberate prevention and intervention efforts.

Theoretical Framework

In the case of loneliness, the most widely cited and comprehensive explanatory approach is
grounded in systems thinking, and relatedly, social–ecological theory (Luhmann, 1982; Perlman
and Peplau, 1982b, 1998; Bell, 1985; Ford and Lerner, 1992; Andersson, 1998; Schirmer &
Michailakis, 2018; Holt-Lunstad, 2018). Despite the fact these ecosystemic orientations as
espoused, for example, by Urie Bronfenbrenner (2005), Andersson (1998), and Niklas Luhmann
(1982) differ in their disciplinary contexts, gradations and structures, they possess overlapping
features. The ecosystemic framework proposed here is also aligned with (a) a family systems
interpretation of loneliness (Large, 1989; Wickrama et al., 2020), (b) an ecological perspective
on social exclusion (Mittler, 2013) and (c) the influence of social networks on social isolation,
alienation and loneliness (Andersson, 1998).

Ecosystemic Theory
At their core, ecosystemic models of loneliness emphasize the importance of meaning-making
or ways of observing/understanding aspects of the environment, especially by the person at the
centre of intersecting social networks (Howie, 2014). Moreover, a systems framework is relevant
to characterizing loneliness, for it considers the ways people ‘access’ coping mechanisms
and protective factors within: (a) the self (intrapersonal system), and more broadly (b) the
microsystem (e.g. immediate family and friends, co-workers, educators), (c) the mesosystem
(social interactions within microsystem), (d) the exosystem (e.g. health, legal and social services,
pertinent media, friends of the family, religious/spiritual and community supports) and (e)
indirectly within the surrounding macrosystem (e.g. larger institutions, cultural values, customs,
and laws) (Holt-Lunstad, 2018).
Numerous studies have corroborated the social–ecological approach to understanding
loneliness (see Andersson, 1998; Holt-Lunstad, 2018, for reviews). Chipuer (2001), for example,
explored teenagers’ sense of connectedness to their school and neighbourhood communities
(microsystem) and found that the variable was significantly related to their experiences of global,
social, and neighbourhood/community loneliness. She suggested that adolescents’ sense of
community or lack thereof (leading to loneliness) within their environmental contexts/systems (i.e.
one’s locality, school) differentially impacted their psychological well-being. Other investigations
with college-age (Bell, 1985) and elderly (Schirmer & Michailakis, 2018) respondents provided
evidence that loneliness principally has its origins in social systems. Relatedly, lonely persons
to largely report proximal (e.g. family, friends) rather than distal (e.g. community policies and

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governmental entities) factors that most influence their loneliness (Weiss, 1973; Andersson,
1998). Even though individuals may not see their loneliness as related to the ‘bigger picture’,
mental health experts have documented the impact of all systems on human functioning. To
further illustrate how loneliness is connected to a person’s social ecology, pertinent systems are
briefly discussed next.

Individual Level (the Person)

At the heart of all social systems is the person (intrapersonal level), which includes, for example,
one’s social skills, aspirations, motivations, coping skills, cognitive ability, emotional health and
well-being, personality traits and physiology (Bronfenbrenner, 2005; Deniz et al., 2005; Holt-
Lunstad, 2018). Numerous factors influence the ways the individual perceives and processes,
experiences and copes with ‘aloneness’ or limited social connections. One crucial determinant
of the long-term effects of mild to severe feelings of loneliness is a person’s level of resilience.
This term describes individuals who are, despite life’s obstacles and adversities, functioning in
a healthy manner (Morrish et al., 2018). Resilience is also the ability to marshal key resources
to maintain one’s psychological well-being as well as draw from protective factors originating
from the family and community. Should individuals have a resilient personality among other
personal strengths (e.g. surgency, cheerfulness, responsiveness, spontaneity, social skills and
sociability), they may manage the feelings of loneliness in a positive manner. On the other hand,
if individuals suffer from a mental health condition such as chronic anxiety and depression, left
untreated, their ability to handle social rejection, isolation and alienation may be compromised.
With limited coping mechanisms (e.g. resiliency, competent problem-solving skills, ability to
maintain social networks, help-seeking skills), feelings of loneliness may only exacerbate the
person’s symptomology (Edery, 2016).

Microsystem (Relationship Level)

Next, the microsystem (Bronfenbrenner, 2005) or relationship level (Holt-Lunstad, 2018)
includes one’s intimate partners, family/caregivers, schoolmates and personnel, friends and
others. Interpersonal dynamics involved in these bonds influence one’s perceptions of loneliness
and social support. From day to day, people largely report that their basic social needs are being
met within their microsystem and, relatedly, they have adequate social supports (helpmates) in
place (Andersson, 1998). However, loneliness often ensues when people lack the social scaffolds
that provide nourishing relationships. If one’s social support is severely limited, the lonely person
may experience other serious negative intra- and interpersonal consequences, and in some cases
contributing to mental health disorders.
Research documents the crucial role family dynamics and processes exert in promoting or
mitigating loneliness (e.g. Large, 1989; Sharabi et al., 2012; Rokach & Sha’ked, 2013). If the
family system is healthy, cohesive and adaptive/flexible, a child tends to cope with loneliness
more effectively and the condition is less impactful on psychological functioning (Large, 1989;
Sharabi et al., 2012). However, if the family is dysfunctional (e.g. overly rigid, incoherence
structure), the child may experience serious and protracted feelings of loneliness. Issues that
prolong loneliness are unresolved grief, pathological certainty, synchronicity, family growth and
parental neglect or abdication (Large, 1989). Socially oriented organizations within a person’s
microsystem are also vital to healthy development (e.g. schools, senior centres, clubs, sporting

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organizations). Research conducted globally indicates that for children and parents, healthy
relationships and feelings of interpersonal support are forged in educational settings (e.g. El
Nokali et al., 2010; Lätsch, 2018).
Holt-Lunstad (2018) reviewed significant microsystem factors that influence one’s
perceptions and feelings of loneliness. For example, inadequate early attachments (e.g. child–
parent/caregiver connections) and other related childhood experiences within the family system,
such as social isolation/neglect and parental separation/divorce, are negatively correlated with
one’s perceptions of support and care. The level of social control people feel in their relationships
is also associated with perceptions of social connectedness and loneliness (Deniz et al., 2005;
Hawkley et al., 2009). Social control refers to the indirect (e.g. by motivating, supporting) and
direct (e.g. by entreating, demanding) ‘power’ of individuals over others in relationships (parental,
romantic, friends, wider family). Positive social control strategies (e.g. utilizing reasoning/
logic, positive reinforcement, modelling) to influence relationships are related with enhanced
healthy behaviours and psychological well-being, and, conversely, negative strategies (e.g. using
disapproval, pressure, restriction to control the relationship) are correlated with lower ratings of
healthy behaviours and well-being (Craddock et al., 2015).

Meso- and Exosystems (Community Level)

Not only does a person’s social network include close microsystemic relationships, but it also
extends to the community (meso- and exosystems [Bronfenbrenner, 2005; Holt-Lunstad, 2018]),
and beyond. The mesosystem encompasses the connections and processes transpiring between
two or more environments in which a person interacts (e.g. the relations between home and
school, family, family members and a senior housed in an assisted living facility) (Arnold
et al., 2012). For example, the mesosystem includes the parents’ and other caregivers’ work
environments. Children do not directly interact with parental workplaces, but they do vicariously,
for the caregiver brings home its stresses and issues. Should the caregiver be overly job focused,
the child may experience the loss of caregiver intimacy and loneliness.
The exosystem involves those societal structures that are relatively independent of a person’s
daily life yet influence one’s social-psychological functioning (Bronfrenbrenner, 1992). These
entities, as noted earlier, include, for example, educational and community-based institutions,
governmental policies and support structures, and religious organizations. Other sample
community factors that non-overtly contribute to feelings of social isolation and loneliness are:
access to clinical health services, open spaces (e.g. parks), traffic, as well as racial and cultural
integration (Golden et al., 2009; Holt-Lunstad, 2018).

Macrosystem (Society-level Factors)

Despite the fact this level is most remote to the individual, its components obliquely
influence loneliness (e.g. Cacioppo et al., 2009; Narchal, 2012). As Holt-Lunstad, (2018)
maintained, ‘Society-level factors help create a climate in which social connection may be
encouraged or inhibited’ (p. 448). The macrosystem includes the values, traditions, norms
and sociocultural characteristics of the larger society. If certain groups (e.g. the elderly,
LGBTQ, undocumented immigrants) are marginalized by societal mores or institutional
strictures, their members will experience the loss of social connectedness to the broader
community.

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Psychological and Emotional Impacts

Earlier the risk factors associated with loneliness were reviewed. These variables largely overlap
with the psychological and emotional impacts of unsatisfying personal relationships arising from
social–emotional isolation and loneliness. Global research accentuates this statement, suggesting
that this condition, if prolonged or chronic, will lead to substantial challenges, including
emotional distress syndrome and apprehension, impoverishment of personal relationships and
perhaps serious mental health issues such as clinical depression and social anxiety (see, e.g.
Andersson, 1998; Cacioppo, Grippo et al., 2015; DiJulio et al., 2018; Rokach & Sha’ked, 2013;
Rokach, 2019; for reviews). Moreover, persons who feel lonely and estranged from people
harbour detrimental irrational thoughts (maladaptive cognition), believing they are unlikeable,
misunderstood, rejected and have limited opportunities for intimacy (Weiss, 1973).
Multiple international and Western-based investigations support these contentions. For instance,
DiJulio et al.’s (2018) transnational study of individuals eighteen years of age and older found that
lonely respondents from Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States were more likely to
feel ‘being down and out physically, mentally, and financially’ (e.g. DiJulio et al., 2018: 1). Thus,
depression was the most common psychological feature associated with loneliness. Among the
respondents who experienced significant loneliness feelings, most had disproportionately lower
incomes and suffered from an incapacitating mental health condition (e.g. severe despondency
and anxiety). Approximately 30 per cent of the participants indicated that their loneliness lead
to thoughts of self-harm. Second, when unaccompanied adolescents immigrating from Russia
and Ukraine to Israel were surveyed about the impacts of their experience, loneliness negatively
affected their psychological well-being. These youth reported lower levels of general self-esteem,
social competence and school competence, and increased emotional stress and negative body
images (Tartakovsky, 2009). Third, an international cohort study conducted in Singapore with
nearly 3,000 community-dwelling older adults (aged ≥ 55 years) examined the independent and
interactive effects of living alone and loneliness on depressive symptoms and quality of life (Lim &
Kua, 2011). Loneliness was a far more robust predictor of depression than living arrangements.
Numerous Western-based studies on the psychological implications of loneliness further
document a variety of serious harmful outcomes. In particular, a common finding, as with the
international studies, was the prevalence of depression associated with chronic loneliness and
social isolation. This symptom was reported, for example, with white Americans, ethnic minority
groups (e.g. African Americans; Chang, 2018), the aged (Schirmer and Michailakis, 2018),
partners in long-term (over forty years) marriages (Wickrama et al., 2020) and other subgroups.
Most distressing for health professionals and family members is the reality that loneliness can
contribute to premature deaths in the severely infirmed. In a five-year follow-up study of over
200 mentally intact nursing home residents with and without cancer, emotional loneliness was
the most salient predictor of mortality (Drageset et al., 2013).
In summary, global loneliness research documents that this condition is ubiquitous and can
have mild to serious detrimental outcomes for sufferers. Psychosocial and psychophysiological
development and daily functioning are impacted, affecting individuals from multiple demographic
categories (e.g. privileged or marginalized citizens, the young and elderly, single or partnered,
living alone or not, low and high SES). Investigations indicate that loneliness is associated with
depression and lower psychological well-being and life satisfaction, but it can also have more

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‘serious’ mental health repercussions such as self-harm (e.g. social anxiety, cutting, attempted
suicides, suicidal ideations, eating disorders), psychosis (e.g. schizophrenia), tendencies to
experience subclinical and clinical hallucinations, and to nonclinical paranoid thinking (Zullig,
2016; Richardson et al., 2017; Danneel et al., 2019). In the next section, we address various
restorative practices.

Resources for Overcoming Loneliness

During the past several decades, prevention and intervention resources have become available to
caregivers, mental health professionals and lonely individuals. Using a modified developmental
systems framework (e.g. Ford and Lerner, 1992) to organize loneliness prevention and
interventions, we summarize many of the well-cited recommendations counselled by experts on
the topic (e.g. Weiss, 1973; Perlman and Peplau, 1982b; Andersson, 1998; Sha’ked & Rokach,
2015; DiJulio et al., 2018; Anderson & Thayer, 2018; Rokach, 2019). To supplement these
recommendations, we include various healthy coping (strengths-based) strategies offered by
positive psychologists (Seligman & Csikszentmihalyi, 2014; Magyar-Moe et al., 2015). This
scientific discipline emerged as a ‘constructive’ counterbalance to more traditional psychological
approaches to human functioning and psychopathology, including loneliness and social isolation
(e.g. Perlman & Peplau, 1982b). Rather than focusing on the ways people fail in their social
lives, positive psychology research, theory and therapeutic practice supply insights on how strong
relationships contribute to mental health and well-being (Wood & Johnson, 2016). Accordingly,
for persons to thrive, they must focus on developing and enhancing their personal and social assets
(Roehlkepartain & Blyth, 2019). Said differently, people who flourish possess a heightened sense
of psychological well-being (intrapersonal dimension) alongside a strong network of meaningful
social connections (interpersonal/microsystem) (Gable & Haidt, 2005; Eraslan-Capan, 2016). As
a result, these positive characteristics can mitigate the impact of loneliness on daily functioning
(Norman, 2018).
Table 17.1 provides sample restorative practices organized using multitiered systems of support
framework. Prevention and intervention activities spanning the personal to the macrosystem
levels are included. As caveats to this section and the table, the suggestions proposed are not
exhaustive and some are not evidence-based practices.

Prevention
Within the context of a person’s microsystem, individuals can participate in self-guided or
-directed activities to prevent serious loneliness. If beneficial, they may also be acted on with a
supportive friend or family member. The objectives are to (a) reinforce personal resilience/coping
skills and (b) strengthen and enlarge existing social bonds and networks. People may find useful
information on pertinent and reputable internet sites (see Table 17.1 for suggestions). Moreover,
there are self-help books and media related to such topics as healthy coping with loneliness
and social isolation, well-being, making friends and expanding social networks. Additional self-
directed options to reduce loneliness include (a) reminiscing about meaningful relationships
using nostalgic materials like photos of family and friends and other evocative materials (Zhou
et al., 2008); (b) reflective journaling on feelings, experiences, thoughts, times of gratitude, well-
being events and stress triggers (Asbury et al., 2018; Bartlett & Arpin, 2019); (c) engaging in

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Table 17.1  Sample Prosocial Enhancement Strategies Using Multisystemic Framework of Support

Targeted System(s) Self Micro Meso Exo/Macro

Personal
(Individual/self with a
Locus of Activity significant other) Small Group Environmental–Communal Environmental–Societal

Aims and Objectives

1.  Prevention ●● Internet resourcesa ●● Self-support/help ●● Community and educational ●● Institutional policy
●● Strengthen personal ●● Reading materials groups for all ages programmes to build awareness and legislative reform
resilience/coping skills provided in the home ●● Parent and and involvement to specifically target
●● Reinforce and expand current and local library caregiver training ●● Improve education and training hurting and marginalized
social bonding and network ●● Rekindle nostalgia ●● Participate in of support personnel populations
or positive spirituality- ●● Conduct assessments to identify ●● Formation of government
reminiscences related activities at-risk individuals and community entities
(memories of pleasant ●● Volunteering ●● Remove systemic – programmes to support
social experiences) ●● Joining a club environmental obstacles that social networking and
●● Reflective journaling ●● Taking a course limit social connections increase access
●● Engage in hobbies that promotes ●● Increase community funding for ●● Increase research on the
●● Improve health habits social interaction activities related to prevention topic with recommendation
(and remediation of loneliness) for practices
2.  Intervention ●● Mentoring ●● Group counselling ●● Social–recreational and
●● Develop and maintain social ●● EBA (evidence-based ●● Family leadership training
skills needed for meaningful approaches) individual Counselling ●● Participation in activities and
relationships counselling or club with like-minded interests
●● Develop long-term personal psychotherapy and values
resilience/coping skills ●● P s y c h o - ●● Restructuring of social
●● Maintain existing social phar macological situations (e.g. classroom,
supportive bonds and networks treatments clubs)
●● Generate opportunities to

develop and maintain new

supportive relationships

Sample websites: https://www​.mind​.org​.uk/, www​.psychologytoday​.com, https​:/​/ww​​w​.cri​​siste​​xtlin​​e​.org​​/topi​​cs​/lo​​nelin​​ess/#​​signs​​-of​-​l​​oneli​​ness-​​1, https​:/​/ki​​

dshel​​pline​​.com.​​au​/te​​ens​/i​​ssues​​/copi​​ng​-wi​​th​​-lo​​nelin​​ess.
The Bloomsbury Handbook of Solitude, Silence and Loneliness

hobbies that promote social connections (e.g. taking an online art class with a friend) and (d)
improving healthy behaviours (e.g. regular exercise; reduction of weight and harmful substance
use) that advance physical and psychological well-being (Shvedko et al., 2018).
To cope with emerging loneliness, the next step, and in conjunction with the self-directed
activities, could involve supportive people within one’s microsystem (Murthy, 2020). For
example, lonely persons might consider participating in small groups or classes conducted at
a local community centre that are interactive (e.g. fine arts, parent/grandparent training, hobby,
senior living, yoga, exercise). Joining a local club or group activity (e.g. bicycling, walking,
team sports, spirituality) and volunteering (public service) are also supportive options for teens,
single young adults and the elderly, all groups who tend to be at higher risk for social isolation
and loneliness.
Beyond the individual, at the mesosystem (environmental–communal level) there are broad-
based activities suggested to prevent and ameliorate loneliness and social isolation. Specific
community and educational programmes can be established to create awareness of and involvement
in the issue. These can be delivered at local schools, libraries, senior and community centres,
religious institutions and healthcare facilities. For instance, in the US medical and mental health
professions, multiple prevention ideas are recommended for helpers and clinicians who assist
seniors. They include improving training and education, assessing for signs of social isolation
and loneliness, expanding public transportation services, and providing in-home visitations (e.g.
National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine, 2020). Another crucial direction to
take at this level is to alleviate systemic/environmental obstacles that limit social mobility and
connectedness. For example, many individuals and communities have inadequate internet access
shutting them out of potential meaningful online social interactivity. Moreover, libraries and
similar meeting spaces are useful for community-building.
Generally speaking, when the condition of loneliness becomes serious enough to negatively
affect daily functioning, people need to supplement the prevention activities (e.g. joining a club,
journaling, using the internet search options to locate local and resources) with professional
support. It should be noted that severe loneliness is not a psychiatric disorder; however, as
explained earlier, it can lead to major depression and anxiety (emotional distress syndrome), and
perhaps other psychopathology (Cacioppo, Grippo et al., 2015). Such mental health concerns can
be treated with these primary objectives in mind: (a) develop and maintain social skills requisite
for meaningful relationships; (b) develop lasting personal resilience/coping skills; and (c)
maintain existing supportive relationships and generate opportunities for new social supportive
bonds and networks (Cacioppo, Grippo et al., 2015; Mann et al., 2017; Swartz, 2019; Bessaha
et al., 2020).
Various recommended interventions, such as one-on-one mentoring, individual and group
psychotherapies, and judicious use of medications, can effectively address the behavioural,
interpersonal, cognitive, and emotional correlates of loneliness (Cacioppo, Grippo et al.,
2015; Mann et al., 2017; Swartz, 2019; Bessaha et al., 2020). Each of these options is briefly
considered in this section. At the ‘lowest’ level of intervention intensity, mentoring can be
attempted. This approach involves intentionally pairing a ‘life coach’ or ‘friend’ with a lonely
person for purposes of support, companionship and advisement. These partnerships meet
regularly for conversation and structured interactions. In most cases, however, this option is
not enough to ameliorate the harmful effects of prolonged and severe cases of loneliness;

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consequently, professional clinicians should provide a more intensive level of treatment starting
with individual and group counselling
A number of individual psychotherapies targeting largely late adolescents to middle-aged
adults are well suited to treat clinical depression, social anxiety and related psychopathology
associated with challenging cases. Although is beyond the scope of this chapter to elucidate
each approach, for further reference research-based citations accompany each method.
Behavioural counselling methods are particularly useful when the lonely person lacks
the requisite social skills (e.g. speaking on the phone, giving and receiving compliments,
enhancing nonverbal communication skills) to develop and maintain quality relationships
(Cacioppo, Grippo et al., 2015). The therapist uses psychoeducational social skills curriculum
to address the deficiencies (Mann et al., 2017). Relatedly, behaviourally oriented counsellors
often use exposure strategies to assist isolated individuals progressively increase their levels
social interfacing and decrease the social anxiety related to loneliness (Abramowitz et al.,
2019). To attend to a person’s maladaptive social cognition or irrational thoughts (often
referred to as automatic negative thoughts, e.g. ‘I’m not capable of making good friendships’;
‘I’m not a person other people would like to be in a relationship with’; ‘I’ll always be a lonely
person’), cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT; Cacioppo, Grippo et al., 2015) has been found
to be efficacious. In particular, CBT challenges clients to identify and revise their mistaken
or distorted beliefs, false attributions and self-defeating thoughts about their social contexts
and interpersonal dynamics.
Newer and more innovative counselling approaches not commonly suggested in early loneliness
treatment literature should be mentioned as well. These include motivational interviewing (MI;
Mann et al., 2017; Cohen-Mansfield & Eisner, 2020) and acceptance and commitment therapy
(ACT; Feeney and Hayes, 2016) for adolescents through senior citizens and art (or expressive)
therapy (Cleveland, 2018), bibliotherapy (particularly for children and youth; Hynes, 2019), and
well-being therapy (WBT; Fava, 2016) for older children through adults. In recent years, group
counselling (Bessaha et al., 2020; e.g. structured group reminiscence therapy, Tarugu et al., 2019;
or group therapy based on acceptance and commitment therapy, Najjari et al., 2017) and family
counselling (Wampler & Patterson, 2020) have been suggested to treat the negative impacts of
loneliness. Both of these latter interventions require the client to handle intensive social dynamics
and, thus, they may not be entirely successful for isolative, noncommunicative, overly reserved/
shy, nonconfrontative or anxiety-ridden clients.
Another more intensive option for clients with serious mental disorders is psycho-
pharmacological treatment coupled with psychotherapy. Cacioppo, Grippo et al. (2015) listed
several options that a physician (MD) might prescribe with caution and close monitoring: (1)
antidepressants (e.g. selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors) which have a range of effects
(e.g. improve feelings of depression, anxiety- and fear-related responses); (2) neurosteroids
(e.g. allopregnanolone [a naturally produced steroid that acts on the brain]) that activate the
hypothalamic pituitary adrenocortical axis, thus facilitate the recovery of physiological
homeostasis following stressful events; and, (3) oxytocin, a hypothalamic neuropeptide known to
have a high sensitivity to social affiliation (p. 9).
Moving to the mesosystem, multiple activities can be conducted to ameliorate loneliness. If
the person can tolerate large group settings, social and recreational and leadership training can
be useful. Clients then participate in events with people with similar interests and values such as

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clubs. They should be encouraged to go slow and at their comfort level. If at all possible, these
new social situations (e.g. classrooms, clubs) should be restructured to readily accommodate
individuals with mental health issues.
Finally, at exo- and macrosystemic (environmental–societal) levels, individuals are indirectly
impacted by broad-based systemic resources and loneliness prevention and intervention-
oriented schemes (e.g. restructuring institutions, community resources, policy reform, building
coalitions among stakeholders) instituted by educational, research and governmental entities.
Again, Table 17.1 provides some recommendations. A specific example is the UK’s national
‘Strategy for Tackling Loneliness’ document that includes actionable policy recommendations
(UK Government, 2018). To oversee and implement the proposed changes a governmental level
‘Minister for Loneliness’ was appointed in 2018. New research initiatives were funded as well,
such as the Loneliness and Social Isolation in Mental Health Network. Similarly, the Coalition
to End Social Isolation and Loneliness (MacPherson, 2019) was created in the United States to
address this issue. The organization, composed of a diverse set of allied medical stakeholders
(consumer and patient groups, health plans, community-based organizations, private sector
researchers and innovators), advocates for nonpartisan federal policy solutions. Around the same
time, a European initiative to assist ageing migrant populations with issues of social vulnerability,
loneliness, transnational care and support networks was also proposed (Ciobanu et al., 2017).
Additional international efforts at the exo- and macrolevels aimed at enhancing the life quality
and satisfaction of people who experience the absence of social relationships are documented in
Cacioppo, Grippo et al. (2015).

Summary and Concluding Remarks

This chapter introduced the various psychological dimensions of loneliness. The condition
was identified as a global concern spanning all ages and groups. To reiterate, Murthy (2020)
characterized loneliness as the subjective emotion that people experience when they lack the
essential social connections that help them psychologically function. Lonely people feel stranded,
discarded or distanced from the people with whom they are closest to. Additionally, when people
feel lonely, they yearn for the sense of intimacy, trust and the warmth of authentic friendships,
loved ones and community relations. It has also been made abundantly clear that loneliness
should be taken seriously, for the ramifications of prolonged feelings of rejection and isolation
can have devastating negative effects on a person’s psychological and physiological health.
Moreover, loneliness is a multisystemic phenomenon that involves intrapersonal
characteristics associated with the sufferer (e.g. personality, cognition, emotional well-being)
as well as communal, institutional and societal influences. Professional support personnel
should bear this in mind as they devise and implement evidence-based preventative actions and
interventions. Sample restorative practices to support lonely persons were reviewed. These vary
in intensity and requisite levels of engagement. Whereas low-intensity self-directed prevention
activities might involve locating and reviewing pertinent resources or journaling, moderate-
intensity behaviours ask the person to perhaps try public service volunteering, joining a club or
participating in a supportive relationship based on a mentoring model. Necessitating the highest
level of engagement and commitment, the severely distraught person may benefit from individual
and group psychotherapy and medication.

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Finally, more distal prevention and intervention strategies require local communities,
institutions and society at large to adopt innovative practices to assist hurting individuals. Specific
‘coping-with-loneliness’ and positive mental health initiatives, policies and programmes should
be implemented by professional and civic entities. These actions call for increased funding and
concerted efforts by germane professions to remedy the epidemic of loneliness. Ignorance, apathy
and neglect of this issue will only further contribute to the deterioration of the psychological and
physical well-being of the citizenry.

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 18

Loneliness in Childhood

Sivan George-Levi, Tomer Schmidt-Barad and

Malka Margalit

Introduction

Loneliness distress has been documented in children’s early developmental stages. Although some
youngsters keep their experience of social distress to themselves, many others share their pain with
family members, teachers and peers. Research has demonstrated that feelings of social exclusion
should be treated as a significant developmental risk, as lonely children tend to become lonely adults.
From the early stages of development, children are capable of identifying feelings of loneliness
(Margalit, 2010), although young children may use words other than ‘lonely’ to share their experience.
They may say, for instance, ‘I’m sad’ or ‘I’m bored.’ One out of ten preschool children (about 10 per
cent) said they were lonely and unhappy with their social relationships in the playgroup (Coplan et al.,
2007). About one out of five children aged seven to twelve (20 per cent) revealed that they were lonely,
either sometimes or often (Qualter et al., 2015). In a recent survey, 14 per cent of children aged ten to
twelve said that they were often lonely (Snape et al., 2018). Children who reported ‘low satisfaction’
with their relationships, either with family or friends, were likely to state that they were ‘often’ lonely
(34.8 and 41.1 per cent, respectively) (Snape et al., 2018). Children want to be part of their peer group,
and those who feel that they are left out often complain that they have no one to play with, and that this
lack of playmates makes them sad.
Asher’s pioneer research focused attention on children’s reports following situations of social
exclusion and alienation (Asher et al., 1984). He interviewed children of different age groups
about their painful experiences, from preschool through elementary school and adolescence
(Asher et al., 1990). These early studies specified the various expressions of loneliness as painful
internal reactions to interpersonal challenges and disappointments that could be understood
within the context of friendship and peer rejection. In-depth interviews with preschool children
indicated that they knew what the ‘loneliness’ construct meant, and could define their experiences
as representing two different components: the first one – an affective reaction – a negative mood
(‘feeling sad’), and the second one – physical placement – literal disconnection from others or a
sense of exclusion (‘being alone’) (Asher et al., 1990; Snape et al., 2018).
 Loneliness in Childhood

Young children were also aware of loneliness in others, and are able to differentiate
between shy children versus those who experience social challenges. They prefer playing
with socially competent children over less popular ones, including those who are shy, and
they rate shy children as less popular (Margalit, 2010). Early childhood research has already
demonstrated that the basic foundations of sound mental health are built early in life, given
that positive and negative early experiences shape the architecture of the developing brain.
The quality of early connections with parents and family members forms the basis of future
social relations, social competence and life satisfaction. Loneliness has been associated with
the unsatisfied need for intimate relationships with friends and/or unfulfilled expectations of
belonging to a desired social group (Weiss, 1973, 1998).
The goals of the current chapter are to address the core experience of children’s emotional and
social lives, focusing on distress related to social connections and alienation at home, in school
and among peers. On the basis of the salutogenic paradigm (Antonovsky, 1987; Mittelmark et al.,
2017), which explores sources of health and well-being through a medical lens, we reject the
understanding of loneliness as a dichotomy (lonely or not lonely), and propose discussing it as a
dynamic movement along a continuum of gratified feelings of strong connectedness, closeness
or relatedness, to the painful experience of isolation/alienation/loneliness. The idea underlying
this paradigm is that people are neither completely lonely nor fully connected (Idan et al., 2017).
The foundations of loneliness during childhood – presenting risk and protective factors as well as
coping approaches – will be discussed. The chapter includes three parts: models and sources of
loneliness; school is a lonely place; and prevention, coping and intervention.

Models and Sources of Loneliness

At the start of this chapter, it is important to emphasize that loneliness is a typical and common
human experience. Almost all children experience loneliness from time to time. However, some
children feel loneliness more often than do others, and they experience it as highly painful.
Individual differences in loneliness may range from descriptions of short-lived experiences
of alienation to a chronic and deeply negative experience of feeling excluded. Thus, it is not
surprising that the study of the roots of loneliness has become a focus of research interest.
Theoretical approaches to loneliness offer several major models, such as the social needs
model and the cognitive discrepancy model. The social needs model hypothesizes a connection
between objective social deficits and the subjective experience of loneliness (Heinrich &
Gullone, 2006; Sullivan, 1953); as such, children experience loneliness when their social needs
are not satisfied (Weiss, 1973). The cognitive discrepancy model, on the other hand, focuses on
children’s subjective evaluation of their interpersonal relationships. From early developmental
stages, children develop expectations regarding the quantity and quality of their social
connections (Russell et al., 2012). The cognitive discrepancy model focuses on expectations for
social relationships, rather than on objective situations. Both approaches accentuate the role of
the social environment in children’s well-being and address the negative outcomes of loneliness.
The evolutionary conceptualization of loneliness (Spithoven et al., 2019) suggests that
loneliness has an inherited adaptive function, signalling people to their need – for the sake of
their own survival – to connect to significant others. Thus, in the next section of this chapter,
genetic aspects and family connections will be presented as one source of loneliness. Genetic

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sources of loneliness have been examined extensively following recent developments in genetic
studies (Feng et al., 2019), and models that have examined interactions between various genes
and social environments. Early research (McGuire & Clifford, 2000) was based on data from
adoption studies and twin-sibling findings. As part of the Colorado Adoption Project, 133 sibling
pairs completed a general loneliness scale at the ages of 9, 10, 11 and 12. In addition, in the
San Diego Sibling Study, 142 sibling pairs between the ages of 8 and 14 completed a scale
assessing loneliness at school. Both studies showed a significant heritability impact in children’s
loneliness. Yet the study also highlighted environmental contributions to the children’s loneliness
by showing that each sibling experienced unique relationships in the same family, in addition
to the impact of peer relationships outside the family (McGuire & Clifford, 2000). One child in
the same family may have a very supportive peer network, whereas another may feel rejected or
neglected. Thus, environmental factors within and outside the family may determine how genes
that contribute to loneliness are expressed and demonstrated. Research on gene-environment
interactions has indicated that social–environmental factors (e.g. low social support) may
have a more pronounced effect and lead to higher levels of loneliness in individuals who carry
the sensitive variant of the candidate genes (Goossens et al., 2015). Shared and non-shared
environmental influences account for significant variations in loneliness during childhood. Thus,
an understanding of loneliness requires an examination of the complex interactions between
genes’ impact and environmental factors (Cacioppo & Patrick, 2008).

Temperament and Highly Sensitive Children

As an example of the interaction between genetic-based characteristics and early environmental
impacts, studies of temperament have revealed different levels of infants’ reactivity, from
their earliest developmental stages. Observations of very young children have revealed their
different reactions to noise, pain and satisfaction of basic needs, demonstrating their basic
levels of sensitivity to different stimuli. Temperament has been defined as reflecting individual
differences in reactivity and responses to different stimuli demonstrated in self-regulation
abilities (Rothbart et al., 2001). The concept of the highly sensitive child (Pluess et al., 2018)
emerged from Aron’s construct (Aron & Aron, 1997), and focused attention on children who
are very sensitive to environmental influences. Children who experience frequent and intense
levels of negative emotionality are more impulsive, easily aroused emotionally, less accepted
by peers and at increased risk of becoming lonely (Henwood & Solano, 1994). The high levels
of negative emotional arousal contribute to their tendency to withdraw socially, and may reduce
the length of their social interactions. These children may not have enough opportunities to stay
socially engaged and involved in order to develop social competence. They may have difficulties
cultivating close satisfying relationships with adults and children, as well as gaining age-
appropriate social skills (Margalit, 2010).
Children who do not develop age-appropriate social skills and have lower social
competence are at greater risk of experiencing unsatisfactory social relations. Social
competence reflects the ability to generate and coordinate flexible adaptive responses to
various interpersonal demands, opportunities and challenges (Margalit & Efrati, 1996), and
includes prosocial actions such as helping, sharing and comforting, as well as the absence of
antisocial behaviours, such as the inhibition of impulsive and disruptive behaviours that have
negative social outcomes. Children with decreased social competence may not understand

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social communication, or may not acquire age-appropriate social behaviour. They may fail
to understand the social situation they are in, or know how they are expected to behave.
Additional sources of lower social competenc are difficulties in controlling impulsivity or
avoidance/withdrawal tendencies. Children with poor self-control have fewer friends and are
reported as less trustworthy by peers (Betts & Rotenberg, 2007). Conversely, increases in
self-control predicted decreases in loneliness (Liu et al., 2016).
Shyness is considered to be an example of internal social approach-avoidance conflict.
Although shy children may wish to connect with others, they withdraw socially as a result
of fears of unfamiliar people and social novelty, together with social-evaluative concerns
(Coplan et al., 2015). Shyness and loneliness are two distinct concepts, yet they have
strong associations with unsatisfactory social relationships. Shy children are characterized
by their strong self-awareness and negative self-perceptions (Korem, 2019). Beginning in
early childhood, shy children experience feelings of distress and increased anxiety in social
situations outside the family, especially those that involve strangers or people unfamiliar to
them. Research has documented the stable and strong relationships between shyness, anxiety
and loneliness, presenting shyness as a predictor of loneliness (Zhao et al., 2018), and self-
perceptions as mediators of these relations (Zhao et al., 2013). Additional consequences
of shyness are tied to the way in which shy children perceive themselves. Already among
pre-schoolers, it was found that shyness was tied to the children’s negative perceptions of
themselves (Coplan et al., 2004). Contextual conditions also interact in the relation between
shyness and loneliness; for example, shyness was found to be associated with loneliness in
migrant children in China, suggesting that migrant shy children were more likely than their
non-shy peers to feel lonely (Ding et al., in press).

Attachment
The quality of close relationships and attachment to fathers and mothers at early developmental
stages has been considered a basic source of the development of loneliness. Attachment theory
suggests that people form internal working models of themselves and of others in relationships,
based on their experiences with childhood caregivers (Bowlby, 1988). According to attachment
theory (Bowlby, 1982), the developmental experiences with early attachment figures (such as
mothers and fathers) shape to a great extent the way in which people regulate their relationships
with others throughout their lives. With regard to secure attachment, the working models include
a positive view of the self and others, following warm and trusting relationships (Shaver &
Mikulincer, 2010). When children feel securely attached, they acquire tools for down-regulating
distress, enabling closeness to significant others; as such, they experience lower levels of
loneliness.
If the attachment to the early main caregiver is not secure, one of two attachment orientations
may develop: anxious or avoidant. An anxious attachment orientation is characterized by
excessive care-seeking and fear of rejection and loss. An avoidant attachment orientation refers
to behaviours that inhibit closeness to others in order to avoid rejection (Mikulincer & Shaver,
2019). Early attachment interactions predict the development of interpersonal functioning during
childhood and predict loneliness. Insecurely attached children experience difficulties in their
social connections with children and adults and may feel lonely and excluded socially (Akdoğan,
2017; Al-Yagon et al., 2016).

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Entitlement
Sources of loneliness may be found not only in children’s types of attachment to others but also
in their unfulfilled expectations of adults and other children. The unmet belief that they are
entitled to get what they wish for (i.e. the particular friends and relationships they desire) may
lead to children’s feelings of frustrations and disappointment in their social connections. Sense
of entitlement can be defined as the subjective perception that individuals deserve to get what
they wish for (Solomon & Leven, 1975). In its maladaptive form, the sense of entitlement is
considered to be an expression of narcissistic personality, with exaggerated expectations and
demands of others, combined with a tendency to see oneself as special (Piff, 2014). Sense of
entitlement develops through children’s interactions with attachment figures and is demonstrated
through the quality of their social interactions (Rothman & Steil, 2012). In order to develop an
assertive and appropriate sense of entitlement, children need to internalize into their working
models of attachment a sense that they are worthy of being taken care of (Shaver & Mikulincer,
2002). An exaggerated sense of entitlement has been found to be associated with a range of
maladaptive outcomes including disappointment from relationships and emotional distress
(Trumpeter et al., 2008). Not surprisingly, Tolmacz & Mikulincer (2011) found that young
adults with a maladaptive sense of entitlement tended to feel upset and lonelier in a variety of
environments (Tolmacz & Mikulincer, 2011).

Environmental Aspects
Lonely children are not lonely all the time (Margalit, 2010). Thus, the challenge for mental
health professionals is to identify the contextual conditions that may serve as risk factors
for developing and maintaining loneliness, as well as the processes that promote feelings of
social isolation. Perceived discrepancies between individual traits and situational demands
increase stress and have been linked to greater negative affect (Spokane et al., 2000). A social
environment in which one feels comfortable, safe and accepted (i.e. where adequate social
support is available) may be vital for general well-being, as well as for reducing the risk of
exclusion (McGuire & Clifford, 2000).
Home and school are considered to be the two critical environments for understanding the
development of loneliness. Family climate – the quality of relationships with parents and siblings
– predicts the development of satisfactory or disappointing social relations within and outside
the family (Nie et al., in press; Shi et al., 2017). For example, a recent study demonstrated the
unique roles of family climate, loneliness and hopeful thinking in predicting children’s effort
in schools (Feldman et al., 2018). Children’s characteristics and interactional partners within
contextual conditions predict the development, maintenance and satisfaction deriving from
social relations. Thus, the next section will present research on children’s relations with teachers
and peers at school.

School Is a Lonely Place

In-depth interviews have demonstrated that many children feel dissatisfied with their relationships
with friends and teachers at school, and they have reported feelings of frustration and loneliness
(Margalit, 2010). Children have described themselves as being left out and excluded because
of their lower athletic or academic abilities (Snape et al., 2018). It should be emphasized that

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distress resulting from exclusion is a personal and subjective experience that may not necessarily
reflect the ‘objective’ social situation at hand, or peer rejection. This distress may reflect the
children’s personal expectations and disappointments, as well as the quality and/or quantity of
their social connections not only with peers but also with teachers. Relationships with teachers
can lie at the root of loneliness at school.

Attachment to Teachers and Learning Challenges

Teachers play a significant role in children’s lives as well as in their adaptation to the school
environment (Birch & Ladd, 1997). Many children have associated their loneliness at school with
the quality of their relationships with teachers, their level of classroom participation, and their
engagement and success (Murray et al., 2016). Secure attachment to teachers, among different age
groups of children, has been shown to predict not only better grades but also social competence
and better adjustment to school (Bergin & Bergin, 2009). Children, especially in preschool and
elementary school, expect teachers to fulfil the role of a ‘secure base’, providing both material
and emotional support, enhancing verbal development and alleviating emotional loneliness
(Galanaki & Vassilopoulou, 2007; Veríssimo et al., 2017). The value of secure attachments in the
school environment was particularly emphasized among children with special educational needs.
For example, third-grade students with reading difficulties experienced lower attachment to their
teachers, which predicted increased levels of loneliness (Al-Yagon & Margalit, 2006). A recent study,
however, presented a more complex picture. Similar to the earlier study, the quality of the children’s
relationships with their teachers predicted their loneliness; however, positive relationships with peers
seemed to have a protective role and reduced social distress (Zhang et al., 2019).

Peer Relationships and Social Status

The results of several empirical studies conveyed that children with low social status and less
acceptance and support from peers may experience loneliness (Margalit, 2010). In addition,
learning difficulties and behaviour problems often predict social alienation (Tur-Kaspa et al.,
1999). Lonely children reported that they were not satisfied with their social relationships,
and often felt rejected by peers or had a small social network of friends (Asher et al., 1990;
Nishimura et al., 2018; Qualter et al., 2010). A longitudinal study reported that lower peer
acceptance and trust reported by five-year-old children predicted increasing loneliness in later
years and throughout adolescence (Qualter et al., 2013). Longitudinal studies demonstrated that
loneliness is a relatively stable experience for school-aged children, focusing attention on the
ongoing influence between peer rejection, social competence and loneliness. In addition, the
loneliness also predicts current and future mental health problems such as depressive symptoms
and maladaptive behaviour (Nishimura et al., 2018). Moreover, loneliness during childhood is
also a significant predictor of repeated health complaints such as headaches, stomach-aches and
backaches (Lyyra et al., 2018).
Although it is commonly accepted that children’s friendships serve as a buffer against
loneliness, some children still feel lonely despite having friends (Nowland et al., 2019). One
reason children may continue to experience loneliness despite their social connections is that
some friendships may not be ‘high-quality’ friendships; children may also have low expectations
of friendships. When children’s friends are insulting, or aggressive, the relationships will not
decrease their loneliness.

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Children Online
The use of online social networking has grown over the last twenty years, and research has
pointed to the association between internet usage and depression (Miller, 2017). Individuals
who use the internet may be more socially disconnected in ‘real life’ and, as such, experience
loneliness. It is possible that the time spent online increases one’s experience of loneliness;
conversely, however, perhaps people who are lonely cope with their distress by spending
greater amounts of time online (Kim et al., 2009). It is thus not possible to draw definitive
conclusions about the impact of the digital world on loneliness, and there are contradictory
findings. Cross-sectional studies dominate the literature, making it difficult to establish
causal connections (Nowland et al., 2018).
In a comprehensive survey, Nowland et al., (2018) proposed a bidirectional and dynamic
model demonstrating the relationship between loneliness and the use of the internet. They
proposed that when the internet was used as a way to enhance existing relationships, and to forge
new social connections, it was a useful tool for reducing loneliness. The study of socially anxious
children supports this assumption (Bonetti et al., 2010). In this study, online communication
boosted the feeling of connectedness among a socially anxious group of children. In comparison
with how they felt during face-to-face communications, these children were more comfortable
and ready to chat online, to share their feelings and to use this method of communication for
self-disclosure and identity exploration. Another study followed 455 Chinese elementary school
students who participated in two waves of a survey with a six-month interval. Results indicated
that seeking school- and life-related information on the internet predicted more life satisfaction
and less loneliness through improved self-esteem. Furthermore, self-esteem moderated the
effects on loneliness of internet information-seeking. Specifically, internet information-seeking
predicted less loneliness especially among children with low self-esteem (Liu et al., 2013). An
additional study documented the behaviour of shy and lonely children, and demonstrated that
they tended to stay online for longer periods of time (Gao et al., 2018). In conclusion, it seems
that when online activities are used to withdraw from frustrating social interactions, the feelings
of loneliness may be further intensified.
Children often communicate and play computer games with existing friends and classmates,
and also with ‘virtual friends’ whom they have not met. Only a few studies have documented
the differences in these relationships, focusing attention on children who developed online
relationships with virtual friends (individuals they have not met). The study showed that these
connections were associated with enhanced loneliness, as reported by participants (Sharabi &
Margalit, 2011). In another study it was reported that social exclusion, shaming, bullying and
hostility from peers – transmitted ‘virtually’ – may increase the risk of loneliness. Continued
social vulnerabilities may therefore extend to digital environments, following the children into
their home environments; nevertheless, they are not necessarily created by online connections
(Livingstone et al., 2018).
It can thus be concluded that online communication has both advantages and disadvantages in
the context of children’s loneliness. If children use online communication in a way that replaces
their offline social connections, or as a way to escape their everyday challenges, this usage can
lead to more loneliness and social difficulties. Yet when children use online communication and
gaming activities in order to enhance existing friendships or to extend their social network, it may
reduce loneliness.

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Prevention, Coping and Intervention

The goals of prevention programmes are to avoid, or diminish, children’s loneliness within
different environments, such as home and school, whereas the goals of intervention programmes
are to ‘treat’ the lonely children and to help them manage or cope effectively with their loneliness
(Israelashvili & Romano, 2017). Preventing loneliness during childhood includes paying attention
to children’s social environments and/or focusing on strengthening their personal resources, from
a salutogenic, resilience and strength-based perspectives (Antonovsky, 1987; Margalit, 2010;
Mullin, 2019). Such empowering positive approaches are based on the belief that building up
positive resources may successfully ‘inoculate’ the individual against current and future risks.
The salutogenic approach emphasizes the empowerment of personal resources, positive self-
perceptions and academic competence. Prevention approaches also include environmental changes
such as increasing opportunities for practicing age-appropriate social skills in peer relations,
and encouraging participation in leisure, extracurricular and community activities. Prevention
efforts must target also their family and school environments, in an attempt to encourage the
development of communities of trust, collaboration and hope. Although everyday experiences
can certainly include challenging or sometimes even threatening experiences, they also include
many positive encounters with oneself, others and the environment that may establish current and
future personal strengths (Bauer et al., 2019).
Such a school-based effective prevention programmes has been consisted of peer education,
social skills promotion, interactive techniques and include an ‘entire school’ approach in order
make a greater change in the school culture (Gaspar et al., 2018). Such school-based programmes
have a focus on students’ social–emotional competence in order to help them to develop
awareness of their strengths while promoting communication, problem-solving and emotion
regulation strategies (Matos & Simões, 2016). In this regard, the ‘Social and Emotional Skills
Promotion Program’, conducted among 960 Portuguese children (mean age of 12.5), showed that
pupils that participated in the programme experienced greater improvement in their interpersonal
relationships compared to pupils in waiting list (Gaspar et al., 2018). This intervention included
twenty-two group sessions throughout the school year, which were carried out by teachers and
psychologists. Another promising direction for school-based intervention can be found in the
pilot study conducted by Orkibi et al. (2019). This longitudinal study examined the contribution
of school-based psychodrama group intervention among forty adolescents and showed that
participation in the psychodrama group demonstrated reduced levels of loneliness and depression
in comparison to the comparison group.
Examples of effective prevention and intervention strategies can also be found in
clinical-medical settings. Some of the most effective interventions for reducing loneliness
are those that focus on maladaptive cognitions about social situations (Masi et al., 2011).
For example, it has been achieved by changing maladaptive social perception and cognition
(e.g. dysfunctional and irrational beliefs, false attributions and self-defeating thoughts)
(Cacioppo, Grippo et al., 2015). The efficacy of these interventions may be based on helping
lonely individuals who tend to feel threaten from social interactions and to demonstrate
greater sensitivity to rejection (Cacioppo, Grippo et al., 2015). Behavioural techniques such
as exposure, behaviour experiment and behavioural activation were also found to be useful
(Käll et al. 2020).

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Following our discussion of children loneliness online, there is a growing interest in digital
intervention programmes that may reduce loneliness. For example, a promising result was reported
in a six-week digital program that was designed to help young people with social anxiety disorder
(SAD) to decrease loneliness (Lim et al., 2019). This programme has been focused on applying
positive psychology strategies such as identifying strengths, increasing positive emotions and
intimacy with existing friends while enhancing quality relationships. The programme was
interactive and engaging and used daily sharing of posts and videos in attempt to increase young
people social connections.
The ways that children cope with loneliness during early developmental stages affect their social
connections, school successes and well-being. Children’s coping is linked with efforts to regulate
their own emotions, cognitions and behaviours, as well as to regulate their environment in response
to stressful events (Skinner et al., 2013). Lonely children cope with distressing experiences in
different ways. It may be a struggle for them to develop the social relationships they wish for, and
sometimes they may ask for help from adults and peers. They may also look for alternative friends
or activities. The alternative activities may be those that are done together with other children,
or solitary activities. Lonely children may adopt passive coping strategies, remaining depressed
and isolated. Research has differentiated between adaptive and maladaptive coping strategies
(Skinner and Saxton, in press), and has also recognized the wide range of strategies that children
use for different situations and periods, and the likelihood that most children experience loneliness
from time to time. As a way of avoiding periods of loneliness, children described a wide range of
possible activities, such as talking over their feelings with supportive adults or peers, reaching out
and seeking alternative social connections, or finding activities to get involved in, such as computer
games or sports. Their goals are to distract themselves from negative thoughts, frustrations, anger
and sadness. They may attempt to reframe the meaning of a situation; for example, if they’re not
invited to a social activity, they may adopt a new perspective towards it, such as devaluing it, and as
such they may feel better (Snape et al., 2018).
The perception of social support availability has been an important and effective coping
factor. Social support refers to the social network’s provision of psychological and material
resources intended to benefit an individual’s ability to cope with stress (Cohen, 2004). Social
support may act as a buffer against stressors, reinforcing self-esteem, self-efficacy and sense of
stability (Cohen & Wills, 1985). For example, The outcomes of interventions for children with
special needs that aimed to teach social and friendship skills with peers showed increased social
skills’ knowledge and reduced loneliness among the group of children with special needs, and
also that their typically developing peers benefited from the intervention (Matthews et al., 2018).
Research has shown that the effects of social support are cumulative, and support in different
environments and from different sources (e.g. family, peers, and school) seems to act as a buffer
against loneliness (Cavanaugh & Buehler, 2016). In addition, a meta-analysis documented the
overall association between social support and well-being in children and adolescents (Chu
et al., 2010) focusing on the difference between availability of social support and the subjective
perception of social support. Research has demonstrated that the availability of perceived social
support predicts feelings of closeness, satisfaction and positive emotions (Williamson et al.,
2019). In conclusion, perceived social support may reduce and perhaps even prevent the negative
effects of loneliness. Yet sometimes, the perception of receiving too much support can have an
adverse impact, as excessive support may contribute to intrusive experiences.

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Various intervention approaches have been proposed to help children whose feelings of
loneliness have gone from those of a temporary nature to those of a more prolonged nature as
well as to help ensure that children who have reported temporary feelings of loneliness do not
develop prolonged feelings of loneliness (Maes et al., 2020). Four major types of intervention
approaches have been identified (Masi et al., 2011):

●● Based on the assumption that social deficits are among the main causes of loneliness,
some intervention programmes are focused on teaching and training social skills and social
problem-solving strategies.
●● As lonely children often feel socially excluded, additional intervention programmes offer
counselling to parents and teachers, with a focus on explicit social support and secure
attachment development.
●● Social frustrations may cause children to withdraw from social relationships, and to
reduce their social engagements. In order to maintain their relationships with peers, some
intervention programmes have attempted to increase opportunities for alternative satisfying
social leisure activities. Examples of this kind of interventions can be found in successful
after-school programmes seeking to enhance personal and social skills in children and
adolescents (Blum & Dick, 2013).
●● Maladaptive social cognitions about friends and social relations may affect children’s
relationships with both peers and adults. Some intervention programmes have adopted
cognitive behavioural therapy approaches in order to challenge these beliefs, and also to
enhance self-control and emotion regulation skills. For example, an intervention programme
that has focused on promoting emotional intelligence (i.e. the ability to understand, use,
and manage emotions) has been found to be important for maintaining meaningful social
connections during childhood. It also supported effective coping with internalizing negative
feelings such as loneliness (Davis et al., 2019).

A meta-analysis of loneliness interventions (Masi et al., 2011) revealed that only a few controlled
studies have attempted to reduce children’s loneliness. Comparisons revealed that interventions
designed to address maladaptive social cognitions were associated with the largest impact. As
mentioned earlier, these interventions have been consistent with programmes such as educating
individuals to identify the automatic negative thoughts that they have about others and about social
interactions more generally, and to regard these negative thoughts as possibly faulty hypotheses
that need to be verified rather than as facts on which to act (Cacioppo, Grippo et al., 2015).
Moreover, with regard to loneliness, group therapy that has targeted adaptive social cognitions or
promoting social skills showed advantages over individual therapy, since it provides opportunities
for real-life social interactions, immediate social feedback and normalization of the loneliness
experience (Wolgensinger, 2015).

Conclusion and Future Research Directions

In sum, this chapter reviewed the current research on the roots of child loneliness and its expression
in different environments. The experience of loneliness during childhood seems to be related
to children’s characteristics, and to the quality and quantity of their interpersonal connections.

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Children who avoid social connections, and who rarely interact with their peers, may suffer deeply
from their own tendency to withdraw (Rubin et al., 2018). The subjective experience of social
dissatisfaction during childhood was also shown to have a unique developmental significance,
together with the actual quality of children’s relationships with parents, teachers and peers, all
playing a critical role in shaping children’s social, emotional and cognitive development. Online
‘virtual’ environments seem to increase opportunities for staying socially connected, but may also
increase the risk of loneliness. Virtual environments can also be used to develop digitally supported
interventions to target loneliness among children. Future directions in research approaches as
well as in education and consultation programmes need to further explore different expressions
of loneliness during childhood, and to examine a variety of in-depth approaches to intervention.
Special emphasized attention should be focused on sensitizing parents and teachers to the
developmental risks of loneliness. Evidence-based programmes are needed, as well as innovative
embedded technologies that would support children in developing satisfying connections and
social competence. The complex factors that predict loneliness suggest that programmes should
be tailored to the specific needs of the child, or the ‘at risk’ group, in order to be most effective.

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Adult Loneliness

Elżbieta Dubas

Introduction

Jacek Salij, among other scholars around the globe, described loneliness as the epidemic of
the twentieth century (Salij, 1997: 26). This is a ‘plague’ of highly developed societies, also
experienced currently in the twenty-first century, because loneliness is greatly conditioned
by external social causes characteristic of civilizations (Dubas, 2000: 116–17). This thread of
reflection on loneliness can be seen already in antiquity. In addition to the glorification of social
life as a condition of happiness (Cicero) and the role of the state in satisfying the needs of
the individual (Aristotle), there appears the aspect of the necessity to intertwine loneliness and
communing with people (Seneca) (cf. Gadacz, 1995: 22–7; Kaczmarek, 1995: 59). As, in the
course of modern history, the complications of social life that impede the harmonious development
of people are observed, the criticism of civilization as a source of loneliness increases. A special
example is the Enlightenment thought of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, in which the evil of political
devices is perceived (Rousseau, 2002) – it is ‘the whole madness of human devices’, encouraging
a return to nature (quoted in Kaczmarek, 1995: 65). The following centuries of development of
modern civilization intensified the loneliness even more: the nineteenth century through intensive
industrialization and urbanization, the twentieth century through the hegemony of science and
technology, the twenty-first century through the intensive development of modern information
technologies and artificial intelligence. These changes weaken the natural intimate social ties,
which makes people vulnerable to the pressure of the achievements of civilization. People living
in contemporary culture lack community life (Merton, 1991) and close interpersonal relationships
(Nouwen, 1994). They painfully experience loneliness in a crowd (Riesman et al., 1971). What
civilization is like, then, is important for the experience of loneliness: whether it alienates people
from themselves or becomes part of the process of their full development. In order to live a
satisfactory (productive) life, a person ‘must strive to experience unity and wholeness in all
spheres of his [sic] being in order to find a new balance’ (Fromm, 1996: 45).
Adult loneliness is the main topic of this chapter. In colloquial Polish, the term ‘loneliness’
coexists with the term ‘aloneness’ and they are frequently used interchangeably. However,
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aloneness also has a positive aspect – it is then understood as solitude, a state that has been
chosen and is expected, while loneliness is always an unwanted and painful experience. There
are numerous and various situations, frequently common ones, which are recognized as those
that create loneliness throughout our life (Dubas, 2000: 118–23). Experiencing them is always
individualistic and subjective; the same situation does not have to provoke the feeling of
loneliness in everyone and it may be ‘transferred’ into solitude and vice versa. Loneliness is
quite commonly experienced, whereas solitude is still rather rarely. From research conducted in
the 1990s, it could be seen that only 9 people out of the studied 150 acknowledged their solitude.
Loneliness was experienced rather commonly, more often in the past (two-thirds of the studied
subjects) than currently (less than half of the studied subjects) (Dubas, 2000: 240, 279). This
chapter, its empirical part in particular, mostly describes loneliness because it is most frequently
mentioned by the studied adult subjects, although aloneness, with its broader context, is also
discussed. The theoretical part of the chapter presents a broad context in which to understand
aloneness that is present in scientific reflection and which also includes loneliness.

Theoretical Assumptions

Together and Alone as the Key Context in Understanding Aloneness

The analysis of the conceptual category of ‘aloneness’ has proved troublesome to researchers
as far as the definition is concerned (see also Stern, in the Introduction of this Handbook). This
results from the complexity and multidimensionality of the phenomenon, its cultural contexts
and the varied individual experiences, as well as problems with verbalizing it, or the researchers
applying different names to define aloneness. However, one may be inclined to draw the basic
conclusion that Together and Alone are two initial situations that define aloneness and may
become the key to understanding this phenomenon of human existence. This can be seen in
Figure 19.1: Aloneness – interpretation of the meaning of the term that is an attempt to present
the meanings related to aloneness in a comprehensive way and also ‘extract’ the core of aloneness
at the same time. Aloneness treated as a universal phenomenon – a universal phenomenon of
human existence – results from two initial situations: physical aloneness understood as lack of
other people (Alone) and the situation of living among people, living with other people (Together).
These two initial situations bear three implications, considering their emotional reception by a
person: negative loneliness, referred to as isolation (with negative emotions), positive solitude
(with positive emotions) and the situation with no reference to aloneness (lack of emotional
reference to the situation of loneliness).

Ambivalence and Oscillations of Aloneness

Together and Alone are two perspectives of intellectual interpretation of human existence and,
thus, aloneness. As Stern puts it, the two approaches – the communal and the individualistic – are
often contrasted; they differently interpret and value the experience of aloneness or emphasize
the need for, or the burden of, aloneness in different ways (see Stern, Introduction to this
Handbook). From this point of view, aloneness may be either positive or negative, good or bad
(Seweryniak, 1997: 34–41). Yet, ‘At every life stage, personhood is learned in large part through
these experiences alone and together’ (see Stern, Introduction to this Handbook). Every day the
experiences of being Together and Alone coexist in a person, thus bringing loneliness or not. As

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Figure 19.1  Aloneness – interpretation of the meaning of the term (from Dubas, 2006).

Koch says: ‘solitude is an experience, neither positive nor negative – it can be chosen or enforced,
an experience accompanied by pleasure or pain, joy or suffering’ (Koch, 1994, quoted in Stern,
Introduction to this Handbook).
This points to the relativity of aloneness, its ambivalent character and with it – the possibility
to shape it and change it. Ambivalence is the core of the phenomenon of aloneness (see Dubas,
2006: 335–6; Skarga, 2009: 181). ‘Aloneness is a phenomenon that is characterised by irremovable
ambivalence’ (Domeracki, 2018: 125). Understood in this way, the two experiences, Together and
Alone, become a certain foundation for experiencing the ambivalence of aloneness. Aloneness

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may be experienced in a very subjective way, but Together and Alone are also experienced in
this way. This is possible thanks to the social and cultural halo around modern life, particularly
in highly developed countries, where both the external and internal freedom of a person are
values in the same way as is a person’s subjectivity, the possibility to realize lifestyles based on
personally chosen values.
A person is faced with an opportunity to make aloneness a value when they experience life
from the perspective of oscillation, interpenetration of various phenomena and states of human
existence. When a person rejects the arbitrariness of antinomy and dichotomy (opposites that are
mutually exclusive) and when they do not perceive life from the passive and binary perspective
of ‘either – or’, when they do not see the border points of continua of experiencing different
phenomena of life as opposites that are mutually exclusive, they can include them in the process
of continuous interpenetration. This is of great importance in the lifelong process of becoming
a person who is more aware, more understanding and more fascinated with ‘mitigating’ the
opposites (Piasecka, 2018).

Ontological Cause of Aloneness

The ambivalence of aloneness, apart from its significant external and internal causes,1 is
explained by an ontological cause. This cause is well worth consideration as it may allow
us to understand contemporary aloneness, particularly in adults. The ontological cause of
aloneness results from the definition of human existence being an imperfect one, yet with the
imprinted ‘matrix’ of perfection. People, by nature, are filled with dichotomies, antinomies and
existential paradoxes. They are filled with internal discords. They are unfathomable in their
dreams and, at the same time, imperfect in their actions. They are mysterious, unpredictable
and impossible to programme. They are suspended between the need to maintain their own
unique individuality and the need to belong to a group: a person wishes to belong, but at
the same time wishes to be free and independent. Human life resembles a drama of ‘being
torn’ between dreams about ideals and the impossibility of achieving them (see Dubas, 2000:
117). Wałejko writes about ontological aloneness, pointing to the personological attributes
of humanity, such as self-ownership, self-control, non-transferability and impossibility of
communication, self-determination and responsibility, acting independently, ‘the result of
separateness and rationality that opens a human being to transcendence’ (Wałejko, 2016: 24).
They constitute human life as a value, although they may be experienced as hardships. They
place human experience in the space of Together and Alone. Thus, humanity, by nature, is
doomed to aloneness. It is an immanent part of human existence. Aloneness is something so
‘human’, as integral to being person as striving for love or the need to be free. It seems that
aloneness cannot be ‘uprooted’ from human fate and destiny. However, if it is ambivalent,
aloneness may be overcome by bringing out its positive side. Experiencing aloneness, living
it, may be directed in such a way that it favours human development, an increase in self-
awareness, and achieving the true meaning of life (see: Dubas, 2000: 118). In this context,
understanding existential dichotomies, their affirmation and discovering their meaning may
become the manner in which the negative aloneness (loneliness) can be transformed into the
positive (solitude). Understanding the position of people in the two worlds: the real and the
ideal, creates space in which it is possible to oscillate between the two different states of
aloneness.

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Shaping Aloneness
It is important and necessary for pedagogues to recognize the phenomenon of aloneness so as
to be able to prevent it or to create developmental solitude. Thus, it is not enough to be able to
recognize aloneness, as we should also apply therapy in the circumstances of loneliness (Wałejko,
2016; Pawłowska & Jundziłł, 2003; Zalewska-Pawlak, 2007; Weinbach, 1986). Pedagogy could
play the role of ‘a brace’ that fastens the issue of solitude in humanistic science, especially
given the increasingly interdisciplinary character of modern pedagogy (Dubas, 2006), making
a pedagogy of aloneness (pedagogical monoseology) possible (Dubas, 2007). It is in education
that there is an opportunity to make aloneness a positive value in human life (Dubas, 2006).
These processes are also important for an adult who experiences education very broadly; in the
area of formal education (at school), but most of all non-formal (institutionalized out-of-school)
and informal (learning from various everyday life activities) where a person should come across
opportunities to experience aloneness as a value (Domeracki, 2018: 140–6; Wałejko, 2016: 231–
6; Dubas, 2006: 348). A person should become familiar with it, understand it better and use it as
an ally in the process of becoming a better person. Wałejko points to the dialectics of aloneness
and being part of a community as an educational challenge, including using the fact that they
complement each other as the basis of the creative identity of a person, and points to harmonizing
them as a way of optimization of relations with other people (Wałejko, 2016: 145). Together and
Alone should equally be present as values in a person’s educational process.
Aloneness is a universal phenomenon of human existence which has probably accompanied
humanity since its beginning, and especially in the era of knowledge that we are experiencing,
where virtual reality and the increasing importance of AI are particularly troublesome. Aloneness
touches people at any age and in any period of life, although it is particularly difficult and hard
to accept in childhood, when a person does not yet have an extended inner world, but also in old
age when this inner world is falling apart; because it is the inner world which is a shield against
experienced hardships, both external and internal.2 Aloneness also concerns the adult person.
Considering the great timeline of adulthood as the period of human development, that is from
eighteen years of age (that is from the formal beginning of adulthood) up until the end of life,
together with all the developmental challenges, numerous and various roles played in life, as well
as social tasks carried out by a person, the changing personal needs, expectations and possibilities,
we should consider adulthood as a time of experiencing aloneness in an incredibly complex and
multidimensional way that is difficult to define and describe. If we perceive adulthood as a
social and cultural construct,3 then we may tie it to the various social roles attributed to an adult
person. The manner in which a person is introduced to aloneness, how a person handles and
experiences it and how much support is received, will determine the person’s experiencing good
and/or bad aloneness. The classic roles of an adult person – the roles of spouse, parent, citizen
– are difficult developmental challenges which bring about many insecurities and numerous
burdens for the price of being independent;4 however, this independence may also be understood
as being ‘doomed to aloneness’. The definition of adulthood formed by Włodzimierz Szewczuk,
well known to Polish andragogues, points to it very distinctly: ‘An adult person is responsible for
himself [sic], he is the subject of his productive activities, he decides about his life plan, he has
to face the difficulties of realising it and he answers to the society for his actions’ (Szewczuk,
1959: 44). In this definition we can see the ambivalence of being an adult, which may be related
to experiencing aloneness. Ambivalence itself brings about aloneness.

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Age norms are yet another sociocultural determinant of adulthood. They point to the differences
in social roles and behaviour, depending on age. Aloneness in the period of adulthood may differ,
depending on the different stages of adulthood: early adulthood (eighteen to twenty-five), young
adulthood (twenty-five to fourty), mid-adulthood (fourty to sixty-five) and old adulthood (sixty
to sixty-five and older), also called old age; remembering that old age is not a uniform period of
development time and is marked by the beginning of old age, also referred to as young old (sixty
to seventy-four), old-old (seventy-five to eighty-nine) and oldest old (ninety and older) (see:
Dubas, 2009: 119; Dubas, 2018: 169). How does the aloneness of a contemporary person look
in this context? The results of the studies presented herein are an attempt to answer this question.

Methodological Note on Research

Loneliness in adults is the subject matter of the empirical studies analysed further and realized
as part of a qualitative research strategy based on an interpretative paradigm, the most important
assumption of which is the notion that ‘knowledge is a creation of the human mind’ and that a
researcher may concentrate on exploring social microworlds as the only real worlds in which
people live (Malewski, 1998: 34). This methodological choice is well suited to the purpose
of this research. Norman Denzin and Yvonna Lincoln indicate that ‘qualitative research is an
interpretative, naturalistic approach to the world. This means that qualitative researchers study
things in their natural environment, trying to make sense or interpret phenomena using terms used
by the surveyed people’ (Denzin & Lincoln, 2010: 23). Uwe Flick emphasizes that ‘qualitative
research uses / . . . / text instead of numbers as empirical material, starts from the concept of
social creation of the researched realities, focuses on the points of view of research participants,
their everyday practices and knowledge about the subject of research’ (Flick, 2010: 23).
The applied method is a group case study (Stake, 2010). Such a method allows for a multifaceted
look at the phenomenon of loneliness in adulthood, and the empirical data may reveal its various
different, but also similar, aspects. The statements of the respondents are subjective to a great
extent, which remains in accordance with what Stake points to: ‘the responses provided are a
mixture of opinions and feelings, descriptions and interpretations’ (Stake, 2010: 641). The case
in this research is the aloneness/loneliness5 of adults from the perspective of experiences studied
in the period of their formal adulthood, that is between eighteen and seventy years of age.6 The
research technique is an interview which also includes narrative and biographical elements.
The main research issue was included in the overall question: What does the loneliness of
the studied adults look like, particularly in the context of the two initial situations: Together or
Alone? Detailed questions were formed as follows:

(1) How do the studied participants understand the phenomenon of aloneness (solitude and
loneliness)?
(2) How do the studied participants experience loneliness considering the temporary
perspective?
(3) Which childhood experiences formed their loneliness?
(4) What significant events from the later periods of their life formed their loneliness?
(5) To what extent do interpersonal relationships form the background of loneliness?
(6) To what extent is aloneness a learning situation?

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The analysis of empirical data is qualitative (Babbie, 2008). It is aimed at ‘extracting’ and giving
names to the features of the studied phenomenon – aloneness/loneliness in adulthood – that are
related to Together and Alone, in order for them to be joined and thus give more insight (Konecki,
2000: 51).
Research included several stages:

(1) Preparation for research (theoretical and methodological) for the ten PhD students of
pedagogy and psychology, carried out by the author of the text as part of a thirty-hour lecture
course: Aloneness and loneliness in an interdisciplinary context, during the winter semester
of the 2019–20 academic year. Familiarizing the students with the research tool elaborated by
the author of the text and the situation of an interview they may be faced with.
(2) Carrying out interviews in January 2020. The studies were conducted by pedagogy and
psychology PhD students of the University of Łódź.7 Each student made an election of
one research participant. The small number of research participants does not allow for the
generalization of the data, but research reveals ten different experiences of loneliness.
(3) Analysing the collected empirical material by the group of PhD students on 24 January
2020. Each researcher (ten people) presented the content of their interview. All students
participated in its interpretation. At this stage, the analysis of the material allowed us to
draw a fundamental conclusion that age, that is, the criterion for determining different
age cohorts of adults, is a criterion of secondary importance and only a formal one. The
analysis showed that selective coding, concentrated on categories describing loneliness
through extracting it and giving meaning to its features, (emotional) states, situations,
events and so on, is the leading type of data coding.
(4) Qualitative analysis of the empirical material was performed in February and March 2020 by
the author. This analysis was aimed at defining specific categories describing loneliness
in adults, understanding the meanings of aloneness that were revealed in the empirical
material and providing them with theoretical codes. Taking notes, keeping a record of
the respondents together with a map of theoretical notions describing the phenomenon of
aloneness/loneliness in adulthood were used along with coding the empirical material. The
record of the respondent was elaborated for each individual participating in the research.
(5) A report of the studies, prepared by the author of the text in March 2020, includes a
presentation of individual ‘components’: features, situations, events describing loneliness
in adulthood, all in logical order and presenting the phenomenon of loneliness in adulthood
in six categories: Understanding loneliness, Experiencing loneliness, Memory of
experiences from childhood forming aloneness and loneliness in adults, Other significant
events forming aloneness and loneliness in adults, Interpersonal relations as the context
of loneliness and Learning loneliness/solitude, especially for the categories Together and
Alone.

The studies included ten people between twenty-three and sixty-seven years of age (eight
women and two men) who reside in Łódź (a large city in central Poland) and smaller towns in
its proximity. The formal age criterion was the only criterion when compiling a research sample,
assuming that all the studied individuals are adults and that each adult has some experience
related to loneliness.

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Loneliness in Adulthood in the Light of Own Research

Understanding the Terms of Aloneness and Loneliness

The studied adult subjects gave different meanings to aloneness and loneliness. Aloneness is a
complex phenomenon, often meaning the physical state of lack of other people’s presence, being
Alone, most frequently made by free choice. However, aloneness also includes positive notions,
as it favours development and tranquillity. On the other hand, loneliness is a definitely negative
mental state which reflects a lack of close emotional bonds with other people, also when being
Together. (In the Polish language both notions: ‘aloneness’ and ‘loneliness’ are quite-often used
interchangeably).
Aloneness is such an existential concept and I have an impression that it is very hard to define
it in one specific sentence /. . ./it may have different aspects and different dimensions, it may
be positive and negative. It may also have different duration. It is hard for me to specify this,
but I think that aloneness may mean the lack of another person in your life. (4:F,28)8
Aloneness poses a difficulty in its definition as it includes two antithetical experiences: a positive
and a negative one. They both may be experienced at the same time or subsequently (5:F,26).
I think it is easy to turn from solitude to loneliness /. . ./ I used to spend this time alone. Such
solitude makes you not want to go out to friends, acquaintances /. . ./ I think it is related,
because . . . you just start feeling reluctance towards such relationships. So, it is possible to
turn from solitude to loneliness. (1:F,23)
This bipolarity of aloneness may be perceived as a dilemma. The ambivalence and oscillations
between the positive and negative assessment of aloneness show a significant difficulty in
bringing together the two situations of Together and Alone.
Despite my children’s efforts to take me to their home /. . ./ I’d rather stay at my place. Have
this peace and quiet. But then all the memories come back, when my husband was still alive,
when the children were around /. . ./ and now I’m on my own. Then I cry and feel upset and
useless, but when someone wants to take me to their place, I insist on being left at my place.
(8:F,65)
The image of aloneness that is revealed from the experiences of the studied adult subjects most
frequently shows loneliness, that is the negative aspect of aloneness – the sense of emptiness and
experiencing sorrow connected with being left alone with all one’s problems, with uncertainty,
with no support or ‘soulmate’.
I’ve been living alone for five years now, since my husband died. Meanwhile, the children
settled down and moved out, so when I was left alone I felt lonely. Loneliness is hard,
unpleasant, awkward. /. . ./ You’re just sitting all by yourself and days never end, and nights
are even worse. (8:F,65)
Aloneness has its positive side too. It is identified with being with no people around by choice, it
may open a new developmental dimension for a person. What is significant is the frequency with
which the studied adults wanted the silence of solitude, how much they appreciated its benefits
(6:M,41), (8:F,65).

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What is good about solitude, is the fact that you can think things through, realize them and
analyse what has happened to you so far. (1:F,23)
Being selfish all the time is a terrible thing, but being alone from time to time is recuperation
of your physical and mental strength. (9:F,67)
Early adulthood appears to be the time of becoming aware of aloneness in its negative form –
loneliness, which is a result of the process of increasing self-awareness.

I’d never thought about it before . . . /. . ./ and recently . . . I guess I grew up to it and came to
the conclusion that, despite having someone to go out with during the weekend to have a beer
or two, this is not the kind of a relationship I’d wish to have. Despite all this, I can still feel
lonely, even though I am not alone. This is most striking now. When I’ve realised that. (1:F,23)

Clear realization of the approaching burden of loneliness appears also at an older age, when faced
with the threat of being dependent.

I’m most scared by physical disability, that I’ll become dependent. Being dependent is a
nightmare. (9:F,67)

Thinking through one’s life situation favours realizing solitude and loneliness.

I experience my solitude . . . sitting in silence and analysing all previous situations. I listen to
music most of the time then and just think it all over /. . ./ I was sitting alone and concentrating
on my thoughts. (1:F,23)

A change of mindset concerning aloneness may also take place in the studied subjects during
the interview. It is a good example of developing one’s self-reflection in a short period of time.

During our conversation, I realised that not every aloneness is negative after all. (2:F,25)

As a consequence of more mature self-reflection, an adult comes to understand the situations of

loneliness that took place in the past. This allows relief of the negative autobiographical memory.
I’m just beginning to realise that as a child I felt lonely just because I didn’t understand certain
things and I also think that adults don’t understand many things as well. Because when we
become adults, we often forget about the needs we used to have as children. (2:F,25)

Experiencing Loneliness from the perspective of Time

Aloneness is a phenomenon that, to some extent, touched/touches all of the studied subjects. This
confirms the thesis of the universal character of aloneness, about which Domeracki writes: ‘Man
is woven from aloneness, even if he is not aware of that fact and he thinks he is free from that.
Thus, there are no people who are not marked by the ghost of aloneness’ (Domeracki, 2018: 321).
Almost all of the studied subjects, except for one person (7:F,43), are currently experiencing
loneliness, and it varies in its intensity. There are cases of an intense and almost lifelong sense of
loneliness that was shaped in early childhood (9:F,67; 3:M,25); but it also happens that only at the
onset of adulthood does a person begin to see how loneliness enters their life (1:F,23). There are
people who declare a lack of experience of loneliness; they are well rooted in their families, have
a rich social environment, are active (4:F,28) or experience loneliness just occasionally (10:F,67).

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There’s so much going on in my life and there are so many people that I don’t think I have
the time to think about it /. . ./ it doesn’t even cross my mind because there’s always someone
around and I am always with someone. (4:F,28)
Experiencing loneliness has, on the one hand, an emotional-subjective dimension and is related
to the sense of having no soulmate (6:M,41; 10:F,67), with the necessity to hide emotions
(6:M,41), with the sense of being someone else, more sensitive, not liked by other people
(9:F,67), with the sense of not being understood (2:F,25). On the other hand, however, it has a
social and cultural dimension, as well as an objective one. It is related to the loss of someone
dear, the death of a family member (5:F,26; 10:F,67), with growing apart from one’s homeland,
its language and culture, one’s nearest and dearest, countrymen, and is also related to cultural
differences (7:F,43).
I’ve always been a bit of an odd-ball in the family, at school and at work. I was always talked
down for my character./ . . ./ people don’t usually like the stubborn. (9:F,67)
I was a bit plump and hated exercising in PE classes. And the kids would sometimes laugh at
me,/ . . ./ well, yes, I guess I felt lonely. (10:F,67)
In the perspective of the future, aloneness is rather hard to define rationally. A person does not
want to see loneliness in their future, which is why they do not express their fears accurately, as
if letting sleeping dogs lie:
it would be devastating if she had to go on like this for longer. (3:M,25)
Loneliness provokes even panic.
Oh, Jesus!! /. . ./ I’m terribly afraid! But not this kind of solitude in which I won’t have any
people around /. . ./ I’m afraid of having such a moment in life in which when I finally settle
down with someone, /. . ./ I will wake up one day and think that this person doesn’t understand
me at all. (2:F,25)
Also attitudes that are clearly anti-anxiety can be observed.
I’m not afraid, we’ll see how it goes, whether you can actually be afraid of aloneness /. . ./
the most important thing is to just live your life to the fullest, not to be afraid, to be brave,
undertake various activities and, of course, look after yourself most of all. (4:F,28)
The perspective of aloneness in the future looks brighter for some of the studied subjects than
in the current times, which stems from their more mature decisions and choices, as well as from
more mature actions.
I think that in the future I’ll choose my companions differently and I also think that /. . ./I’ll
cut off those relationships that made me realise that and we’ll see what that brings. (1:F,23)
The perspective of becoming lonely in the future may be less favourable than experiencing it
currently. This results from foreseeing the negative consequences of becoming older and losing
one’s independence (9:F,67).
The prospect of a lonely future can be found in advice given to isolated people. This advice is
varied, but it all stresses the need to becoming personally involved with one’s own fate.

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You need to go out to people . . . sign up for some courses, to some club, even when you don’t
know anyone – because you will get to know someone and it’s important to have something
to get up for in the morning. And set some tasks to do – for example – I’ll go to the park
tomorrow and then to a club, or – I’ll make a cake and ask someone over, or – best of all – go
on a trip somewhere or to some workshop; there’s so much to do nowadays. You can’t just sit
at home because it’s just sadness and illnesses. (10:F,67)

Memory of Experiences from Childhood Forming Aloneness and Loneliness in Adults

Events from childhood – their good or bad memories – remain with a person for a long time,
shaping the matrix of their future ability to experience situations related to aloneness.9 Sometimes
it is hard to talk about the ‘guilt’ of an adult-parent, because the two worlds – the world of a child
and the world of an adult – are not identical. By gaining increased self-awareness with years, a
person may include those experiences in their biography differently and draw good knowledge
from bad experiences, therefore they will learn from their own biography (Dubas, 2017).
We were at my family’s. There was my cousin there, she’s my junior /. . ./ My dad would pay
more attention to her than to me /. . ./. Now, from the perspective of an adult person, I know
why it was so. Mainly, it was because we would meet so rarely/. . ./. But back then I had a
moment in which I felt so lonely and so hurt by my parents./ . . ./ I remember making a pledge
that I’d never allow my children to feel so tragically low as I did at that moment. (2:F,25)
A ‘difficult’ family is a particular circumstance that shapes the painful experience of loneliness
fundamentally. A ‘difficult’ family means a broken home, a dysfunctional one, for example with
a problem with alcohol or other behaviours presented by parents that are not socially acceptable.
Parents do not meet a child’s needs, they are frequently absent, they do not create situations in
which a child would be able to talk about their difficulties. Consequently, a child withdraws,
learns to hide their problems, isolates from society and becomes alienated. They look for solutions
alone, for example by undertaking socially unacceptable behaviour. A ‘difficult’ family leaves a
person lonely in current and future life situations.
I come from such a family where you wouldn’t really talk about your problems, so I was always
left to my own devices with them and learnt to hide them./ . . ./ Actually, I’ve always been
waiting for something since my childhood. My father would always promise to come back
home and he never did. /. . ./ I never used to go out to people and that made my lack of social
skill even greater, which related to becoming more lonely. /. . ./ Aloneness meant learning
rather useless things, such as that life makes no sense, death is the solution to everything,
people hurt and I’m useless at everything, nobody loves me /. . ./There’s no hope for me,
no-one will come to me, it will prevail and you’ll have to be afraid. (3:M,23)
The death of a close person is an event that influences a child’s consciousness immensely and
breeds loneliness, particularly when it is related to a person they were closely bonded with.
Experiencing death is a lesson for a child. In favourable circumstances, it can become a positive
one.
It was hard to come to terms with the fact that gran will no longer be with us. /. . ./ it resulted mostly
from the fact of simply missing her and the awareness that I’ll never get to see gran again /. . ./I was

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very much worried about my gran /. . ./ I knew we were all together and we’ll survive somehow,
but I kept asking whether she would manage because she was all alone /. . ./ It was as a child that
I learnt that life is not eternal and that one day you leave more or less prepared, likewise – your
family is more or less prepared for this departure /. . ./ certainly, knowing that everything goes away
in life. /. . ./ made me learn new emotions that I’d never felt before. (4:F,28)

Memory of school years was also related to negative experiences of this time – lack of acceptance,
exclusion due to being different, for example overweight, and it also shaped the sense of loneliness
(10:F,67). In the memory of our childhood, there are biographical episodes that are seemingly
unimportant, but which shape out future life. Words of wisdom, a life motto quoted by important
family members, were memorized by a child and used later in life in making their choices. These
messages influenced the experiencing of future life as more together or more alone.

Don’t pity yourself. Take life at face value and don’t count on anyone, do as my grandma
would say: the less you expect from others, the healthier you are because you’re not angry
when you don’t get something. (9:F,67)

Loneliness experienced in childhood is very hard because a child lacks a fuller awareness of the
whole situation. There is no inner world they can fall back on (Szczepański, 1988), nor is there
any strategy to deal with loneliness.

Childhood was the hardest for me because I didn’t know how to cope with it, I had no methods
that would help me overcome that sense. (9:F,67)

Other Significant Events Forming Aloneness and Loneliness in Adults

Throughout our entire life, not just in our childhood, we are touched by a multitude of events
that are perceived as significant, particularly from a time perspective. The studied adult subjects
pointed to events that were of importance in the context of their experiencing aloneness and
loneliness: the death of dear ones (6:M,41;10:F,67; 8:F,65), an illness of a close person (6:M,41),
being left by a partner (5:F,26), children leaving home – ‘empty nest syndrome’ (8:F,65),
burdensome household chores and family duties (8:F,65) and living alone (8:F,65). All these
elements were difficult events. However, also here a certain ambivalence of experience can be
observed, depending on the relationship that bonded the studied subjects with others:

Oh, and there was the husband, but unfortunately he is dead too, sadly, although he was such a
dear friend of mine . . . he was so . . . it’s difficult to talk about it . . . he wasn’t really supportive,
but he was there and that’s what counts, because I wasn’t alone, and I have children, and
grandchildren – that’s most important. (10:F,67)

The study also shows the cultural context of aloneness. It can be seen in an event described as
leaving for another country (in this instance it was coming from Mongolia to Poland to do PhD
studies). The drama of this situation can be seen in the statement given by the studied woman:
Everything I knew was left in Mongolia (7:F,43). Changing one’s fatherland for a strange country
is the basis of a deep feeling of loneliness.

The notion of aloneness is new to the Mongolian. People who lived in villages did not have the
right to feel lonely. /. . ./ Before I came to Poland, I had not known the issue of loneliness. I was

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in my own country, in Mongolia, with my family and friends. /. . ./ in Poland I was completely
alone among strangers. (7:F,43)
It needs to be stressed that certain events often trigger other events and multiply the reasons for
aloneness/loneliness.

Interpersonal Relations as the Context of Loneliness

Expectations towards people with whom we are in relationships are the key determinant of the
sense of loneliness. There are expectations of reciprocity, devotion, understanding and depth in
a relationship.
Sometimes you build a relationship for many years with someone and later you realise that this
relationship does not come up to our expectations 100%. /. . ./ Even though I have someone
to go out with at the weekend and drink beer, this is not the relationship I would like to have.
Despite all this, I can still feel lonely, though I’m not alone. (1:F,23)
What determines the expectations connected with close bonds with people, including relationships
with parents, is the need to be understood.
For me, loneliness is when I feel that what I think, the problem I have, is not understood by the
person who is the closest to me. /. . ./ when my partner does not understand my problems, my
needs, my worries – that’s when I feel I can’t talk to him. (2:F,25)
Another expectation related to interpersonal relationships is the need to be loved.
This is a time in which a child wants to receive the most love from their parents. The moment
you start to feel that there is not enough of this love, there immediately comes the feeling of
repudiation which perhaps later changes into some kind of loneliness./ . . ./No understanding.
(2:F,25)
Expecting (to build) a stable relationship is particularly frequent among young adults.
I feel lonely because I’m being left alone with all my problems, due to my male-female
contacts, because there is no-one to talk to about emotions /. . ./ On the one hand, I am a
womanizer, on the other – I care for a stable relationship. It is the lack of committing to one
relationship that blocks me. I’m fully aware that what I do is not perfect. (6:M,41)
In interpersonal relationships, one of the most often expected elements is the expectation of
friendship. Friendship is, in a way, an antidote for loneliness.
When I have a problematic situation, I don’t feel lonely or alone in the circle of my friends.
/. . ./ When we talk, I always have a great sense of understanding coming from them. If I ever
felt lonely at home or with a partner, I know that when I reach out to them for help, it will be
a moment of great relief for me. (2:F,25)
A failed friendship brings the pain of loneliness.
I feel lonely because you could say ‘I have a friend’, but it depends on what this relationship
looks like and I personally think that recently it has not been looking as it should nor does it
deserve to be called one. (1:F,23)

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The need for friendship is also revealed in relationships with colleagues and acquaintances.
Young people, but also those in the time of mid-adulthood, have many acquaintances around
them. Circles of friends may socialize negatively. As a result of reflection, one may come to the
conclusion that these circles of people must be changed or limited.
I compensated for the lack of a father with friends or partnerships. /. . ./ I had a circle of a few
hundred friends: parties, table billiards. Life verified it /. . ./ I got myself into the world of
drug dealers. I weighed 40kg, got myself out of this, but I could not count on any of my friends
because instead of helping me, they’d say ‘I end badly’. (6:M,41)
Also neighbours may play an important role in dealing with loneliness.
I feel lonely . . . sometimes, when the kids don’t call for a long time, or when my grandchildren
don’t come for a long time, but then I pop in to my neighbour and I feel better already. She’s
the same as me. (10:F,67)
Family is also seen in the context of loneliness, but often in a binary way: as a situation eliminating,
though also enhancing, loneliness (Dubas, 2000). However, a family is also a shield against
loneliness, often for one’s whole life. It is impossible to overestimate the importance of family in
the context of preventing loneliness (4:F,28; 5:F,26; 10:F,67).
My family is big /. . ./ we stick together somehow and are always in touch, so even when
something bad is happening, we can always count on each other./ . . ./ I’m not lonely and I
don’t feel loneliness, because I don’t even think about it at all. (4:F,28)

Learning (in) Aloneness

Learning (in) aloneness is one of the manners of dealing with loneliness. It is taming loneliness
(learning in the situation of loneliness) and discovering there a chance to develop (learning
solitude). Eight of the studied subjects described learning (in) aloneness. This means learning
how to be resourceful, and independent, how to make prudent decisions (e.g. choosing a life
partner). Learning aloneness also means attempting to step out of loneliness.
Aloneness and loneliness favour learning, it is related to the learning process. /. . ./I can count
on myself and that has guided me since I was a child. (2:F,25)
I’m learning myself, mostly. (9:F,67)
Learning in a situation of loneliness does not only bring positive results; it also involves acquiring
unhelpful attitudes towards oneself, towards other people and the world.
as I used to sit alone, I would think a lot about this world, /. . ./ persistence in loneliness would
impair my social skills even further and would create such an unreal world of expectations
toward the world. (3:M,25)
Reflection on experiences of loneliness encourages the reinterpretation of life experience and
perceiving value in negative circumstances.
Loneliness let me see some value in my family, that we can rely on each other in some way.
(3: M,25)

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Solitude and loneliness are also a space for educational activity.

I refreshed my German /. . ./ Sometimes when there was no money, I’d give private lessons in
chemistry /. . ./ I did post-graduate studies /. . ./ this was very helpful at work. Now, when I’m
retired, I read a lot about history, sociology and I’m learning about how shallow politics is. . .
/. . ./I also did a computer course. /. . ./ computer, the Internet and searching for what interests
me – this is my window to the world. (9:F,67)
Learning in solitude also means learning alone, unlike most formal, school education. Learning
requires concentration and it is best done alone.
I can’t learn with someone else in the room, with someone at home. In order to acquire new
information, I need to be alone. /. . ./even if this other person /. . ./ is perfectly quiet and does
not disturb me. (2:F,25)
Learning in the situation of aloneness may be realized, although it is not conscious.
Aloneness was not connected with learning. /. . ./ the fact that I was alone was valuable and
necessary for me to feel aware and self-confident. /. . ./ This was a time when I picked up on
some toxic relationships that needed breaking off. /. . ./ What is good about solitude, is getting
to know yourself, being with yourself. (5:F,26)

Conclusions

Together and Alone is a certain challenge for modern people of prosperous societies, where
Alone is dominant, yet the need for Together is still strong. In this case, it means restoring balance
between Together and Alone. This is best done through small communities (family, circles of
friends, neighbourhood), which would need to be brought back to life. It is worth restoring the
importance of a prosocial way of life and the social component of self-realization.
The analysis of interpersonal relationships reveals their fundamental importance for
experiencing both aloneness and loneliness. The need to be together, particularly the need
of friendship and family (it should be emphasized that in previous studies the importance of
friendship in solitude was not emphasized so strongly, and the importance of family was mainly
emphasized [Dubas, 2000: 215–16]), coexists with the need to be alone. It is visible both in
individual expectations and in the ways of handling solitude. High expectations towards Together
are closely related to high expectations towards Alone. At the same time, there is a great difficulty
in meeting those needs simultaneously.
Reasons for loneliness (Dubas, 2000: 116–18) definitely fit into the context of Together and
Alone. Loneliness from the perspective of causes can thus be seen as a subjective, individual
experience, conditioned by social life and personal expectations, as a strong need of being
Together, at the same time manifesting the need for self-realization. Strategies for handling
loneliness10 also oscillate around the relations: Together (me and others) and Alone (me–me)
too. Learning (in) aloneness is an attempt to reconcile two principal values: Together and Alone
through autobiographical reflection. Thus, it is an example of social and emotional learning
(Illeris, 2006), learning from one’s own biography (Dubas, 2017), as well as existential learning
as a way of handling loneliness.11 Learning aloneness is at the same time learning to live.

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Adulthood is a period of great and constantly increasing self-awareness of people. Thanks to

reflection that can be boosted and deepened, an adult changes their choices and modifies their
lifestyle in such a way so as to make solitude favourable in their development. Education at every
level has a great role to play, including educating adults. Breaking the dichotomy of Together and
Alone is a significant educational challenge. This dichotomy can be replaced with oscillations
between the two states by realizing the importance of both of them for human life. Aloneness
needs to be explained in the context of values that are important for a person as an individual, as
well as a social creature. The axiology of aloneness ought to include unmasking pseudo-values
and restoring to aloneness values that constitute the holistic development of humanity.

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 20

The Morality of Loneliness

Jarosław Horowski

Introduction

The aim of the analysis is to determine the relationship between morality and loneliness, and,
more specifically, the impact that the threat of loneliness or loneliness as such can have on
individuals’ moral decision-making. The resolution of this issue also leads to the determination of
the moral value that loneliness can obtain as a result of being entangled in the resolution of moral
dilemmas. Everyday life provides examples of situations in which people – choosing the moral
good – at the same time agree to be rejected by those who feel uncomfortable with their decisions
and, consequently, agree to be alone. It is also not difficult to find opposing examples where
individuals, in order to avoid rejection by family members or friends, decide to hurt someone
else or consent to humiliate themselves. A question about how the threat or the experience of
loneliness can affect moral decisions made by the individual seems to be perfectly legitimate.
Expressing the question in this way indicates the adoption of three assumptions that set the
framework for this reflection. First, I assume that the actions of particular persons are not always
consistent with their beliefs about their moral obligations in given situations. This issue was very
well presented by Ovid in his famous sentence: video meliora proboque, deteriora sequor (‘I see
and approve of the better, but I follow the worse’, Ovid, 2008: VII, 20–1), which suggests, for
instance, a situation in which individuals give up the choice of what they consider to be good,
under the influence of a fear of losing important goods or relationships. Second, I do not attribute
to aloneness as such a positive or negative moral value. I perceive aloneness on an ontic level
as a morally neutral state (Hartog, 1980: 13; Domeracki, 2016; Perrin, 2020). At the same time,
I recognize that aloneness has different conditionings and is experienced differently by each
individual. It might become an accepted, desired or avoided state (Stern, in the Introduction to
this Handbook). In the mental dimension, it may be experienced as solitude or loneliness. As a
consequence, aloneness could become a conditioning factor for moral choices, and indirectly
decide on the moral value of an act, and thus aloneness can have a positive or negative moral
value. Third, the analyses will not take into account the situation in which individuals choose
loneliness, thus avoiding both involvement in the relationship and taking responsibility for
The Bloomsbury Handbook of Solitude, Silence and Loneliness

another person. In this case, loneliness does not affect the quality of the moral choice, but rather it
is used instrumentally to implement solutions to moral dilemmas. The choice of solitude becomes
the justification for a lack of willingness or courage to take care of another person, and even, in
extreme cases, for failing to fulfil one’s moral obligations towards another.
Answering the previous question is problematic due to the difficulty in capturing both key
phenomena, that is morality and loneliness. On the one hand, it is difficult to define morality
which needs a reference point in the form of the criterion of moral good and evil, and changing
the criterion often leads to a re-evaluation of the moral assessment of particular acts (Gert &
Gert, 2017). On the other hand, negative emotions are not always associated with aloneness and
it may not be treated as loneliness by the individuals. Therefore, the perspective of rejection and
exclusion of individuals by the group of people to which they currently belong does not always
have to involve the modification of their moral decisions. However, the difficulties outlined
above do not justify ignoring the problem of the impact of negative feelings caused by rejection,
exclusion, breaking relationships and loneliness on the decisions made by individuals; the impact
that can be noticed in numerous everyday situations.
The analysis will be divided into three parts. In the first one, the introduction to understanding
differences between morality and moral reasoning will be presented. In the second, the relationship
between morality and loneliness will be analysed. In the third part, the problem of the forgiveness
of loneliness will be its crowning. In conducting this type of analysis, it is difficult not to refer to
one’s own intellectual and cultural background, which in this case is neo-Thomistic philosophy
and Christian thought. Referring to them, however, I try to use not world view solutions, but a
natural approach to human nature and human relations that – based on natural cognition – is
present within them.

Morality and Moral Reasoning

To solve the problem outlined in the title, it is first necessary to describe the difference between
moral reasoning and moral decisions that lead directly to action. Consequently, one should first
pay attention to the issue of moral reasoning.
Moral reasoning is agents’ first-personal practical reasoning about what, morally, they ought
to do (Maritain, 1990; Richardson, 2018). The reference point for this reasoning are subjective
moral norms. The development of these norms is conditioned, on the one hand, by the direct
knowledge of the surrounding reality and the concerns that arise as a result. These are not only
cares for oneself, for one’s life and health, but also cares for other people, especially those as close
as parents, spouses, children. On the other hand, decisions about the moral norms an individual
recognizes are influenced by culturally transmitted interpretations of the world and accompanying
interpretations of the obligations that one person has towards another (Archer, 2000). The moral
reasoning of particular individuals are, therefore, conditioned by their subjective attitude towards
moral good and evil.
The availability of criteria for individuals’ moral evaluation of their acts makes it possible
to determine what to do in given situations. The use of these criteria is easier when one
subject and one object of given acts are included in given reasonings. However, finding good
solutions in situations where the effects of specific decisions is experienced by a larger group
of people makes it much more difficult (Spaemann, 2006). The acting subjects are the first who

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experiences the effects of their own decisions on themselves (Wojtyła, 1979). The consequences
of these decisions are experienced also by the subjects’ relatives – wives, children, parents – and
by strangers who are not the direct reference object of the doers. Sometimes individuals have
to make decisions, being aware that by acting for the benefit of one person, they sacrifice the
good of another. Practical reasoning is therefore always associated with a number of dilemmas
(Chyrowicz, 2008).
Further obstacles arise when individuals cross the limit of reasoning, gathering strength to
make decisions. There can be no sign of equality between moral reasoning and making moral
decisions (Spaemann, 2006). Individuals who have found solutions to moral dilemmas and
thus formulated their own moral obligations can put these solutions into effect or refrain from
implementing them under the influence of, for example, fear of the negative effects of given acts
such as the loss of pleasant goods or the loss of the opportunity to acquire something that gives
pleasure. Each decision not only includes the dialogue of mental authorities, reason and will but
is also a drama taking place at the level of feelings. Consequently, the individuals, knowing what
is good and what to do, might – under the influence of fear of experiencing unpleasantness or
under the influence of the desire for pleasure associated with making different decisions – give
up the actions described as good (Maritain, 1968).
In resolving the tension which arises between the theoretical settlement of the moral dilemma
and the emotions associated with the personal ‘costs’ of defined actions, the goods that attract
the individuals will play an important role. The actions are of purposeful nature, which means
that they are undertaken because of the possibility of acquiring goods, important either for the
acting subjects or for their relatives or for strangers whose good is an object of sensitivity of
the acting subjects. The intensity with which acting subjects care about their own good or the
good of another person makes it easier or more difficult to bear the personal ‘costs’ of gaining it
and dealing with feelings of fear or desire. Negative feelings are then sublimated by the pursuit
of goods that are important to the individuals or their loved ones. It means that morality – as
opposed to moral reasoning based on moral norms – is embedded in interpersonal relations.
The tendencies to subjectivize and relativize the truth, present in contemporary culture, create
a specific context for moral reasoning and the associated process of making moral decisions.
Criticism of modernist ambitions to establish objective truth – not only in the natural sciences
but also in relation to human spirituality – led to a state in which a multitude of equivalent truths,
known as weak thought, are accepted (Sartre, 2007; Vattimo, 2012) and tolerance enabling their
coexistence is postulated (Bronk, 1998). As a consequence, contemporary people, when assessing
their own actions, cannot refer to unambiguous information provided in culture about what is
morally good or morally bad (Bauman, 2008). Rather, they face the need to construct their own
guidelines for action based on scattered premises (Archer, 2007, 2012; Haksar, 1998: 500). At the
same time, the undermining of external, objective reference points for moral reasoning and moral
decision-making causes the only determinant of moral good or evil to be feelings of pleasure or
unpleasantness, expected as a result of adopting certain solutions (Kauppinen, 2018). The tension
between the indications of reason and those solutions that have actually been put into action is
also consistently eliminated. Deeds that are authentic, that is corresponding to the emotional
preferences of the individuals, are considered good.
This change in approach to morality is significant, given the issue of the relationship between
morality and loneliness discussed here. Let’s look at the dilemmas that moral choice can cause

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when one of its side effects may be breaking relationships, rejection, exclusion – generally,
loneliness.

Moral Decision-making in the Context of the Threat of Loneliness

Just as morality is difficult to unambiguously conceptualize, so also aloneness can be perceived

differently by the individual, which was signalled in the introduction. There are people who
accept loneliness because they are familiar with it or see a deeper dimension of loneliness:
the chance it gives, for example, to explore themselves or unite with God in a deeper way
(Domeracki, 2016; Stern & Wałejko, 2020). This aspect of loneliness is particularly exposed in
pedagogy, becoming the foundation of education for loneliness (Wałejko, 2016; Stern, 2014).
The individuals’ recognition of the development potential associated with loneliness means that
the vision of loneliness does not cause negative feelings and they do not try to escape from
loneliness. The works of Thomas Merton (1998) are undoubtedly an interesting guide on the
way of discovering loneliness. The second group consists of those who perceive loneliness as an
unpleasant experience and, as a consequence, want to avoid it (Sadler & Johnson, 1980; Dumm,
2008; Stern, 2014: 52–3; Mijuskovic, 2015: 2–6). I assume that especially for such people the
prospect of loneliness is meaningful when making moral decisions.
Situations in which people who negatively perceive loneliness have to face a decision resulting
in such a state can be divided into two categories. The first consists of those activities that are
oriented towards achieving a greater good, attractive for a given individual, and loneliness is in
some sense a condition for its acquisition. In the second category I include those decisions where
the individual does not strive for a good which is attractive for them, but still faces a dilemma
whose solution may entail an experience of rejection, isolation, exclusion, that is loneliness.
An example of accepting loneliness for the achievement of another good can be the attitude
of scientists who, while departing for a research expedition, decide to separate from family,
and sometimes don’t start a family at all, knowing that they will not be able to spend enough
time for it. The problem they want to solve, however, absorbs them so much that the negative
feelings associated with loneliness can be absorbed by the positive ones, associated with the
pursuit of the goal established. Similarly, one can describe, for example, a situation where one
parent temporarily leaves home to work and earn a living. Caring for spouse and children can lead
to acceptance of separation, which is difficult in itself. A higher positive goal can also be seen
in the decision to limit social contacts due to the care of a close relative (Leszko et al., 2020).
Taking serious decisions important from the perspective of entire life it is sometimes necessary
to accept temporary or permanent loneliness. In the examples cited here, we can see the process
of sublimation of feelings, that is the absorption of negative feelings by the positive ones, related
to the pursuit of the good perceived as more valuable.
In the situations mentioned earlier, the good – which is the object of aspirations – is located
in a sense on the horizon, it is possible to see it, which makes it easier for those who strive for
it to deal with difficulties or suffering, including the experience of loneliness. In a much more
difficult situation are those who at a given moment do not see the good that requires consent
to loneliness. As an example of a situation in which the pursuit of an indefinite good requires
consent to loneliness might serve the situation of adolescent persons who – believing in the future
meeting of a person with whom they will build a mature relationship and a joint life project –

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accept temporary loneliness, that is do not enter into closer, intimate relationships with people for
whom they do not want to take responsibility. By accepting temporary loneliness, such persons
do not know its time limits and are not sure that this loneliness will ever reach its end.
To sum up, it should be noted that the situations cited earlier include those in which
disagreement with loneliness cannot be combined with the choice of moral evil, as well as those
in which escape from loneliness implies some kind of injustice, that is it can be assessed as
morally negative. While abandoning one’s life challenge – for example, a research expedition
– due to concern for own family may be considered a morally neutral decision of an individual,
leaving relatives and sick people unattended due to unwillingness to limit other contacts already
implies a moral assessment.
The second of the categories listed earlier consists of those in which maintaining a morally
important relationship is intertwined with making a morally wrong decision, specifically when
making a morally good decision can lead to breaking relationships with the person, whereas
making a morally wrong decision is a condition for maintaining a relationship with that person.
A necessity to solve this type of dilemma is faced at least by people who are urged by family
members or friends, or a social group in which they function on a daily basis, to assist in causing
harm to someone, or – in a more subtle way – to make decision that is favourable for them, for
example in the professional sphere, which in fact also implies harming a stranger. The individual
is then aware that the consequence of a possible refusal is weakening or breaking relationships
with those whose closeness has thus far been one of the main values in their lives.
A special case of a consent to evil in order to maintain a relationship with a loved one or
to preserve one’s social position is the consent to hurt one’s own self. Such consent can be
recalled, for example, in some marriages or intimate relationships where the desire to maintain
relationships leads to consent, for example, to sexual abuse, or in the relationship of parents with
children, when parents do not want to lose contact with children and do not protest against being
abused by them.
In the situations outlined earlier, one can observe the tension between the decision prompted
by reason – which relates to the good of the people involved in the given situation – and negative
feelings (mainly anxiety) which are associated with rejection, exclusion and loneliness. This fear
may have different conditionings and intensity. It can be a fear of finding oneself on the margins
of life of a wider national, local or professional community, that is fear of ostracism on the part of
neighbours or colleagues. It can also be a fear of breaking relationships with relatives, parents,
children, siblings: relationships that cannot be replaced.
The dilemma of choosing moral good and loneliness or choosing moral evil and maintaining
relationships might be solved differently. An example of the courage for the consent to rejection
by one’s own people is the attitude of the prophet Elijah, described through the pages of Bible’s
1 Kings. Criticism of King Ahab’s conduct and the cult of Baal, spreading in Israel, made Elijah
have to save himself twice, by fleeing (1 Kgs 17–19) (Martini, 1993). Bonhoeffer, who criticized
the Nazi ideology prevailing in the Third Reich (Raum, 2002), was also excluded by his own
people. The second pole of possible solutions to the dilemma of rejection or consent to evil are
those decisions in which individuals, because of their fear of being excluded from the political
community, adopt conformist attitudes and are afraid to criticize the evil to which the community
gives consent. Examples of such people are difficult to find, because they do not talk loudly about
their moral dilemmas and failures in settling them (giving in to fear and agreeing to evil is a

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failure, after all). An example of a solution to a moral dilemma dictated by fear is given by Dillon
in an article devoted to self-forgiveness. He begins his analysis by telling the story of a woman
named Alison, who as a teenager, didn’t defend her friend with a deformed face who was the
object of mockery from her peers. Moreover, in the absence of her friend, she’s been joking about
her appearance to gain acceptance among her school friends. In doing so she was also aware that
her behaviour is bad (Dillon, 2001: 54).
Opposition to the evil to which members of the wider community succumb is even more
difficult because the political community’s rejection is associated with stereotypes that staying in
the community (pólis) is synonymous with socialization, while staying out of the community is
a consequence of a lack of socio-moral refinement (Mijuskovic, 1980: 71–2; Domeracki, 2018:
176–86). Therefore, making decisions as a result of which individuals can be rejected, excluded
from the group in which they have grown up, with which they identify themselves, and whose
welfare they care about, requires not only consent to loneliness but also being critical about the
stereotypes according to which the one who is rejected is guilty of rejection, i.e. rejection or
exclusion is a consequence of social maladjustment (Bauman, 2001).
Of slightly different nature is the tension that occurs in a situation where moral evil is at
stake on one side and on the other is the preservation of relations with loved ones, relations that
are essential for the meaning of an individual’s life: children, parents, siblings. Because of the
closeness and strength of these relationships, the pressure exerted on an individual to agree to
moral evil is very high. A decision that is not favourable to a loved one may lead to a definitive
breakdown of relationship, then irreplaceable. While breaking a relationship with a friend does not
prevent making a new friendship, losing a child does not give a chance to have a new relationship
of this kind. The suffering of loneliness then becomes inevitable, even when being surrounded
by among other, close and kind people. Those who have testified in court against their own
parents or children who have committed serious crimes have undoubtedly experienced extreme
difficulties in, on the one hand, advocating for the moral good but, as a consequence, losing a
loved one. Sentencing a loved one to many years’ imprisonment prevents one from enjoying their
presence on a daily basis, and in practice might mean a definitive separation.
Making decisions to choose a moral good that are contrary to the interests of the persons
in close relationship with the persons making the decision has yet another effect that implies a
sense of fear. Persons making such decisions lose control over the duration and development of
relationships with persons important for them. They must reckon that these relationships will
be definitively broken. Of course, in some cases, the objection to evil expressed in a particular
decision can be understood by the persons who had persuaded the evil, and, consequently, the
relationship with them may be rebuilt at a higher level than the original relationship. However, if
these persons do not see the negative nature of their own claims, they will not seek to maintain
or rebuild relationships with people who – in their opinion – have failed them. The persons who
make decisions to choose moral good, cannot predict at the moment of making these decisions
how given stories are going to develop, and in this decision they agree to every solution, even the
most difficult for them.
The previous analysis shows the relationship between making moral decisions and the emotions
that are associated with loneliness. The ability to deal with these emotions can have a significant
impact on the quality of given individuals’ moral choices. In order to choose the moral good in
a particular situation, it is therefore necessary to organize one’s own feelings, so that in a certain

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sense they ‘listen’ to reason – which recognizes the moral good and evil – and ‘understand’ the
arguments of reason which points at the morally good solutions. Such an arrangement of feelings
is conceptualized in terms of moral virtues, especially temperance and fortitude. A person who,
in the name of the moral good, expose themselves to the loss of personal contact, being it the
source of their pleasure, is characterized by the virtue of temperance, i.e. the ability to give up
the pleasure in favour of the good denoted by reason (Horowski, 2020). The decision to lose
control over a relationship that is important for a given individual and consent to the suffering
of loneliness is at the same time a manifestation of fortitude, that is the ability to master the
fear in the context of making difficult decisions that may result in negative consequences. The
inability to cope with the lack of what is a source of pleasure, as well as the fear of the suffering
of loneliness might, consequently, lead to ignoring and hiding the evil committed by loved ones
and, in extreme cases, to supporting them in activities that involve harming third parties.
The issue of relations between morality and loneliness inevitably leads to the subject of the
social nature of human beings and the relationships they create. Loneliness proves to be inseparable
from community also on the moral level (Domeracki, 2020). Even if individuals decide to choose
morally good solutions, the consequence of which will be to experience loneliness as a source
of suffering, the reference point for such decisions are some persons. These may be decisions
taken for self-interest, for one’s own good, if the condition of the relationship is the consent to
be harmed. The point of reference for these decisions might be a stranger targeted to be hurt
by someone close to the subjects making the decisions. Looking at this type of decision – the
essence of which is to express opposition to the evil committed by loved ones – it is not difficult
to notice that the abusers themselves are also the objects of love and concern of the persons
expressing opposition to evil. For the consequences of given acts are experienced not only by
the harmed persons but also by the acting subjects themselves, who through their acts determine
the shape of their own personalities and build the foundations for their own future. Opposition
to the evil to which individuals strive, therefore, becomes a signal for them that the action they
want to take, instead of bringing success and happiness, can lead to failure and disappointment.
A specific point of reference for some individuals may also be God, whom they discover in a
personal dimension. If God is seen as a person, then, as Heschel argues, it is difficult not to
look at another person through the prism of God’s love and care that He surrounds that person
with. In other words, looking at people around with ‘eyes’ of God makes impossible to divide
people into ‘own’ and ‘aliens’, and thus makes impossible to act for the benefit of ‘own’ while,
simultaneously, ignoring the good of ‘aliens’ (Heschel, 1976).
The previous analyses are based on the assumption that good and evil are objective in nature,
that is that both subjects forming a relationship relate to a problem whose settlement is either
morally good or morally bad, whereas its moral value is determined not by an arbitrary settlement
of a given individual but by the real effects that a particular act produces. Thus, these analyses
are built on the foundation of cognitivism or epistemological objectivism. However, completely
different conclusions shall be drawn when the issue of loneliness or sustaining a relationship as
a side effect of a possible decision will be analysed on the basis of a non-cognitive standpoint.
The recognition that there are no external and cognitive (for individual) points of reference for
their moral choices leads to the visibility of the role of subjective factors in moral reasoning and
moral decision-making. As a result, an individual is attributed the power to be guided by its own
preferences – not so much reason-based, but of emotional nature.

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The change of reference point makes the tension between the choice of the moral good and
the experience of loneliness replaced by a situation in which the avoidance of rejection/loneliness
becomes the criterion of moral good and evil. As a consequence, for individuals who use this
way of thinking, all those choices that lead to maintaining and deepening relationships that are
relevant to them, even if they involve harming strangers, are justified and fair.
Wojtyła (1979), when analysing the human act in the context of the functioning of the
individual in the community, distinguished between authentic actions (characterized by the
conformity of moral judgement with the choice leading to the act), which included solidarity and
opposition, and non-authentic actions – conformism and avoidance (the reasonable finding of the
moral good does not lead to its choice). This division is built on the assumption of cognitivism.
Wojtyła’s philosophical reflection leads to the conclusion that humans reveals their humanity
in action when they are in solidarity with those who, according to their assessment, are striving
for the moral good, and when they can consequently express their opposition to the morally bad
strivings. Opposing attitudes – conformism or avoidance – are attitudes through which individuals
do not confirm their own humanity. For conformity consists in the fact that individuals agree to
the moral evil they perceive, and even cooperate in its realization, thus adapting – like an amoeba
(Kwieciński, 1996: 22) – to the community conditionings of their own life. A non-cognitive
standpoint leads to a reversal of moral evaluation of individual attitudes. The actions that are
based on striving for harmony with the group, even at the cost of various kinds of compromises,
are positively evaluated while entering into a dispute that may lead to the breaking of group
relations becomes an undesirable effect.
Scruggs draws an interesting conclusion on the relationship between making subjectivism the
foundation of one’s own thinking and the feeling of loneliness based on the analysis of Merton’s
work. The famous twentieth-century hermit shows, according to Scruggs, that subjectivism builds
the individuals’ conviction of their functioning only in the space of their own thoughts, that is it
leads from the feeling of breaking contact with the world (autonomously) and, as a consequence,
to loneliness (Scruggs 2015). Judging Merton is right, it can be stated that the correlation
between subjectivism and the sense of loneliness will be one of the important prerequisites when
it comes to recognize striving to overcome the feeling of loneliness as an ethical criterion and a
determinant of moral decisions.
It is not difficult to find examples of how membership of a group is considered a basic
criterion for assessing the good and evil of individual acts. Moral evil was justified by reasons
of group affiliation, for example, by the German Nazis (Arendt, 2006). However, does the
desire to maintain a relationship with a group justify consenting to an evil done to one’s own
self or another person? Is the argument of national/class affiliation sufficient to justify moral
evil?
The questions just formulated remain somewhat unanswered. The issue of the correlation
between an individuals’ attitude to loneliness and their moral choices, outlined in this point,
turns out to be conditioned by the very attitude to objective truth. The analyses made only allow
us to sketch an axis whose one of the poles creates a conviction of the objectivity of moral good
and evil, and the attitude towards loneliness (readiness to accept it as a difficult experience, or
a fear of it which hinders the freedom of the individual) acquires moral value in case it serves
to realize a certain moral value. The second pole is, in turn, determined by epistemological
subjectivism, the consequence of which is not only the relativization of good and evil, but also

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allowing to recognize the striving to avoid unpleasant situations (including loneliness) as a

moral criterion.

Making Moral Decisions after Experiencing Loneliness: Forgiveness of Loneliness

as a Condition for Striving for Good

The analysis undertaken in the previous section was based on the assumption that a state of
loneliness may occur in the future as a result of a decision made by individuals contrary to the
expectations and pressures of persons close to them or a social group visited on a daily basis. At
this point, I would like to reverse the order of the states being considered and address the situation
in which individuals have to decide whether or not to support the persons or group responsible for
their loneliness. The point of reference for their decision are therefore the specific persons guilty
of their loneliness or the social group that excluded/rejected them.
An example of a situation in which a moral decision is made in the context of the experience
of loneliness is the reference to spouses who have betrayed, passed away, that is, have become
a cause of suffering associated with loneliness. Breaking a close relationship through the fault
of one of the parties does not necessarily mean breaking relationships and contacts. The various
dependences built often over years are in many cases permanent. For example, the spouses
mentioned earlier whose marriage broke up as a result of betrayal of one of them, must keep in
touch because of the common progeny. As a result, abandoned persons experiencing loneliness
have to decide whether to help them in a difficult situation, without paying attention to the
suffering they have experienced or refuse to help.
The situation outlined previously – of an action in the context of experiencing the injustice of
loneliness – can also have a social dimension. The civil war in Rwanda claimed about one million
lives. Tutsi people have lost family and friends. Members of the generation that experienced
genocide will sense a rupture of relationships that were important to them – for the rest of
their lives. Their loneliness is the context for settling moral dilemmas and making decisions
with regard to members of the Hutu tribe with whom they still live in one land (Staub et al.,
2005). Consequently, they have to face moral dilemmas, for which one pole is the experience of
loneliness and the associated feelings of anger, sorrow and sadness, whereas the other pole is the
good of those who are guilty of their suffering.
The situations mentioned previously are only examples of the common phenomenon of
dealing with moral dilemmas relating to people who have experienced evil, being revealed, for
example, during the experience of breaking relationships, rejection, exclusion or loneliness.
Loneliness is in this case a synonym for the harm that one person has done to another. The
harm causes resentment. Unwanted loneliness (solitude being a kind of harm) is consistently a
source of resentment. Resentment can lead to revenge (Butler, 1827), whether it reveals itself
in action to the detriment of a person guilty of loneliness or in indifference to their weakness,
difficulties, life crises.
Acting for the good of the perpetrator of the evil – a single person or the entire community –
becomes in fact a kind of forgiveness, that is a cessation (on the part of the victim) of taking into
account the experienced evil. Forgiveness is defined as coping with resentment, that is coping
with the negative emotions that are caused by harm. Murphy, referring to Butler’s analysis, the
forerunner of the philosophical reflection on forgiveness, describes it as forswear resentment

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– that is ‘the very personal response of anger or sometimes even hatred that one naturally (and
perhaps properly) initially feels when one believes that one has been wronged by another’
(Murphy, 1998: 698).
Forgiveness is seen as a solution to a past problem; a specific solution because it has to be
faced by the person who is not to blame for the whole situation. When forgiveness is defined
by reference to emotions, it appears as an act in which the relationship between the past and the
present is broken – a relationship that is constituted by emotions, triggered by an event from the
past whose existence is felt in the present. Forgiving a person guilty of loneliness is, therefore,
in a way, coping with the negative emotions caused by rejection, exclusion or abandonment.
However, a completely different meaning is given to forgiveness when it is considered a decision.
For the act of making decisions does not refer to the past, which cannot be changed, but is an
attempt to influence the future. If forgiveness is a kind of decision, it consists in acting for the
good of the person or persons who have suffered harm, even if the painful feelings are still alive
(Horowski, 2018). The forgiveness of loneliness in this case is to act for the good of the person or
persons who are guilty of loneliness, even if this state is a source of suffering.
The decision – as shown in previous analyses – is made for the sake of a specific good that
can be achieved in the future, either by the actors themselves, or by their relatives or strangers.
This means that the decision to forgive an evil that has meant introducing the victim into a
situation of loneliness can find its motivation to achieve good for someone from the loved ones,
or for the victim’s own self. Returning to the above examples, a betrayed and lonely spouse may
decide to support an unfaithful spouse because of, for instance, their children. The quality of
life of a spouse who has failed and has contributed to the loneliness of another person seems
indifferent to the abandoned spouse, on the one hand, but indirectly it refers to the well-being of
the children born in that family and for whom the betrayer is still a parent. A similar correlation
can be found in the above-mentioned situation of two tribes living on the territory of Rwanda.
The possible decision to forgive an evil that cannot be repaired is not a look to the past but into
the future, so it needs a reference point that will ‘attract’ the will. This point is primarily the
well-being of children and grandchildren. How representatives of the other tribe will be treated
will determine the future not only of the people who experienced the genocide but also of their
children and grandchildren, who will know the tragic events only from stories. People who have
lost their loved ones in the civil war, who miss them and suffer from their lack, find themselves
in an extremely difficult situation in which they have to build a better future for next generations
together with the perpetrators of evil. They have to face difficult moral dilemmas in the context
of the experience of loneliness, knowing that through their decisions they lay the foundations for
the future.
Reflection on moral decisions made in the context of the experience of loneliness inevitably
leads, as it can be seen, to the question of the social dimension of human life and the relations
created by the individual with other people. Just as for the choice of the moral good – of which
one dimension is the consent to solitude – a point of reference is needed for an action on behalf
of people guilty of loneliness, and it must be a personal point. The condition for such a decision
is, therefore, someone for whom the person is ready to stop paying attention to the loneliness he
or she has experienced: spouse, children, friends, people the victim feels responsible for and even
strangers, whose well-being the victim is sensitive to. God might also be such a point of reference
(Escher, 2013; Giannini, 2017).

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Conclusion

The problem of the relation between morality and loneliness seems to concern the dramas taking
place within subjects when they have to either deal with the dilemma of pursuing goodness,
knowing that this entails experiencing loneliness, or have to make decisions to act for the well-
being of those who granted the experience of the harm of loneliness. The distinction between
moral reasoning and morality itself (the recognition of moral reasoning as a condition of morality,
but not as its essence), however, leads to the question of other conditionings for moral choices
which determine the actions that individuals actually take. However, the answer to the latter
question takes the analysis back into the area of interpersonal relations, in which the possibility
of achieving good for oneself or for others motivates the individuals to undertake certain actions
and discard others. For consenting to or forgiving loneliness is easier when the point of reference
for given decisions is the good of particular people, who are the objects of concern of the acting
subjects. The drama taking place within subjects thus turns out to be a drama conditioned by
the interpersonal relations that the individual creates, even if their lives are penetrated by the
experience of loneliness.
Moreover, the reflection presented earlier leads to the conclusion that the shape of the
relationship between loneliness and morality is directly determined by a moral criterion and,
ultimately, by an individuals’ attitude to objective truth, fundamental for it. The consequence of
extreme subjectivism, which presumes that individuals have access only to the data of their own
consciousness, is the denial of objective determinants of moral good and evil. As a result, morality
can only be conditioned by subjective factors, including feelings associated with maintaining or
breaking the relationships in which the individuals remain. The recognition of the permanence
of relationships (important for individuals) as a criterion of good and evil removes the tension
between the choice of the moral good and the experience of loneliness, because it justifies
taking actions to avoid loneliness, even if they lead to harming others. In the perspective of
this statement, one could pose the question of whether contemporary culture, which emphasizes
subjectivism and thus conditions the feeling of loneliness of the individuals ‘living’ there, does
not lead to making loneliness one of the most important determinants of moral choices.
To conclude, I would like to point out that the focus of this reflection is on those situations
in which loneliness appears as an important context for moral choices. So I deliberately omitted
those situations when it is used instrumentally – as an asylum to avoid getting involved and
taking responsibility for another person. The essence of these situations is the difficulty of facing
the challenges brought about by fate, from which an individual wants to escape, and loneliness
becomes a kind of ‘place of refuge’.

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Loneliness and Dementia

The Role of Communication

Alison Wray

Introduction

Aloneness1 is a common circumstance associated with the ageing process, with many acquired
constraints impeding the ability to engage with others regularly. Poor eyesight and hearing, as
well as ambulatory limitations, may make travel and socializing difficult. Adult children may
live too far away to visit often. The partner may have died. Contemporaries may have their own
challenges for staying in touch and meeting up. Enforced absence of company can be difficult for
people to cope with, particularly if their previous life has been one of companionship, camaraderie
and busyness. Just at the time in their life where having others around might be rather helpful for
practical reasons, let alone to keep their spirits up, people’s agency in creating the circumstances
for this to happen can be severely curtailed.
Thus, ageing is typically a period of stark adaptation. Irrespective of whether it is fully to their
taste, many, if not most, of those who find themselves alone in older age are obliged to find a way
of tolerating and working with their aloneness, navigating a path that minimizes the transition
into loneliness. Doing so is imperative, given that loneliness is a recognized risk factor for the
development and exacerbation of dementia,2 as well as a frequent secondary symptom of it.
Dementia is a broad term that describes the cognitive symptoms of a number of different
degenerative brain diseases. The most common are Alzheimer’s disease, of which an early
symptom is impaired recall of recent events, and vascular dementia, which often entails a
reduced capacity to process information quickly and effectively. Other dementia types can cause
hallucinatory episodes, paranoia and general confusion.
A much-quoted trope attributed to Kitwood runs: When you’ve met one person with dementia
. . . you’ve met one person with dementia.3 That is, no two people are the same, and generalizations
will only give us part of the picture. People bring to the experience of living with a dementia
the styles, preferences, anxieties, beliefs, assumptions, traumas and triumphs of their life so
 Loneliness and Dementia

far. Combine that with the individuality of each person’s dementia-causing brain disease, the
unique brain that it acts upon and the specific set of circumstances and environmental and social
landscapes within which they exist, and we can see that the main characteristic that binds people
living with a dementia is their inherent difference from each other.
Nevertheless, it is far from impossible to make useful general observations about the
challenges that people living with a dementia face. In particular, as I observe in my previous work
(e.g. Wray, 2020), even the well-documented differences between types of dementia become
secondary when one looks at impediments to effective communication, as will be done here. This
is because although there are many links in the communication chain, differently affected by each
type of dementia, if any one of them gets broken, the outcome – a broken chain – will often be
quite similar. One such outcome is highly likely to be an increased risk of loneliness.
At a superficial level, loneliness is an unsurprising outcome of dementia. The inconveniences,
anxieties and stigma of the disease, along with the difficulties that others have in knowing how
to engage with people living with a dementia, are highly likely to undermine confidence on both
sides. As well as being ostracized, ignored and overlooked, people living with a dementia may be
lured in voluntary social withdrawal as a means of self-protection (Livingston et al., 2017: 13).
Meanwhile, social isolation could in itself exacerbate, or increase the risk of developing,
dementia symptoms. There are several possible reasons. Regular interaction with others may
sustain brain function and boost the immune system, reducing stress and raising cortisol,
adrenaline and noradrenaline levels (Seeman, 1996). Perhaps, for this reason, social interaction
can counteract depression (Fratiglioni et al., 2000), which is in its own right a risk factor for
dementia (Livingston et al., 2017). In those already living with a dementia, depression is likely to
make it more difficult to cope with the dementia symptoms. Research also shows that the socially
isolated are greater risk of stroke (Boden-Albala et al., 2005), and strokes can cause vascular
dementia. Cohabitation with a partner has been found protective against dementia, probably for
both practical and social/emotional reasons (Fratiglioni et al., 2000; Sundström et al., 2016).
Yet it would be too easy to suppose that the company of others is a reliable solution for the
challenges of dementia. Social situations can be potentially harmful too, if relationships are not
good. Families do not always get on well, and the social dynamics within friendships are not
always affirming for all parties. Social groups such as clubs and even religious organizations can
be conservative when members cannot participate in the expected ways, and people who struggle
to sustain status quo behaviours and responses can feel shunned and pushed out.
It is with this rather complex set of considerations in mind that we shall investigate the
relationship between dementia and loneliness, and, in consequence, explore an opportunity for
defining loneliness in a way that transcends simple descriptions of its manifestations, in favour
of identifying underlying causal dynamics.
Definitions of loneliness vary considerably, but have in common ‘the individual’s inner
emotional distress’, a feeling that is ‘unpleasant, aversive, and painful, and signals a wish for
change’ (Margalit, 2010: 5). This experience may be associated with a sense of separation ‘from
positive people, places or things’ (Woodward, 1988: 4), rejection or self-rejection (Stern, 2021)
and – pertinent to the discussion to follow – also ‘personal feelings of meaningless, helplessness
. . . and loss of freedom’ (Margalit, 2010: 7).
Seeman (2019) helpfully observes that loneliness cannot be alleviated purely by providing
access to more people, because the sense of desolation associated with loneliness relates to the

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absence of particular people with whom one has an emotionally meaningful relationship. In the
discussion that follows, it will become clearer why it matters so much who is present.
To pin down the role that others play in whether or not someone experiences loneliness, we
need to consider what people typically do in each other’s presence and why. To this end, the next
section outlines a model of how and why people interact. According to this model, breakdowns
in communication will have an impact far more profound that simply not exchanging the surface
information encoded in a message, and this deeper impact, it will be proposed, accounts for the
feelings associated with loneliness.

Communication and the Role of Context

Why do we communicate? The skills and resources required to do so effectively are considerable
and take many years to master fully. Accounting for the ubiquity and complexity of human
communication requires us to look for a deep-seated motivation that justifies its evolution
and retention in our species. It needs to be a motivation that is reflected in the communicative
behaviours of other species, but which also explains why human language has the shapes and
functions that it does.
The proposal that I have developed over a number of years (Wray, 2002a, 2002b, 2008, 2020)
is that communication is a mechanism for making improvements to our physical, cognitive and/
or emotional state that would otherwise be beyond our control. Our experiential world is in
continuous flux and requires constant modification so that it remains aligned with our preferences
and needs. It is up to us to find ways to achieve the necessary changes. For most of us, most of
the time, we will first attempt to do so through our own direct action: making ourselves a drink,
fetching an object, checking the time, closing the window and so on.
But there are many aspects of our experiential world that we are unable (or unwilling) to
change for ourselves, and in such cases, we need to engage someone else to act as our agent.
Other people may have skills or knowledge that enable them to do something we can’t, or they
may be in a better location or hold a more appropriate social role. We will aim to get our agents
not only to make direct physical changes to our environment, but also to alter our cognitive and
emotional state, by providing us with information, reassuring us and so on. Furthermore, since
an important aspect of our emotional well-being is to be important to others, we also need people
to pay attention to us and value the ways in which we can act as agents for changes in their
world. Even when the speaker is trying to achieve something that appears fully altruistic, such
as improving the interlocutor’s world at the expense of their own, the speaker is still driven to do
that by the desire to improve their own world – feeling better for having done this good thing.4
This way of viewing communication is intuitively attractive, in that it maps onto what we can
observe across the living world, where self-sufficiency is supplemented, to a greater or lesser extent in
different species, by the beneficial actions of others. It is communication, whether by sound, gesture,
colour, odour or electrical signals, that invites others of the same or another species to behave in
some manner that advantages the communicating party. Such communication encompasses flowers
attracting pollinators, insects repelling predators, fish and birds attracting a mate, and primates
using gestures and sounds for a wide range of social as well as material purposes.
Language,5 of course, offers a particularly intricate and textured potential for harnessing the
agency of others. Its affordances also greatly increase our aspirations – that is, we can imagine

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and exercise much more control over our experiences due to the complex capabilities of language
to encode messages to agents. However, with the scope to capture through language so many
aspects of the experiential world, speakers and hearers encounter a potential problem: flooding
communicative attempts with so much information that the core purpose of the message is
obscured.
The speaker needs to identify the subset of relevant information that their interlocutor (the
person they are speaking with) is not currently familiar with, and encode only that, while the
information they both already share is taken for granted. To achieve this, the speaker needs a
sophisticated map of what the interlocutor does and doesn’t know and is most and least likely to
expect to hear. We can envisage this as a Venn diagram, consisting of information that the speaker
knows but the interlocutor doesn’t, information that the interlocutor knows but the speaker doesn’t,
and information that they both know. If the speaker’s beliefs about what belongs in each category
are accurate, a clear message can be produced, with just the right level of specification to achieve
the desired outcome rather than cause confusion. Compare, for example, how, with different
levels of shared knowledge, any of the following might be optimal for getting the interlocutor to
perform a physical action:

●● Could you hang it out?

●● Could you hang out the washing?
●● Could you hang the washing out on the other line?
●● If you look in the cupboard, you’ll see some pegs that you can use for hanging the washing
on the line between the apple trees.

When the speaker wants to obtain information, the aim is to shift into the shared zone something
currently only in the interlocutor’s exclusive knowledge store. Speakers need to signal to
interlocutors what they don’t need to be told because they already know it, since it can’t be
guaranteed that the interlocutor is aware of the speaker’s current state of knowledge. The question
Why is Jane coming this afternoon rather than this evening? signals that the speaker already
knows that Jane is coming and why, just not the reason for the timing.
Speakers also need to gauge how the interlocutor is likely to behave in the face of different
sorts of approach to addressing them, so that the message can be formulated with the right level of
politeness, curtness or whatever, for achieving the desired response. This high level of awareness
about the interlocutor’s knowledge, beliefs and typical response styles is vital for maximizing
the likelihood of the utterance having the intended communicative impact – that is, achieving
the desired change to the speaker’s world (Wray, 2020). This knowledge constitutes the context
within which the communication takes place.
Theories of the pragmatics of communication, including the cooperative principle and
conversational maxims (Grice, 1975) and relevance theory (Sperber & Wilson, 1995), help
characterize why it is confusing to an interlocutor if the speaker provides unnecessary information:
interlocutors will assume the information is relevant and try to figure out why it’s been given. For
example, imagine someone wanting to ask a supermarket assistant where the coffee is shelved
and beginning by saying we’re in a supermarket. The assistant would not simply ignore the
superfluous information, but rather seek a reason for its mention. Similarly, we use pronouns to
reference items or people whose previous mention we assume our interlocutor will recall. As a

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result, renaming a referent will take on its own significance. For instance, in Frederick called the
police, but not until after Frederick had left the scene, the default inference is that there are two
different people with the same name.
Since people are agents for change in others’ worlds, being alone will restrict the extent to
which someone can sustain the world they want and, hence, their well-being. However, the mere
presence of others is not enough. Those people must be available, willing and able to act as
agents – and, as we shall see next, one impediment to this can be communication breakdown. On
the other hand, the extent to which people’s well-being is compromised by the absence of agents
will depend on what resources they have for sustaining their well-being single-handedly. We
shall return to these considerations later, when we look at how social and personal factors shape
people’s resilience to the effects of dementia.

Dementia and Communication Breakdown

With contextual information so precisely marshalled in our interaction, it’s not surprising
that difficulties can arise when one of the participants has impaired cognitive capacities. As
already noted, in order to say something apposite and effective, the speaker needs an adequate
appreciation of the contextual information that the interlocutor will use to interpret what they
say. One significant source of such information is what the interlocutor has previously said and
done, and any events they have jointly experienced. People living with a dementia often have
difficulties with gathering and retaining such information, on account of memory impairment,
comprehension problems, reduced concentration, the inability to ignore extraneous noise and
information and so on.
At the point when they are trying to formulate a message that aims to get the interlocutor to act
as their agent in altering their experiential world in some way, they may encounter gaps in their
recall of what’s recently occurred, and may even be unsure where they are, what the parameters
of the situation are (e.g. what it’s reasonable to expect) and whom they are interacting with (and
hence how to address them appropriately and assess what changes they are likely to be willing
and able to make).
When they proceed to express their message, it will be shaped by these impoverished beliefs
about the context – more specifically about how the interlocutor views the context, since that
is what will determine how the utterance is interpreted with regard to relevance, focus and
reasonableness. They may also have difficulties encoding and producing their language output
itself. For instance, they might not be able to find a vital word that would point the interlocutor
towards the relevant aspect of the context. Or they might struggle to speak fluently, so the
interlocutor cannot successfully decode the message. These various difficulties are likely to place
interlocutors in a weak position to pick up the intention of messages they hear, impeding people
living with a dementia from achieving their communicative goals.
People living with a dementia will also encounter problems when they are in the hearer role.
Some interlocutors will be oblivious to the risk of their hearer not having tracked the context
adequately and may make assumptions about what people living with a dementia can understand
and appropriately interpret. Others may be acutely aware that they cannot take contextual
information for granted as shared, but it will be difficult to know what is and is not known by
the person living with the dementia. As we have seen, restating a referent will be confusing if the

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hearer does in fact recall the previous mention. Providing contextual information, such as where
the conversation is taking place, will be pragmatically very marked if the person living with the
dementia didn’t in fact require it.6
Of particular importance for our current discussion is what happens next: the onward
impact of these difficulties. Focusing once more on people living with a dementia as speakers,
we can see how their impoverished grasp of the contextual knowledge could well lead them
to address the interlocutor inappropriately, say something unnecessary, inappropriate or
irrelevant, and/or attempt to achieve, through the agency of the interlocutor, some change
to their world that is not possible or not desirable. The effect on the interlocutor may be that
they are confused, offended or annoyed that the speaker didn’t take into account the context
as they expected them to.
When an interlocutor responds in this way, people living with a dementia may realize that
something has gone wrong, but they won’t necessarily be able to pinpoint what the problem is.
They are likely to be embarrassed or annoyed at having confused or upset the interlocutor and
disappointed and frustrated by the failure of their communication to achieve its goals. They may
feel that they are increasingly powerless to influence their world without getting into difficulties
with those they wanted to enlist as agents. In turn, this experience may direct them towards
certain responses, of which three will be briefly described.
First, the person living with the dementia might become argumentative about the legitimacy
of what they attempted to achieve. Such a response may come across as extreme, unwarranted,
inappropriate and unreasonable to interlocutors who cannot appreciate the person’s sense of
disempowerment and frustration. People living with a dementia who become aggressive will
soon become labelled belligerent, even disturbed. They be subjected to calming medication
and/or socially spurned. A likely result is that they feel rejected, abandoned and unable to help
themselves, and drift into depression and loneliness.
Second, people living with a dementia may become fearful that whenever they attempt to change
their world, they trigger antagonism and resistance. Preferring to protect their relationships, they
may become acquiescent. Not attempting to pursue desired changes in their world reduces their
agency for self-determination and is likely to undermine their self-esteem, leading to depression
and, possibly, loneliness.
Third, they might try to protect themselves from the unpleasant consequences of repeated
failure, by refusing to engage with others. This, too, will undermine their agency and self-esteem,
and they will find themselves alone, and lonely, even if others are around.

Loneliness and the Absence of Self-determination

The ideas outlined above have led me to wonder whether loneliness could usefully be
conceptualized as the emotional distress arising from being unable to sustain adequate control
of one’s experiential world. It is an interesting proposition for several reasons. First, it helps us
understand why solitude and loneliness are not the same thing. A person on their own will not be
lonely unless the absence of others is creating difficulties for them in making desired changes
to their experiential world. Those well placed to achieve necessary physical tasks, find things
out when required, express and receive affection through owning a pet, and sustain cognitive
engagement through absorbing activities, and so on will be resilient against loneliness despite

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living alone. Since these factors are circumstantial, we have an explanation for why a sense of
loneliness can come and go.
Similarly protected will be people with rather modest needs for change, whether because they
are well resourced, or because they sustain a general psycho-emotional state of contentment that
leaves them with low anxiety about aspects of their world that others in their situation might be
keen to see altered as soon as possible. On the other hand, for any person who needs or desires
changes to their world that they cannot achieve directly, even being in the company of others will
be no protection against loneliness, if those others are not available as agents.
The elements mentioned earlier as central to definitions of loneliness can all be seen to derive
from the shortfall in self-determination. Margalit (2010: 6–8) identifies four types of loneliness:
emotional (no intimacy with others), social (no sense of belonging), existential (‘feelings of personal
meaninglessness, helplessness, isolation, aloneness, and loss of freedom’) and representational
(the realization that one can never be truly understood by others). All four are recognizable results
of a breakdown in communication due to dementia. People living with a dementia realize that
they are failing to keep emotionally and socially attuned with others, and, even if not rejected,
withdraw themselves (emotional and social loneliness). They find they cannot sustain control of
their experiential world (existential). And the absence of reliable shared contextual knowledge
erects a barrier to the mutual mind-reading that is the prerequisite of effective communication,
rendering them effectively incomprehensible to others (representational).
Thus, although there is an undeniably close relationship between loneliness and the presence
of others, it is not the whole story. Certainly, we rely on others to provide things that we cannot
achieve alone, including the experience of trusting intimacy, reassurance, positive regard,
entertainment and being valued. Loneliness, in the view proposed here, is not the absence of
these experiences as such, nor the absence of people to provide them, but the sense of impotence
associated with being unable to elicit them when needed.

Intervening to Reduce the Risk of Loneliness

For as long as loneliness is perceived as primarily a potential product of solitude, it will seem
obvious to seek to combat it by placing people into the company of others. But the proposal above
indicates why this might not always work. If someone is suffering from the effects of not being
able to achieve necessary or desired changes to their experiential world via the agency of others,
then providing others is only part of the solution. There must also be attention to how those others
are predisposed and able to respond to the person’s attempts to enlist them as agents, and how the
person perceives the risks of failing in those attempts.
We have seen that the dangers of a mismatch between a speaker’s intentions and the
interlocutor’s response are particularly great in the context of dementia, and so we shall remain
with dementia when exploring potential solutions. Nevertheless, it should be clear that there is
little, if anything, in the experience of people living with a dementia that cannot, to some extent,
affect everyone. For we can all misjudge elements of the context, fail to express our message or
understand someone else’s, or, for some other reason, find ourselves in a situation where we are
impotent to alter some aspect of our experience.
A subset of the unimpaired population particularly susceptible to these difficulties is those who
interact with people living with a dementia, including family members, professional carers and the

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many types of occasional interlocutor, such as GPs, hairdressers and shopkeepers. They will be used
in what follows to illustrate how all of us are potentially susceptible to a sudden or prolonged sense of
loneliness when communication breakdown impedes the achievement of our desired goals.
Since the points of personal vulnerability are emotional and social, it is to emotional and
social resilience that we need to look for potential protection. These resources are presented
below in terms of reserve. Reserve in this context does not refer to being shy or private, but to the
notion of having something in reserve.
The two concepts central to the discussion here – emotional reserve and social reserve
(Wray, 2020) – extend an existing approach to understanding the causes of variation in people’s
resistance to dementia and its symptoms: brain reserve and cognitive reserve. Brain reserve (e.g.
Y Stern, 2012) relates to how resilient a person’s brain structure is to disease. Whether for genetic
or environmental reasons, some people’s brains are larger and more connected than others, so
that damage has less of an impact on function (e.g. Whalley et al., 2006), and/or symptoms take
longer to be expressed (Fratiglioni & Wang, 2007: 12).
Cognitive reserve is also protective against dementia symptoms. It reflects the effectiveness
with which the brain structures are used (Steffener & Stern, 2012: 467). A useful analogy is that
of a road network (brain reserve) and a driver’s familiarity with, and capability of exploiting, that
network (cognitive reserve). Whereas brain reserve is a biological attribute, cognitive reserve is
built at least in part by a person’s cognitive style and level of activity; in other words, cognitive
reserve can be increased through behavioural choices. For a fuller account of brain and cognitive
reserve, see Wray (2020: 28–32).

Emotional Reserve
Where brain reserve and cognitive reserve reflect the resilience that people have against dementia
developing in the first place, emotional reserve reflects how well they are able to cope with
dementia when it has developed. A person’s level of emotional reserve can affect not just how
they feel about their condition, but also their capacity to sustain their self-confidence, sense of
identity and positivity, all of which are often under threat (Brooker, 2007: 97; Watts & O’Connor,
2017: 108), and all of which are key to avoiding depression.
The level of someone’s emotional reserve will probably reflect both general personality
traits and their lifetime of experiences. There is a link between emotional reserve and emotional
intelligence (Salovey & Mayer, 1990), though they are not the same thing: the latter is a more
consistent trait, whereas emotional reserve can rise and fall in response to circumstances. High
emotional reserve is likely to flourish in the presence of inner personal strength (Lundman et al.,
2012) and self-transcendence (Norberg et al., 2015). Those able to muster high emotional reserve
may well do so due to their ‘personal philosophy, spirituality, role models, learning opportunities,
and cultural input [which bestow] the ability to override, as necessary, the lower brain’s response
to threat’ (Wray, 2020: 104).
Although conceptualized in relation to dementia, it is not difficult to see how the notion
of emotional reserve can be extended to everyone, as a way of understanding how well we all
manage challenging situations. For example, it is important that the individuals with whom a
person living with a dementia interacts also have high emotional reserve. If they are unable to
withstand the stresses of the situation, and consequently respond negatively, it will adversely
affect the experience of the person living with the dementia.

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Social Reserve
Social reserve is ‘the currency of resilience located in a person’s cultural and social context, both
local and global . . . an external resource, deriving from how people living with a dementia, and
those who support them, are viewed and treated in society’ (Wray, 2020: 76). Four subtypes can
be identified: infrastructure; social attitudes; social groups, including family and friends; and
social credibility.
The state of a society’s infrastructure makes a considerable contribution to the daily experience
of people living with a dementia and their families. Everything from the ease of accessing public
transport to the joined-upness of the health and social care systems determines how easy it is to
have a good day versus a fraught and frustrating one.
Underpinning the policy decisions that shape the infrastructure are social attitudes, which in
turn derive from deep cultural values and beliefs, amplified and modified by the print, broadcast
and social media, along with films, dramas and novels. Social attitudes are shifting in the light of
many concerted efforts to depict dementia more positively, but a persistent image remains that of
a withdrawn person, alone and unable to communicate.
The third subtype of social reserve relates to the benefits of positive engagement with family,
friends and social groups. We have seen already that these benefits relate to others acting as agents
to enhance a person’s well-being, and regular social engagement enables the person to seek and
value more of it. Infrastructural limitations will easily create practical difficulties in accessing
clubs and groups. Meanwhile, since communication problems can undermine the effectiveness of
interaction, social groups can also reinforce loneliness by drawing attention to a person’s limited
ability to marshal others’ agency.
Finally, social credibility is a powerful positive force. Sabat (2001) and Wray (2010) both
offer evidence of how effectively people living with a dementia can sustain high-level functioning
when given a role, and Taylor (2007: 202) recounts his sense of affirmation when, accompanying
his sick wife to the hospital, his primary identity was no longer that of a person living with
Alzheimer’s:
People instigated casual conversation with me. People treated me like I was independent,
competent, knowledgeable, and important. People depended on me. People listened to me.
People responded to me as if I were a husband, a full family member, and a responsible adult.
In its various manifestations, then, social reserve plays a significant part in well-being. For
everyone, of whatever age, with or without a cognitive impairment, inadequate social reserve
will engender a sense of being under-supported, undervalued and powerless, with onward impact
on self-esteem and self-confidence. This, I have proposed, is the recipe for loneliness.

Alleviating Loneliness by Building Emotional and Social Reserve

If loneliness arises when someone lacks a way of modifying their world through others’
agency, then interventions require attention to the following contributory factors: what the
person might be trying to modify and why, what is preventing them making the change for
themselves (where applicable), and what is impeding them from successfully enlisting the
agency of someone else. Again, we shall focus here on people living with a dementia but
continue to bear in mind that they represent the extreme end of experiences that everyone
can have.

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First, we must recognize that it will not be possible to facilitate every change that a person
living with a dementia seeks. It will be reasonably easy to act as agent when they want to swap
their tea for coffee, but sometimes, unable to assemble an adequate appreciation of the context,
they will seek changes that are simply impossible, such as going home to their (long-deceased)
parents. But in lowering the bar enough for manageable intervention, we do get to the heart
of the matter: the goal is less about whether each desire is met than that they feel adequately
empowered to make changes to their world. Often, behind the material articulation of a desired
change lies a deeper desire that can be fulfilled in some other way. Wanting to ‘go home’ is often
an expression of the need for emotional security, or familiarity, or escape from a distressing
environment. As such, looking at photographs, sharing a cup of tea, or putting on a much-loved
film might alleviate the feeling.
Moreover, underpinning specific expressed desires could be the more fundamental need to
change something, anything in an experiential world that feels out of control. As such, almost
any experience of agency may have a comforting effect. Rather than just taking the person off
for a cup of tea, they could be invited to choose which room they go into, which teapot is used,
and which colour cup their tea is served in.7 Thus, surprisingly minor and indirect interventions
may deliver major benefits, by instilling a sense that they can determine their experiential world,
including through the agency of others – something that makes the presence of others meaningful
and a reliable shield against loneliness.
Of course, fundamental problems with communication will be a persistent challenge for
interlocutors as they try to establish what a person living with a dementia wants to achieve. Two
important rules of thumb are, first, always to assume that a person’s utterance has some sort of
purpose, and thus to look for what they may have said it for; and, second, always to treat a person’s
utterance with attention and respect, even if it cannot be decoded. This is because, irrespective of
what instrumental goal a person may have, it is almost certain that a concomitant goal is to create
and sustain a positive experience during the interaction. Being ignored, dismissed or treated with
frustration means that this goal is not achieved and the person feels worthless as well as impotent.
Finally, as noted earlier, people need to feel of value to others. Therefore, interactions need
to be two-way, identifying and honouring the skills, knowledge and overall personhood that each
individual has to offer. Such interactions must be genuine as well, born of a fundamental desire
to bind two (or more) people together as mutual providers of something the other needs. Practical
examples of this include getting a person living with a dementia to help with tasks rather than
having them done for them while they sit and watch (e.g. Sheard, 2015); giving them genuine
care responsibilities for animals, plants and other people (e.g. Burgess, 2015); and knowing what
views and expert advice they might be able to offer, so that there is a strong personal motivation
for ensuring they understand and are understood (Wray, 2010).

Conclusion

The notions of emotional and social reserve have been introduced to conceptualize people’s
resilience to the experiences associated with dementia. But dementia is just an extreme case of a
more universal phenomenon. What happens in dementia is that important tools of communication
that we need for protecting our well-being are damaged, with the result that it is difficult to
keep others engaged and to sustain high levels of emotional reserve. People living with a

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dementia are at particular risk of being unable to shape their moment-by-moment experience,
but, as noted already, anyone can encounter impediments to the attempt to control their world.
Insofar as they, too, are left feeling disempowered, they too will experience loneliness, as defined
here. The descent into loneliness is exacerbated by defensive responses that, as we have seen, may
encourage someone who is repeatedly failing to enlist others’ agency, to withdraw from trying
to do so.
Indeed, loneliness may tie into depression and hopelessness because of a particular irony about
the role that others play in our well-being. When a person already experiencing the loneliness of
disempowerment seeks a way to escape this negative experience and finds they cannot do so on
their own, it will be to others that they want to turn, as agents for making this urgent change to
their world. But they are in this situation in the first place because such people aren’t available. If
the unavailability, incapability or unwillingness of others to act as their agent is the cause of the
problem in the first place, then, both cognitively and emotionally, there will seem to be no way
out. What started as a circumstantial moat around the person, created by the misfortune of not
being able to enlist others as agents for change, now becomes a cognitive and emotional moat,
founded in the perception that the agency of others is not an available or safe solution. Once
this happens, the ability of others to intervene by building up the person’s social reserve will be
considerably diminished. The person will be isolated from others’ agency and feel helpless and
hopeless.
All of us, as instruments of positive societal goals, must understand the many ways in which
everyone, with or without a dementia to deal with, will benefit from strong social reserve as a
resource for building their emotional reserve. None of us can completely control our experiential
world, and we all need a measure of resilience against unavoidable disappointments and
frustrations. Our tolerance for these discomforts will be greater if we feel more in control of
the aspects of our experience that do seem achievable. Recognizing the role that we play in
supporting each other’s well-being is a win-win, in that it not only enables others to control their
world more successfully but also feeds our own need to have an experiential world in which we
are of value to others. In this symbiosis, much loneliness might be avoided.

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 22

Loneliness and Care of the Elderly

Rafał Iwański

Introduction

Demographic forecasts unequivocally indicate that in the coming years the number of the elderly
in the population of particular countries will continue to grow. In the case of countries which are
members of the European Union the percentage of senior citizens will increase from less than
20 per cent to more than 29 per cent in the next few decades (World Bank, 2020). An ageing
population poses numerous challenges to societies in terms of meeting a variety of seniors’ needs
(Uhlenberg, 1992). The mainstream discussion within public policy remit include health, care
and social matters. However, the issue of loneliness among people at the age of sixty-five or over
is equally important; in case of dependent persons – also their family caregivers.
The phenomenon of loneliness concerns people of different ages, but in the advanced age it
may pose a particular problem. However, it is worth emphasizing that the ageing process alone
does not condition loneliness (Donaldson & Watson, 1996). While reflecting on the loneliness of
the elderly, including the aspect of care, four approaches to the problem might be distinguished.
The first one concerns the elderly who manifest independent living capacity, and where loneliness
has psychosocial, economic or geographical background (such as rural areas). In this case
solitude might be a conscious and desired choice. At times the elderly adopt a model of social
functioning in the advanced age where they limit social activities of their own will. The second
one is connected with people who, for health reasons or due to reduced mobility, are forced to
limit their life activities to the household. The third group consists of the elderly who need help
and support in everyday activities, and who get the necessary assistance from family caregivers.
In this case the issue of loneliness is not exclusive to the elderly, but also includes professional
and social life of the caregivers – mostly family, unprofessional carers. The fourth group consists
of residents in care centres which are run by social care institutions and the health care sector.
Residents in such institutions are the elderly needing long-term care, who cannot depend on their
family or local environment to provide them with pertinent support.
Loneliness is defined by researchers of various fields of science, including psychology,
philosophy, sociology, pedagogy and economics. Depending on the research perspective adopted,
The Bloomsbury Handbook of Solitude, Silence and Loneliness

different aspects are stressed. According to Perelman and Peplau (1982) loneliness is related to
an unpleasant experience caused by the deficit in social network in qualitative and quantitative
terms (Pikuła, 2015). On the other hand, loneliness may be a desirable state, explicitly positive,
for instance as respite from the society. Loneliness may have emotional dimension which results
from loss (for instance widowhood) or lack of close person, but also social one, where we lack
social network such as friends and acquaintances, when we are not a member of community,
we lack the sense of belonging (Weiss, 1973; Baarsen et al., 2001). In my analysis I will use the
terms presented by Stern in the Introductory chapter where the emotion of loneliness (which is a
negative emotion) and a situation of solitude (which may be experienced positively or negatively)
are differentiated (Stern, in the Introduction to this Handbook).
The chapter analyses solitude different aspects and contexts of loneliness (social, psychological,
socio-economic), which are particularly significant from the perspective of the elderly. The
chapter will consist of three parts. The first part will present theoretical concepts and address the
issue of solitude among the elderly on the basis of social, psychological and economic sciences.
Solitude among the elderly will be considered both as an independent decision as well as a
necessity. The second part will attempt to identify various aspects, problems and issues related
to loneliness in the advanced age, based on current research, analyses and reports, including the
author’s own research. In the last part of the chapter, attention will be focused on summarizing
and developing recommendations in order to minimize negative aspects of loneliness in the
advanced age on household basis and in macrosocial terms.

Advanced Age, Loneliness and Care

In case of social age, it is most commonly determined on the basis of analysis of occupied roles
which, depending on a phase of life, differ in their nature, scope and meaning (Szatur-Jaworska
et al., 2006: 47). In economic terms, two approaches to ageing might be adopted. The first one is
associated with reaching retirement age which entitles to pension rights. The other one defines
an elderly person as an individual who, due to their advanced age and all the limitations arising
from it, is not able to perform a paid job. Legal and social definitions and thresholds of advanced
age are essentially attributable to the acquisitions of the right to benefits, concessions and so on.
Advanced age and the process of ageing have various dimensions and natures. It is determined
by highly individualized factors. The same applies to loneliness and solitude. According to
Bennett the dominant feature which differentiates the community of the elderly is isolation which
might lead to loneliness. Compulsory retirement, low pension entitlements, widowhood, physical
infirmity, geographical distance from children and widespread bias towards the elderly are listed
as independent factors conducive to isolation (Bennett, 1973: 179–80). It is worth noticing that
it is the teenagers and children who are more likely to suffer from loneliness than the elderly.
Seniors have developed methods to compensate for the deficiencies and adapt. Young people only
begin to acquire competences in this area (Mushtaq, 2014).
While reflecting on the loneliness of advanced age, including the aspect of care, four
approaches to the problem are to be distinguished. The first one relates to old persons who have
the capacity to lead an independent life, and where the problem of loneliness is of psychosocial,
economic or geographic (areas with low degree of urbanization) nature. The elderly in this group,
despite having the capacity to lead an independent life, may require support in other areas of

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life, including emotional support. In this case, solitude might be also related to conscious and
desirable choice.
It is worth emphasizing that regardless of seniors’ degree of dependency, maintaining social
relations influences the quality of seniors’ life, and may contribute to reducing stress (Caplan,
1981; Szatur-Jaworska, 2006). Social isolation may have negative effects in terms of reducing
cognitive functions and those connected with social adaptation (Bennett, 1973). Nonetheless,
compensation may occur, and an individual will not be affected by the deficits resulting from
limited social contacts.
The second approach is related to people who, due to the health condition and decreased
mobility, are forced to reduce their life activity to their own household. The risk of occurrence
of factors which restrict the capacity to live independently increases with age. Help and support
are mainly connected with the work in household (shopping, cooking, cleaning). Also, it is of
significant importance for this group of seniors that the apartment, block of flats, locality are
adjusted to their needs resulting from their limitations. In terms of construction, particularly of
public space, many countries promote universal design standards or gerontechnology solutions.
Gerontechnology is interdisciplinary field of knowledge which focuses on developing technologies
aimed at meeting the needs of seniors and improving the quality of their life (Bronswijk et al.,
2009). Through applying appropriate technological solutions, it is possible to enable persons with
disabilities to live independently or with the help of the person providing assistance. This group
includes the ‘prisoners of the fourth floor’, that is old persons who live in a building without an
elevator. It is a problem particularly important in the former Eastern Bloc countries, where large-
panel prefabricated blocks of flats were dominant in the post-war period.
The third group consists of seniors who require help and support in everyday life, and the care
is provided to them by immediate family members and/or are assisted by professional caregivers
from health sector (nurses, physiotherapists) and social assistance (professional care services).
The scope of assistance includes most everyday activities, such as feeding, washing and hygiene
activities, and running a household. In this case, the loneliness issue might not be exclusive
to seniors only. It also may afflict caregivers, mostly family – unprofessional ones, in terms
of their work and private life, since some seniors may not be left unattended even for a short
time. It particularly applies to the caregivers of seniors with whom it is impossible to make
contact, for instance in late-stage Alzheimer’s disease, chronic mental health concerns or in the
case of unconsciousness resulting from injuries or neurological diseases. It is also of significant
importance whether the caregiver is alone and whether they can depend on other members of
family, neighbours or distant friends. The problem might also apply to childless couples in
the advanced age, when one of the spouses cares for the other and cannot rely on support and
help (Leszko et al., 2020). Paradoxically, in this respect, isolation may be a desired situation,
particularly in case of caregivers who experience caregiver burnout. Necessity to spend twenty-
four hours a day with the caretaker constitutes a great physical and psychological challenge
(Mace & Rabins, 2011). This is why it is extremely important that the caregiver has the time only
for themselves, which unfortunately is not always possible due to limited family care potential
and lack of public support mechanisms in the care among family caregivers.
In case of certain diseases typical for senior age, such as Alzheimer’s disease, period of care
might take years, and as time passes care resources decrease: human, material and financial,
whereas the risk of caregiver burnout increases. Moreover, as research results indicate, family

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caregivers are a group most exposed to low moods and depression. Especially, when caregivers
are at senior age, care burden has a destructive influence on their health (Santos-Orlandi et al.,
2019). The results of research conducted by Jones and Peters (1992) in a group of 256 family
caregivers indicate that the loneliness experienced by caregivers constitutes a dominant factor
related to anxiety and depression. Due to the ageing of the population in particular countries,
care burden ratio for families will increase (European Commission, 2018; World Bank, 2020).
In case of Poland, demographic burden ratio, that is the relation between persons of working age
and the number of people at the age of sixty-five or over, increased in the last decade from 18.9
in 2009 up to 26.1 in 2019 (Central Statistical Office 2020).
The last category consists of residents in health protection sector and social assistance where
seniors, with no capacity to lead an independent life, reside, and who cannot rely on support
which is safe and pertinent to the needs from their family or local environment. This is the
group subject to experiencing a specific level of loneliness in a group. Feeling loneliness results
in a decrease of life satisfaction (Herman et al., 2018). The longing for family home among
seniors who reside in a care home might also influence the feeling of loneliness (Halicka, 2006).
Although they sometimes reside in facilities for 100 or even 300 residents, they are separated
from their previous environment. The group includes seniors who have family and friends and
maintain contacts, but also the elderly who were abandoned by their family members (regardless
of reasons). Seniors who do not have any family and do not expect to maintain contacts are a
separate category in this group.
Institutions which provide twenty-four-hour residential care sometimes focus on addressing
the basic living needs of the residents. In many countries, including Poland, there is a shortage
of people willing to work in these care facilities. The salary of aid institutions’ employees, which
is financed and co-financed from public funding (including obligatory social insurance), does
not encourage to start a job in this sector. The lack of nurses, caregivers, occupational therapists
and other professionals who work for the benefit of old persons is noticeable in European Union
countries. The shortage of professionals in the care area is directly relevant for the quality and
life comfort of old persons. Exploited workers of aid sector focus on satisfying seniors’ basic life
needs (hygiene and welfare), and not always have the time and strength to address higher needs,
such as conversation, contact and bond (Iwański, 2016). Regardless of the category we choose to
classify particular seniors, the problem of loneliness and solitude is becoming an urgent social
issue, especially in terms of further ageing of the population.

Social, Psychological and Economic Conditioning of Seniors’ Loneliness

The loneliness might be considered in terms of causes. Tiwari (2013) differentiated three types:
situational loneliness, developmental loneliness and internal loneliness. By virtue of the issues
under analysis, the first type of loneliness, related to socio-economic and cultural environment,
will be of particular interest. Special attention is to be turned to demographic and migrational
processes, that is an increased life expectancy and the feminization of seniors’ population (Tiwari,
2013). Loneliness might be of short-term or chronic character, depending on the period of time
an individual has been experiencing it for (Fopka-Charchut, 2013; Fopka-Kowalczyk, 2018).
In the case of the elderly, there are a few factors which contribute to loneliness. One of them
is social isolation, which may result from a disease and a difficulty with soliciting the help,

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possibly caused by embarrassment or non-acceptance for one’s own limitations. The elderly may
also struggle to maintain proper relations with the younger generation due to intergenerational
conflict. The crises related to widowhood or death of a close family member are also of great
importance. For many old persons the change of residence and the end of social and professional
activity may pose a problem, since it is reflected in feelings of rejection and not being needed.
In many countries with negative long-term external migration balance, the problem with leaving
ageing parents and grandparents in the country is noticeable (Szatur-Jaworska, 2006: 60–79).
Dubas points out that it is seniors and children who are most subject to loneliness in
modern world. She even describes a kind of advanced age loneliness which is connected with
the experience of lack of psychological bonds with the close ones, lack of understanding,
growing dependency, impoverishment of internal world and social exclusion (Dubas, 2000:
123). Moreover, according to Baltes and associates the nature of ageing causes the decline
of capacity for adjustment with age and the balance between costs and benefits derived from
the advanced age is becoming more and more negative (Halicki, 2006: 269–70). Seniors’
loneliness may even pose one of gerontological taboos (Dubas, 2013). Members of younger
generations are sometimes aware that they neglect older members of their family; however,
they manifest high competence in rationalizing reasons for maintaining occasional contact.
Work, child care or territorial distance constitutes perfect excuses to reduce contact to a strict
minimum comprising holidays or important events of family life.
On the grounds of sociology, multiple theories on ageing have been developed, which refer to
social, economic and cultural conditioning, and which include issues of the advanced age loneliness
to a different extent. Social exclusion theory implies that social exclusion of seniors is natural and
socially acceptable. The elderly should save strength and resources which will positively affect
their mood and reduce stress. Whereas activity theory assumes that regardless of age we have the
need to remain active in every possible and desired sphere of life. Phenomenological and socio-
environmental conceptions assume that an individual creates their own vision of ageing, but
the environment enforces certain patterns of behaviour which the elderly should follow. Social
exchange theory implies that seniors are marginalized, because their resources reduce with age,
which in turn creates imbalances in terms of exchange with other social groups. Political economy
of advanced age assumes that the society grants social status to the elderly by determining their
social position and lowering income (Halicki, 2006; Leszczyńska-Rejchert, 2008: 36–7).
Sociological theories stress social construction of ageing strictly related to social interaction
and separation of powers (Powell and Hendricks, 2009). Given the progressing ageing processes,
it is increasingly difficult to marginalize the elderly for they constitute not only a growing social
group, but also electoral group, most often a disciplined one.
We can distinguish two models of social functioning of the elderly in terms of the risk of
loneliness. The first one includes people with features of an activist, involved in social and
political matters. These are the seniors who despite having acquired pension rights continue to
work, travel and actively participate in society. They join courses, trainings and classes at the
university of the third age. They have a need for maintaining intense social contacts. They care
about themselves by putting attention to what they wear and how they look. They do sports,
exercise and take any action which may help them maintain physical fitness. They are also the
elderly who take part in religious services or who are members of prayer groups for instance.
This group is less likely to experience loneliness. The second model is represented by people

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whose activity is limited to their households, which is a choice or a result of a disease. These
people, due to a permanent isolation, may feel bereft. These persons are frequently the residents
of stationary care facilities – seniors who have no time to maintain contacts with their peers
because they take care of their grandchildren. Also, seniors who moved with their children and
grandchildren and experience adaptation problems, particularly in case of immigrants where there
is an additional problem connected with not knowing the local language and cultural conditions
appear (Wasilewska-Ostrowska, 2013). It is a group which is at a special risk of experiencing
loneliness at an advanced age.
On a psychological basis loneliness might be considered as a lack of bonds, relations and
intimacy with others, which result from inability, lack of skills to maintain them or gradual
fading. In this perspective being lonely does not necessarily mean loneliness in physical terms
(Krupa, 2013). From a psychological perspective, ageing is an individual experience of the ageing
process, which involves cognition, self-assessment, motivation and feelings (Zych, 2001: 172). A
person may consider themselves to be older when they notice biological and cultural symptoms
of ageing, or receive such signals from social environment. Psychological age is determined
on the basis of intellectual functions, ability of senses and adaptability of an individual. It may
be established based on subjective assessment of an individual or tests (Szatur-Jaworska, 2000:
36; Szarota, 2010). It is worth noting that from a psychological perspective the ageing process
may take a negative form because of numerous health and social factors. Changes as regards
the limitation of adaptation abilities and the loss of functional efficiency might contribute to
adopting a passive lifestyle (Świtoń & Wnuk, 2015). It is particularly noticeable in the case of
stationary care facilities’ residents who are often not able to satisfy their needs in terms of desired
frequency and quality of contacts with their family members and friends. The results of research
made by Aylaz et al. (2012) among seniors residing in long-term care facilities indicate a positive
correlation between loneliness and geriatric depression. Liu et al. (2016) achieved similar results,
stating positive relationship between loneliness and the risk of depression.
In addition, within psychosocial needs of the elderly, there may be distinguished five main
categories which are important in the analysis of issues related to loneliness and solitude:
integration, usefulness and acceptance, autonomy, safety and life satisfaction. In case of the
need for integration, the elderly demonstrate various preferences within the intensity of social
contacts (Bilikiewicz & Parnowski, 2006: 469). Seniors may express the willingness to isolate,
particularly widows, lower-educated persons or those who suffer from health problems (Wenger
et al., 1996).
Loneliness of the elderly may also be considered in the light of economic sciences, particularly
in the case of issues related to living conditions of the elderly, including incomes. In countries
where pension schemes were introduced, whether based on insurance or procurement principles,
social transfers constitute the main source of income among the elderly. Due to a dynamic growth
of the number of seniors or increasing life expectancy, many countries decided to increase the
age which entitles to acquire pension rights. Essentially every country may initiate discussions
on how to minimize the burden on working people, while maintaining the level of retirement
pensions enabling the elderly to live dignified advanced age.
Senior citizens who will not have resources to cover their needs, including basic ones, will
be dependent on family and social assistance institutions. Economic deprivation will translate

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into inability to meet the needs in terms of social contacts, autonomy and independency. It may
even be described as ‘systemic loneliness’, because given the neglect in terms of the construction
of successful pension systems, a substantial part of seniors will be left without the resources
sufficient for dignified life after completion of professional activity. In EU countries in 2018,
16 per cent of people at the age of sixty-five or over were at risk of poverty. Profound differences
between Member States are visible. In case of Estonia, 46.8 per cent of pensioners are at risk of
poverty, in Latvia – 46.1 per cent. At the other extreme are Slovenia 6.4 per cent, Norway 7.7
per cent and France 8.2 per cent. Due to the difference in the amount of benefits, women are at a
greater risk of poverty (Eurostat, 2020).

Aloneness in the Place of Residence – Pros and Cons

Solitude among elderly people may take two main forms: negative and positive. Seniors may
experience loneliness when they live alone, but also when they are members of a greater group
of family or care facility. Apart from this, we must not forget about the caregivers of dependent
seniors, very often of advanced age themselves, who are also affected by the problem of loneliness
and solitude in the care.
In 2017 the author of the chapter conducted research among the elderly who lived in assisted
housing. These are the flats built and partly equipped by municipality, fully adjusted to seniors’
needs, including the elderly with disabilities (Giezek & Iwański, 2017). The analysis of the
data obtained indicates that seniors may be divided into two groups. The first group is made
up of seniors who regained their residential independence after living with their children and
grandchildren. The second group are the seniors who despite an offer to live together with their
family, and their functional constraints, want to live independently, in case of the test group –
alone. Following are the statements of the surveyed seniors:
A woman, 75 years old: ‘For a few years, after my husband’s death, I had housing problems
and had to live with my daughter and her children. There was a big dog in the apartment, too.
It wasn’t a good time, I felt bad. Now, I am independent again, I don’t even invite my family
too often . . .’
A woman, 87 years old: ‘My son persuades me to live with him, at his house. But I don’t want
to, I won’t make it in a loud house, with grandchildren. Even when they visit me, they make a
mess, and after two hours I wait until they leave.’
Independence and self-determination constitute undeniable value for people in a test group. It
is an example of solitude, even desired in some cases. The seniors surveyed, who had families,
emphasized that they love their children and grandchildren, but they are not willing to live with
them. The noise bothers them; they have their routines and habits. If they are missing something,
they have neighbours around them who they have known for years and can rely on them.
The information presented constitutes another argument for the concept of ‘aging in place’,
which assumes that we should grow old in our own environment, having provided appropriate
conditions in terms of cities, districts, buildings and apartments themselves (Davey et al., 2004).
The neighbourhood is also important to the elderly, the environment they live in, not only the flat
(Oswald et al., 2011).

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Independent and autonomic ‘ageing in place’ is an idea endorsed by an increasing number of

communities within the concept of deinstitutionalization (WHO, 2020). It is worth emphasizing
that ageing in one’s own home, even when living alone, is perceived as desired and positive. It
is not a symptom of loneliness, but creating conditions to enable a senior to grow old in a place
they know, where they are a host and decide independently about their life. It is a desired kind
of solitude from a positive perspective. The concept under consideration is based on a voluntary
choice and does not constitute an excuse not to create places for the depended persons or other
housing facilities devoted to seniors (residential home, nursing home, etc.). It is the house suited
to the needs and adjusted to the elderly that may constitute the first and very significant link in
the care system and support (Lawler, 2001). Ageing population and the increase in the number of
households run by only elderly persons influenced the development of environmental gerontology
which concentrates on the description, explanation and optimization of relations between seniors,
and social and spatial environment (Wahl & Weisman, 2003).
Although seniors need some forms of positive solitude, difficult loneliness seems to be an almost
stereotypical part of ageing. Over the years, peer group population decreases, exposing a senior to a
number of losses; the risk of widowhood also increases. Loneliness and isolation influence the decline
of cognitive functions of seniors. Thus, it is of great importance to introduce activation activities,
especially in the group of the elderly with a lower level of education (Shankar et al., 2013). The
isolation seniors experience may lead to deterioration of health in somatic and psychological terms
(Cornwell & Waite, 2009; Richard et al., 2017). Results of the research conducted by Hackett and
the team suggest that the experience of loneliness causes disturbed response to stress by people with
diabetes (Hackett et al., 2019). It is one of the civilization diseases that seniors are most subject to.
Loneliness may increase the risk of ischaemic heart disease and brain stroke in lonely seniors, and
preventative strategies targeted at loneliness may contribute to lowering the risk of cardiovascular
disease (Valtorta et al., 2018). According to the research done by OʼSúilleabháin et al. (2019), the
experience of emotional loneliness may influence a premature death of the elderly.
Loneliness may increase the risk of low mood and even depression (Cacioppo et al., 2006).
According to estimates, 5–30 per cent of people aged sixty-five or over are at risk of depression
(Świtoń & Wnuk, 2015: 244). The risk is additionally increased in a group of seniors who struggle
with the so-called empty-nest syndrome (Wang et al., 2017). Moreover, loneliness and social
isolation in advanced age constitute a social factor of increased suicide risk among the elderly.
This is particularly applicable to widowed and divorced older men who have a problem fitting in
with the society (Baumann, 2008: 84).
Preventing negative effects of loneliness in seniors’ population in individual countries poses a
challenge for social policy. Research results indicate that the experience of loneliness in negative
perspective influences health in psychological and somatic perspective (Montero-López et al.,
2019). If we accept the assumption that loneliness is an increasing health epidemic (Higuchi,
2018), it is vital to take necessary actions to reduce the scale of the phenomenon and level
negative effects of loneliness.

Family Caregivers – Longing for Solitude

In 2018–19 the author of the article conducted research among caregivers of the patients suffering
from Alzheimer’s disease (n = 486) in Szczecin (Poland). The research was divided into two

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stages; in the first, quantitative, stage, 486 care environments were researched with the author’s
questionnaire concerning care. In the second, qualitative, stage, forty-six environments were
drawn out of the population analysed in the first stage, and in which extensive interviews were
held with main caregivers of patients suffering from Alzheimer’s disease aged seventy-five or
over.
Patients suffering from dementia diseases constitute a special group for the disease is
progressive and the care period is counted in years; in extreme cases care may be necessary even
for twenty years. In case of the test group, in 47 per cent of households only one caregiver and
one caretaker lived. In one-fourth of environments only one person provided care. Women aged
on average sixty-two constituted 72 per cent of caregivers (Iwański & Bugajska, 2019).
Loneliness in care was a common thread mostly in two main dimensions. The first one was
represented by caregivers described as ‘prisoners of care’ for they must be with the patient at all
times separated from the world, longing for relationships, contacts, often lonely. Some part of
people needed time just for themselves, time of solitude, respite, but due to lack of support, it was
impossible. The second dimension may be described as loneliness in care, where family members
refuse to help or the main caregiver does not want or cannot ask for help. At times caregivers
are isolated from the world, locked with a caretaker suffering from dementia. After a few weeks,
months or even years of continual care, they may long for solitude, the time only for themselves.
Following are the statements of surveyed caregivers.
A wife aged 80 takes care of a husband aged 75: ‘I have no freedom. I can’t go to the shop
alone when I want to buy something. Like a child, he wants to go with me everywhere.’
A wife aged 71 takes care of a husband aged 78: ‘You know, the hardest part is that I can’t go
for a walk with him, he doesn’t go, so I don’t go. I can’t leave him at home alone.’
A husband aged 75 takes care of a wife aged 79: ‘No opportunity to freely slip out from home
and settle some things, the ones which (.) it’s not that I want to go and relax, but, well, every
time we go out requires some kind of supervision.’
A wife aged 86 takes care of a husband aged 88: ‘Can’t go anywhere, any vacation.
Things changed. They used to have an allotment, mum can’t go there – sister took it. She is a
prisoner of her own home, you name it, marital house arrest.’
When caregivers do not have time for themselves, and are burdened with care, it fosters caregiver
burnout which may translate into diseases and somatic and psychological disorders. Sometimes,
even if the family care potential is greater, the main caregiver does not turn to family members
for help.
A husband aged 83 takes care of a wife aged 83: ‘Sometimes when I’m tired I actually have
such a feeling, but at the same time, I try to think rationally and not to give in to it, not to sit
on a rock somewhere and cry, and I try not to burden my family, they are busy with work.’
Despite the fact that a number of caregivers were advanced in age, and struggled with diseases
and limitations themselves, some of them tried to protect their family members from the duties
related to care. They explained that they do not want to overload their children and grandchildren
with problems, and that they will handle everything. What is worth emphasizing, 74 per cent of
respondents do not consider putting sick family member in stationary care facility.

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Conclusions and Recommendations

The analysis of issues related to loneliness of the elderly and their caregivers inclines to provide
guidance considering reduction of negative aspects of loneliness and strengthening in areas
where the solitude is desired.
Advanced age itself does not pose a social threat, but the accompanying conditionings,
including dependency and loneliness, contribute to a significant decrease of the quality and
comfort of seniors’ life. Within public support systems, health and successful ageing promotion
should be carried out, including prophylaxis preventing isolation and loneliness of seniors,
although, and it is worth stressing, the advanced age does not have to be necessarily linked to
loneliness (Mushtaq, 2014).
In macrostructural terms, it is important that individual areas of social policy, introduced
and implemented by central and local authorities, include elderly people’s needs, including
dependent people and their caregivers. Many deficient spheres within seniors’ social activity
may be levelled through dedicated programmes and policies, including social security (pensions
and social benefits), education (for instance, universities of the third age), health (development
of geriatrics), social assistance (long-term care, social work with the elderly), housing and
infrastructure (universal planning) and so on. Regarding the dynamic projected growth of elderly
persons in populations of individual countries, special attention should be drawn to senior issues
being an integral part of policies, for instance, based on the concept of sustainability (Ciegis
et al., 2009). Through the implementation of deliberate and dedicated social policy considering
the challenges of the advanced age, the risk of experiencing negative aspects of loneliness among
seniors’ population might be minimized.
The effect of an ageing population will be an increase in demand for care services, provided
mostly by family caregivers at present. This is why it is important to create public and social
support systems. Family caregivers fear social isolation and expect respite care (Stoltz et al.,
2004). In order for a caregiver to have a moment for himself or herself, respite care should be
secured in the form of community services, crisis intervention, telephone support and substitution
care (Leong et al., 2001). The last form of care in particular is highly desired by caregivers, for it
allows for the rest for a period of one or two weeks (Iwański & Bugajska, 2019). A caregiver and
a caretaker frequently create a strong bond, which prevents a caregiver from leaving a caretaker in
the care of strangers, which is why community and neighbour care should be supported.
One of the forgotten social groups are orphaned caregivers. After months, or sometimes even
years of care of a dependent person, after they pass away, caregivers sometimes struggle to fit
in and find their place in the family and society (Iwański et al., 2018). It is important to create
support groups, especially programmes which aim at repeated professional activation and help
with recovering from the crisis related to mourning, and so on.
Stationary long-term care, in accordance with the deinstitutionalization concept, is for
people who cannot receive the support which is safe and meets their needs in their place of
residence. It is a costly choice, and its cost will continue to grow in the coming years (cost of
labour, medical procedures, medicine, etc.) (Santana et al., 2016). This is why it is significant
to introduce standards which guarantee the right for intimacy, self-determination and solitude to
the elderly. At present, old persons in many facilities are forced to reside with strangers in one
room, often for a period of even many years. They are not comfortable during care-hygienic and

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therapeutic activities (Iwański, 2016). Ensuring social contacts is equally significant, especially
in the case of bedridden patients. It is possible to receive bedside therapy; thanks to properly
adjusted and equipped facilities it should be possible to safely move dependent people to public
places. Allowing seniors in long-term care facilities to maintain social contacts at a desired level
and constitutes a part of antidepressant and anti-dementia prophylaxis. Activities undertaken in
terms of minimizing the risk of loneliness among the population of residents in long-term care
facilities should be included in aid plans and constitute its integral part.
The number of single-person households run by the elderly will increase. In this case it is
vital to implement social programmes, which will cross-link seniors. Places and areas where
the elderly will be able to meet, such as senior clubs, day care centres, recreation rooms and
senior universities, should be created. It is public authorities who should initiate and support
such projects. Also, solutions aimed at maintaining intergenerational bonds and contacts are
very important. The results of the research conducted by Zhou et al. (2018) show that the more
social support a senior gets, the less loneliness they experience and the better they cope with
loneliness. It is vital not to stigmatize, marginalize or exclude the elderly from the labour market,
social, cultural activity and so on. Seniors must feel that regardless of health condition and socio-
economic situation; they constitute an integral and significant part of society.

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 23

Mortality and Loneliness

Towards Less-lonely Grief

Sarah James and Piotr Krakowiak

Introduction

Human experiences relating to mortality are associated with attachment, grief and both individual
and wider sociocultural influences and dynamics. In the midst of grief some people experience
loneliness even when others are with them and supporting them. It is apparent, therefore, that grief
and loneliness share many overlapping features and emotions, just as dying, for some, can also
be lonely. Throughout time and across cultures, people have often developed complex support
systems and rituals to try and make sense of mortality and bereavement both existentially and
in practical terms, including to mitigate against loneliness (Breen and O’Connor, 2011). More
recently in the Western context, however, grieving in modernity has been constrained by social
and medical constructs which constitute ‘appropriate’ or ‘abnormal’ expressions and experiences
of grief, and by socio-economic factors (Mellor and Shilling, 1993; Walter, 2020) – all of which
also appear to contribute to loneliness. In response, the predominant twentieth-century view that
grief is something to be ‘worked at’ and ‘recovered from’ (Freud, 1917; Kübler-Ross, 1969) is
now being challenged by more naturalistic social constructs and practices relating to end-of-
life care; funeral rituals; the nature of grief; and to supporting both bereavement and loneliness
(James, 2015; Krakowiak, 2020). There is an urgent need, therefore, for Western societies to
reclaim their innate ability to be compassionate and community-centred, such that we are enabled
to situate ourselves alongside the person in grief: empathically, reflexively and with integrity.
The chapter begins by contextualizing Western sociocultural constructs, constraints and
theories relating to views about attachment, loss and bereavement, with particular emphasis on
significant events, values and practices from predominantly Western and European perspectives.
Having considered such issues at a macro-level, the chapter proceeds by considering different
concepts of loneliness with respect to grief, for adults, as well as for children and young people.
In the context of loss and bereavement, loneliness appears to be a far more widespread feature
 Mortality and Loneliness

in late modernity – particularly in urban areas and where family members are more commonly
dispersed. The ensuing section exploring Kellehear’s (2013) concept of ‘compassionate
communities’ thus highlights the extent to which both compassionate awareness and action can
significantly support and enable people for whom grief is not only painful but so often lonely,
too. Rather than specifically focusing on an individual person’s own death, and the extent to
which loneliness may be an aspect of the dying process, however, this chapter predominantly
considers loneliness and grief – and indeed the loneliness of grief – from a wider, communities-
based perspective.

Sociocultural and Historical Contexts: Western Views on Grief and Loneliness

Love (as an expression of attachment) and loss (as an experience of separation), whether physical,
material or metaphysical, have evidently featured in human and hominid lives for millennia
(Berger et al., 2015). Just over a century ago, British attitudes and approaches to death, for
example, were markedly different from those of today: people generally died at home with their
loved ones at their bedside; the wake was open to the local community (often in the front room
where the deceased lay in an open coffin); and burial typically followed a few days later (Litten,
2002). With the exception of sudden and unexpected death, therefore, the process of dying was
rarely solitary.
The material culture associated with death and mourning mirrored social class, status and
gendered roles, with royalty and aristocracy setting the bar (Berridge, 2001). For the socially
elite and middle classes, the nineteenth century was characterized by strict mourning customs
and attire, demarcated not only by gender and social status but also by a socially constructed
hierarchy of loss. As child mortality was significantly higher than today, the mourning period
for a widow, for example, was markedly longer than for the death of a child (Houlbrooke,
2020). Such mourning customs also supported – and were influenced by – a flourishing industry
associated with all aspects of the mourning process. Wealthy Londoners, for example, were
often buried in vaults or catacombs in the newly landscaped cemeteries such as in Highgate,
often in elaborate triple-shelled coffins, whereas those with little or no money were usually
buried in crowded paupers’ graves funded by contributions from burial clubs (Litten, 2002;
Strange, 2003).
The early twentieth century in Britain witnessed dramatic change in the way mourning was
both regarded and practised such that the ‘visibility’ of death and mourning all but dissipated,
leading to a predominant period of sequestration during most of the twentieth century (Mellor,
1992; Mellor and Shilling, 1993). Although there is some evidence to suggest that late-
nineteenth-century publications were beginning to replace ‘the fear of death’ with an emphasis
on ‘the joy of life’ (Berridge, 2001: 9), the paradigm shift in mourning practices is ultimately
considered a response to the mass annihilation of lives during the First World War; the ensuing
in situ burials replaced by memorialization; and the call by government for those in mourning
to adopt normal attire and keep the nation’s morale (and conscription to the army) as high as
possible (Gorer, 1965). The need to adopt what has since become known as a ‘stiff upper lip’
(Capstick & Clegg, 2013) was surely compounded towards the end of the First World War by the
catastrophic loss of lives during the erroneously named Spanish Flu pandemic of 1918, which
not only caused 500 million deaths worldwide but also more locally required hurried burials in

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mass graves (Schoch-Spana, 2000). At around the same time, Freud’s seminal work, Mourning
and Melancholia (1917), proposed, in rather functionalist terms, that grief is (or should be) a
solitary process, requiring the grieving individual to ‘work at it’ to procure detachment from the
deceased. Criticized for pathologizing grief, and for basing his thesis on his work with a relatively
small number of psychiatric patients, Freud’s work nevertheless continues to influence Western
views of, and medical practices in, ‘complicated grief’ as an abnormal mental state (Parkes,
2006; Shear, 2010).
Ariès (1974: 81) considered the paradigm shift from relatively elaborate mourning to the
more sequestered, private (and lonelier) grief to be borne of modernity’s ‘displacement of the
site of death’ from home to hospital and to increased secularization, particularly in mainland
Britain rather than in continental Europe. In structuralist terms this might signify a transition for
both mortality and mourning from Nature to Culture (Lévi-Strauss, 1963; James, 2015), as with
Western constructs of childbirth (Kitzinger, 2012).

Grief in Western Late Modernity

Views and attitudes relating to the nature of bereavement, and with care of the dying, began
to change in the 1960s with the development of the five stages of grief model by Kübler-Ross
(1969, 2009). Although criticized more recently for implying that grief is formulaic and linear
(Corr, 1993; Parkes, 2013), it has nevertheless become an embedded model within Western
sociocultural consciousness and the public domain, and appears equally applicable to the dying
as well as the experiences of those grieving (Corr, 2019). In the 1990s, and in marked contrast to
Freud’s work on solitary grief and the need to detach, contemporary bereavement models suggest
that mourning comprises a ‘continuing bond’ with the deceased person which changes over time,
but for which there is no resolution or ‘closure’ (Klass et al., 1996) – and nor should there be.
Such a view resonates with, and reflects, key work on attachment and imprinting by Lorenz
(1935), developed further by Bowlby (1960a, 1960b) and Ainsworth (1978; Bretherton, 2013)
through their seminal works on attachment, separation and grief in infancy. In less than a century,
therefore, bereavement theories and models relating to attachment ranged from Freud’s (1917)
argument for the need to detach, to a recognition of the ways in which attachments naturally, and
perhaps necessarily, continue after someone has died.
Concurrent to the development of entirely new ways of understanding grief in the West, at
the wider sociocultural level grieving began to re-emerge from the private, sequestered domain
to the shared, public domain (Walter, 1994). In the context of loneliness, therefore, this may
enable grieving to be less solitary, even if grief (and loneliness) reside, and are experienced,
predominantly within the individual sphere. Knowing that others are going through something
similar can be of comfort during periods of private or solitary grief. Conversely, witnessing more
openly emotional displays of grief may feel alienating, and thus more lonely, to others.
There is a significant body of literature which suggests that the unprecedented public mourning
in 1997 for the death of Diana, Princess of Wales, effectively became a catalyst for suppressed,
personal grief in Britain (Biddle & Walter, 1998; Walter, 1999). More recent events in Poland
have evoked public expressions of grief which suggest similar changes. The death in 2005 of the
Polish pope, John Paul II, engendered a considerable outpouring of both public and private grief
in Poland, and there is substantive, predominantly Polish, literature, describing and analysing the
ensuing period of national mourning (Dziedzic, 2009, for example). Five years later, in 2010,

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the Smolensk air disaster resulted in the deaths of all ninety-six passengers on board, including
the Polish president, Lech Kaczyński, along with many other Polish dignitaries, ministers and
relatives of the Katyn Massacre victims. They had been travelling to pay tribute to the graves of
Poles executed by Soviet NKVD (People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs) in Katyn, Russia. It
has been suggested that the resulting wave of national grief and mourning has since contributed
to political division in Polish society through what many consider to be a form of emotional
leverage (Szeligowska, 2014).
Such examples illustrate what Walter (1994) considers late modernity’s ‘revival of death’ from
its previously sequestered, private domain, and its move to reclaim the concept of the ‘good death’
(Walter, 2003: 218). Grief now appears to reside more prominently in our shared social, material
and virtual landscapes (Maddrell, 2012), as evidenced by roadside memorials; individualized
burial and memorial sites and more hands-on ‘DIY’ funerals (West, 2013). In contrast to Freud’s
insistence that grief and grieving are, or should be, private and thus a potentially more lonely
experience, there are significant changes today which suggest far more naturalistic constructs
of grief and of dying are re-emerging. What happened in the twentieth century when Britain
witnessed a dramatic change in the way mourning was both regarded and practised is presently
happening in Poland and Eastern Europe.
The following section focuses on how loneliness at the end of life and following loss can be
experienced by many, particularly by those lacking effective support.

Loneliness and Grief

In the context of loneliness, and further to detailed analyses relating to loneliness in Chapter 1,
various theoretical insights concur that human grief is an emotional response to forms of loss,
particularly, but not exclusively, occurring when someone dies. Although this chapter’s focus is
predominantly on bereavement and loneliness when experienced by others after a significant
loss, it is important to recognize that both loneliness and grief can also be experienced by the
dying.
Death and dying come in many forms, of course, but when the process of dying is a more gradual
decline, as with terminal illness, for example, a significant range of emotions – including grief
and loneliness – can be felt. Stern (2021) identifies three dimensions of loneliness: separation; a
sense of rejection; and a sense of self-rejection. Since dying is essentially a transitional process
(Kalish, 2019), it also denotes a process of separation: from one’s life, loved ones, and from the
world.
Clearly the death of a significant other is frequently associated with a deep sense of missing
the deceased, and of feeling physically alone or ‘abandoned’, but the extent to which grief is
expressed or internalized is considered by anthropologists to vary considerably across time
and space (Engelke, 2019). In the Western context, the experience of loneliness is considered
highly subjective: an individual can be alone without feeling lonely, and can feel lonely even
in the company of others (Hawkley & Kocherginsky, 2018). Social relationships and support
are important for health and well-being (Litwin, 2018; Children’s Society, 2019). Kahn and
Antonucci’s (1980) ‘social convoy model’ describes patterns of changing social relationships
with respect to personal factors (such as age and gender) and situational factors (e.g. roles,
values, culture). This model highlights the increasing importance of the quality, rather than

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the quantity, of social and emotional contact. Events such as marriage, divorce, retirement and
bereavement often affect and effect the composition of social networks and the availability of
support. The death of a spouse appears, therefore, to shape many older adults’ social relationships
(King et al., 2020), and may also increase the risk of mortality for grieving individuals (Stroebe
et al., 2007). As such, loneliness is considered to be a significant Western public health challenge
(Holt-Lunstad, 2017), in that both loneliness and social isolation may shorten life expectancy
(Steptoe et al., 2013). In the Eastern European context, the transition to a more Western lifestyle
appears to have resulted in an increase in the experiences of both solitude and loneliness among
elderly people in Poland, as well as by family caregivers during the caring process and even more
after the death of the spouse (Krakowiak, 2020).
With respect to the somewhat functionalist constructs of ‘healthy’ grieving referred to earlier
in the chapter, which require grief to be ‘worked at’ in order to gain ‘acceptance’ and ‘closure’
(Bonanno & Papa, 2003), it is not difficult to consider the extent to which such expectations may
significantly challenge or potentially worsen the experience of grief for those feeling isolated
and/or lonely. Conversely, if well-meaning friends, relatives or colleagues recommend or suggest
coping mechanisms, grieving individuals may feel confused, compromised or lacking in agency
with respect to their own grief experience and perceived needs (Langer, 2010). Enabling people
to have agency is thus of significant importance (see also the section ‘Grief, loneliness and
children’, this chapter).
Contemporary constructs of bereavement also reflect significant differences – if not a binary
divide – relating to both theory and practice, with what might be classed as two distinct ‘camps’:
the medical model and the social model. Medical constructs of ‘typical’ grief trajectories
(Bonanno & Malgaroli, 2019) are defined by several diagnostic manuals with further signs and
symptoms provided for ‘abnormal’ or ‘complicated’ grief (Boelen et al., 2017). Such Western
constructs primarily reflect the dominance of both psychology and medicine in the field of
bereavement during the nineteenth century (Souza, 2017), though there is evidence to suggest
that a more patient-centred approach is being considered in psychotherapy (Moayedoddin
& Markowitz, 2015). In contrast, social constructs and models of bereavement are rooted in
anthropological and thanatological studies which see expressions and feelings of grief as natural
emotional responses – often culturally ‘framed’ – among humans and other animals (Anderson,
2020).

Complicated Grief

Sometimes an individual’s experiences of grief are so all-consuming over a prolonged period

that it severely affects not only their personal well-being but also their ability to function at
work or interpersonally. Complicated grief is thus seen as a mental health problem or illness.
Although some of the characteristic signs and symptoms are also common features of normal
grief, such as intense yearning, longing or emotional pain; frequent preoccupying thoughts and
memories of the deceased person; and a feeling of disbelief or an inability to accept the loss,
complicated grief develops over time and can lead to suicidal ideation (Szanto et al., 1997;
Shear, 2015).
Frequently – though not always – complicated grief can develop in the absence of support.
The old adage of ‘least said, soonest mended’ is still quite prevalent, including with bereaved

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children in schools (Potts, 2013: 95), and in the absence of emotional support both children
and adults’ complicated grief may only be ‘noticed’ when referrals are made to mental health
specialists. Readers wishing to explore or gain a deeper understanding of this relatively rare
mental health problem will no doubt find Complicated Grief, by Stroebe et al. (2013) very
helpful in this regard.

Grief, Loneliness and Adults – Including Losing a Partner

Loneliness towards the end of the life of a spouse, partner, family member or significant other
is often experienced during the final caregiving process, as is referred to as ‘anticipatory grief’.
More typically, a spouse/partner or adult child will become the main caregiver – either in the
home or within a clinical or residential care home setting. Not all elderly people have a family
carer available or nearby, however, which may significantly contribute to loneliness, especially
for those widowed. Conversely, there is a very real risk of social exclusion for family carers,
particularly if they are elderly, when they take on the responsibility of caring for a dying person
in a home setting (Krakowiak, 2020).
Although sudden death is deeply shocking and especially hard to make sense of, a slow,
lingering terminal illness can erode carer well-being day by day, and may have a significant
impact on other family members. During anticipatory grief one can experience sadness, anger,
frustration, desperation, anxiety, panic, insecurity, guilt, shame, love, isolation and depression.
Furthermore, many relatives and loved ones experience feelings of intense guilt from wishing
it would all be over soon. All the feelings and thoughts experienced at this time can be just as
intense and difficult as those following death (Taee & McNicoll, 2019).
Understandably, caring for the dying also increases awareness of one’s own mortality. This can
lead to a heightened level of death anxiety in some carers, and a reduced ability to plan for the
future. Furthermore, a systematic review of anticipatory grief studies questioned the concept that
anticipatory grief was an alleviator of carer grief in the period after death (Nielsen et al., 2017).
Therefore, adequate support for lonely family caregivers in end-of-life care is a key challenge
for health and social care communities. All attempts to mobilize social forces in every possible
dimension should be considered as important for reducing the stress and burden of family carers,
often left alone with the seriously ill and dying (Krakowiak, 2020).
After death occurs, work with families, respecting sociocultural diversity and assessing the
needs of adults experiencing bereavement are important aspects in bereavement support work.
Research on the experiences of bereaved carers identifies various factors seen to contribute to
a ‘good death’ for their loved ones (Holdsworth, 2015). For some carers, particularly if they are
well supported emotionally and in more practical terms, providing loving, end-of-life care can
actually lessen their own death anxiety and enable people to see dying and death as natural and
affirmative rites of passage.

Age, Lifespan and Grief

It may help to understand the different dynamics in the lifespan of couples and families
experiencing the loss of a partner identified both theoretically and in practical guides for carers
and people in mourning (Krakowiak, 2007). The death of a partner before the age of thirty has
an increased chance of being a death from unnatural causes (Wilson, 2018). If the deceased was

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part of a family, any children will be young, and the surviving partner will have the heartbreaking
task of explaining difficult events to the children or others in the family (Wilson, 2013). A study
of the financial implications of the death of a partner has shown that dealing with financial issues
occupied a considerable amount of time. Finances could take an immense emotional toll, adding
to the distress of the bereavement and loneliness of the partner in the face of economic changes
following a death (Corden et al., 2010). When loss occurs between the ages of thirty and forty, it
seems to be followed by an intense sense of disappointment and unfairness. The survivor finds
himself or herself grieving also for the life which the dead partner will never have. The distraught
parent watching the children’s suffering feels the drive to try to be both mother and father to them
(Wilson, 2018).
The death of a partner between forty and fifty typically also affects teenagers, and the surviving
parent may feel totally inadequate to cope alone. Over fifty, any children will have left home or
be studying in further education, so grief is compounded for the lone parent in the empty nest.
Bereaved people are often angry and bitter, and in this age group men and women would very
often like to be in another relationship eventually (Wilson, 2013). Despite increasing awareness
of the importance of sexuality for older adults, research rarely acknowledges mourning the loss
of sexual intimacy. Findings from the survey of 104 women, 55 years and older, revealed that a
large majority (72 per cent) anticipated missing sex with their partner and 67 per cent would want
to initiate a discussion about this. The important role for friends and professionals in confronting
this neglected issue of disenfranchised grief and loneliness of sexual bereavement has been
addressed (Radosh & Simkin, 2016).
Those losing a partner over sixty are often people who have just retired. This group is
potentially very vulnerable: growing social and geographical mobility may mean that children
and grandchildren live many miles away. Those aged seventy to eighty are typically a group
with failing health, where one of the couple has become the carer for the other. This puts a huge
amount of physical and emotional stress on them. The surviving partner finds themselves lonely
and perhaps in need of care, with failing mobility and cognitive ability (Wilson, 2013). People
from this age group are trapped between different worlds. Modernity and postmodernity are
fast changing social structures. Modernism affirms faith in progress, in the future, in science,
in expertise, with its emphasis on leaving the dead behind and therapy to help malfunctioning
individuals adjust. Late modernity entails new forms of social relationships and often first-hand
experience is valued over expert knowledge (Giddens, 1991). In this trend from modernity to late
modernity or postmodernism, the experience of grief, and the frameworks within which grief is
interpreted, are currently undergoing profound changes (Walter, 2007), often causing suffering
and loneliness of those rooted in the earlier forms of coping with death and bereavement.
At eighty plus, nowadays, many people are still active. Bereaved men and women still manage
to stay at home and have some degree of independence. It is often the loneliness, isolation and
lack of conversation with people that they report finding most difficult (Wilson, 2013). One
qualitative study of widowed ‘baby boomers’ who attended grief support groups revealed three
themes: (a) the importance of a support group as a safe haven coupled with the value of sharing a
similar loss; (b) challenges related to group support and (c) fractured individual and social selves.
Such insights provide us with the potential to recognize a ‘fractured self’ in widowhood, and thus
to meet the needs of, provide hope for, and empower widowed survivors in a modern landscape
(Hilliker, 2016).

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Ninety-plus people teach us that we should never stereotype or dismiss on age grounds. The
great example of Captain Tom Moore becoming a national hero in the UK at the age of ninety-
nine teaches more than many books. The widower, who was celebrated as the most successful
fundraiser for the NHS, has been confirmed by The Guinness Book of Records as inspirational for
people in the UK and internationally (Suggitt, 2020). Very often the problem is not with age, but
society’s attitude to age. The difficulties this age group face are loneliness and health concerns.
We cannot begin to imagine what it must be like to be bereaved of somebody with whom you
have shared a life for a significant period of time, and the crushing desolation that a loss can bring
(Wilson, 2013). A Swiss longitudinal study has brought evidence of the strong impact that the
loss of a loved one can have on the depressive symptoms of the elderly. On the subject of gender,
it failed to find any evidence of a ‘feminization of bereavement’ as applied to advanced old age,
but women, who often live longer, are more frequently the survivors and thus have to cope with
longer periods of bereavement (d’Epinay, Cavalli & Guillet, 2010).
People’s experiences of bereavement are clearly complex and varied. The elderly, however, are
more likely to experience multiple forms of loss such as the deaths of a spouse or partner; friends
and relatives. Similarly, other forms of loss common among the elderly include loss of roles, for
example, through retirement; loss of or a substantial reduction in income; and losses relating
to health, mobility or cognition – often within relatively short periods of time. Paradoxically,
perhaps, many older people may be more resilient, exhibiting effective coping strategies borne of
accrued life experiences (Krakowiak, 2007).
Having knowledge of the risk factors associated with loneliness may, therefore, be useful
in developing and applying intervention strategies and in identifying potentially vulnerable
individuals. A study by van Baarsen (2002) emphasizes how significant both self-esteem and
social support are in mitigating the experience of loneliness among bereaved elderly people.
Regardless of someone’s age, however, it is important to recognize that some bereaved people
will experience loneliness due to ‘disenfranchised grief’, defined by Doka (1989: 4) as
the grief that persons experience when they incur a loss that is not or cannot be openly
acknowledged, publicly mourned, or socially supported.
Doka further suggests that disenfranchisement can apply to recognized forms of loss, including
the death of a pet (Spain et al., 2019), and the more recently acknowledged forms of grief
experienced by babies and children separated from their mothers at or after birth (Verrier,
1993). Doka’s concept has been widely accepted by practitioners, educators and researchers in
the field of death, dying and bereavement, especially in validating the experiences of a broad
range of bereaved people (Corr, 1999; Piazza-Bonin et al., 2015; for example). Examples of
disenfranchised grief include death due to AIDS; suicide; infertility (McBain & Reeves, 2019)
perinatal death (especially miscarriage in the first trimester); elective abortion; the death of a
lover or ex-spouse; convicted criminals and prisoners; and so on. Those affected often perceive
a lack of recognition or empathy by others (Thompson & Doka, 2017), including within schools
and colleges (James, 2015; Pataky & Parent, 2018).
Disenfranchised grief is often further compounded in the workplace by policies which reflect a
supposed ‘hierarchy of grief’, and which purport to quantify bereavement in terms of the amount
of leave an employee is entitled to based on the ‘type’ of relative and an assumed degree of
closeness (Robson & Walter, 2013; Wilson et al., 2020). Consequently, disenfranchised grief may

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yield more intensified feelings due to the relative lack of empathic social, emotional and work-/
community-based support (Parkes & Prigerson, 2010). Given Walter’s (1994) thesis that late
modernity in the West is witnessing a ‘revival of death’, it seems we need also to complement this
with a revival of empathy, compassion and heightened grief awareness. A caring, compassionate
society ought, therefore, to appreciate that ‘healthy’ grief honours cherished relationships, and
that mourning is both natural and essential for those who are striving to live in productive and
meaningful ways in the aftermath of loss (Corr, 1999).

New Responses to Grief: Compassionate Communities

As detailed earlier, the death of a partner or close relative is generally a highly stressful
experience, associated with an irretrievable sense of loss coupled with the need to adapt or
rebuild a new identity. Grief is a process which predominantly manifests itself on two levels: first,
the individual level, relating to the personal experiences of the mourner; and second, the social
level, which relates to a series of behaviours and rituals associated with death and bereavement
in the community (Krakowiak, 2007). At the time of writing this chapter, the Covid-19 pandemic
is considered to have effected anticipatory, disenfranchised and complicated grief among many
owing to the nature of the disease and its impact, and the extent to which the caring role is
significantly constrained by infection control policies and practices (Wallace et al., 2020). It
remains to be seen whether or not the pandemic has also increased the prevalence of lonely forms
of grieving, especially in the context of the requirements to isolate and to ‘shield’, thus resulting
in periods of required separation.
The most coherent approach to bereavement support in many Western countries is provided
by palliative care services, which emphasize support for family carers before and after a person’s
death. Policies and guidelines on standards of care propose that support should be offered
according to the needs of both patients and their families (World Health Organization [WHO],
2007). In reality, though, the standards of palliative care support often differ from the guidelines
and may also relate to local and regional health budgets (Aoun et al., 2017), such that many
people still suffer alone within our societies and communities during periods of mourning and
bereavement.
As a response to that, the ‘Compassionate Communities’ bereavement support approach
has been developed to encourage people to support one another in order to reduce feelings of
isolation and to provide meaningful social and emotional interactions. Accordingly, this approach
is known to enhance the health and well-being of members of the local community across a range
of challenging situations, including for those experiencing loneliness in grief (Kellehear, 2013).
This approach arose from Kellehear’s (2005) concept of compassionate cities, the charter for
which recognizes that many people who live with life-threatening or life-limiting illness, along
with their caregivers and the bereaved, are commonly living in segmented social groups, forced
to experience lifestyles that are often socially hidden and disenfranchised from wider society
(Kellehear, 2005). Despite the aforementioned evidence for a ‘revival of death’ in late modernity
(Walter, 1994, 2020), it is important to hold sight of the extent to which some people’s lives
and grief remain sequestered (Mellor and Shilling, 1993). For those who do seek support in
their bereavement, research suggests it is predominantly with members of the family and/or with
friends (Benkel et al., 2009; Logan et al., 2018).

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The development of compassionate communities is also in response to the perceived care

needs among older people, as well as for the bereaved. Put simply, it is a call for social engagement
in matters to do with dying, death, loss and care; a movement towards the recognition that end-
of-life care is a societal and community-based responsibility (Kellehear, 2013). Rather than
building bereavement services around palliative care programmes, compassionate community-
based services ought, therefore, to be developed far more holistically and inclusively, ensuring
that professional care complements, rather than replaces, the care provided by any existing social
networks (Rumbold & Aoun, 2015).
Aoun et al. (2018: 1378) clarify these notions by suggesting:
[a] public health approach, as exemplified by compassionate communities policies and
practices, should be adopted to support the majority of bereaved people as much of this
support is already provided in informal and other community settings by a range of people
already involved in the everyday lives of those recently bereaved.
Continuity matters, and compassionate communities provide this in the midst of increasing
fragmentation characteristic of society in late modernity. Recent data collected from 140 family
caregivers, responding to questions regarding anticipatory grief, also emphasized the importance
of social networks for bereavement support (Breen et al., 2017).
As with the concept of disenfranchised grief discussed earlier, the bereaved often report feeling
judged if they are not grieving the ‘right way’, but also that being given information and being
encouraged to talk can be beneficial (Breen & O’Connor, 2011). Caregivers who have experienced
similar losses tend to be extremely willing to provide pertinent, empathic advice for others in similar
situations, though it is important for advice to be given and received as something to consider, rather
than obligatory: encouraging and supporting agency is paramount (James, 2015). Experiential
knowledge can likewise be harnessed to (a) inform progress; and (b) effect the development of
bereavement care strategies for the good of the local community (Breen et al., 2017).

Grief, Loneliness and Children

Western perceptions by adults of children and childhood have varied significantly throughout
history. Contemporary views of childhood also vary, from rights-enabling to over-protective
and ‘Disneyfying’ (Giroux, 1994). By viewing children and childhood as potentially vulnerable,
coupled with the predominance of twentieth-century developmentalist notions of children’s
cognitive and intellectual capabilities, it is not uncommon for some adults to view children as
incapable of voicing or even knowing their own feelings or needs (Lansdown, 2011; Oswell,
2013) – yet recent studies and projects which actively empower children and young people’s
voices unquestionably demonstrate that they have far clearer understandings of what adversely
affects their well-being, and what promotes it (Children’s Society, 2019). Childhood can thus
be a period of significant loneliness for those who feel alienated or voiceless. As with adults,
children and young people feel abandoned in their grief – not just by the person who has died,
but commonly by those around them who may not be recognizing or supporting their needs
(Child Bereavement UK [CBUK], 2018). Given that grief is experienced when an attachment is
severed, and that separation and loneliness are inherently linked (Stern, 2021), it is by no means
unreasonable to assume, therefore, that lonely aspects of grief may be commonly experienced by
children – just as loneliness is (Weeks and Asher, 2012).

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Clearly there is insufficient scope within this chapter to explore such concepts in depth; it
is nevertheless appropriate to keep in mind other comparatively voiceless and marginalized
people in society: just as the elderly or infirm may experience loneliness, as discussed earlier, so
potentially are those from all age groups who are Black or from minority ethnic backgrounds;
are women or girls; have disabilities; or who identify as LGBTQ+, for example. In the spirit of
advocating a truly human-centred, inclusive narrative, therefore, this section on children – who
are in so many ways marginalized or voiceless – is intended to highlight a real concern relating to
bereaved children’s needs and experiences, and the necessity for adults to become more cognizant
of the importance of empowering children and young people to have agency.
Due to the ethical sensitivities associated with conducting research with groups perceived
to be more vulnerable, there is a relative paucity of data reflecting bereaved children’s voices
(James, 2015). Emergent data from child bereavement charities, coupled with the few
available studies conducted with bereaved children, highlight the extent to which support
and comfort need to be child-centred, rather than adult-centric (Cranwell, 2007; Stokes,
2009; CBUK, 2018). As it is commonplace for grieving children to ‘puddle-jump’ – that is to
oscillate between periods of quiet aloneness and sadness (or loneliness, even), and periods of
social and more carefree activity – children are potentially vulnerable to being misunderstood
by adults who may expect children’s grieving behaviours to be more consistent and akin to
their own (James, 2012; Rawstrone, 2017; CBUK, 2018a, 2018b). Furthermore, adults often
have a tendency, in good faith, to organize activities or to make suggestions for grieving
children, which may not be right for that particular child at that particular time. As referred
to previously, some adults in schools continue to advocate a ‘least said, soonest mended’
approach to child bereavement (Potts, 2013: 95). Decisions relating to whether or not a child
should attend a funeral, for example, are frequently made based on adult-centric views on
what is best for the child, if not for the adults (Holland, 2003), and whether or not a child
is capable of ‘understanding’ it. Despite the ‘revival of death’ in late modernity discussed
previously (Walter, 1994), which in part is evidenced by the relative surge in open discussions
about death and dying, the development of ‘Death Cafés’ and the natural death movement
(Lofland, 2019), discussions about death and proactive death education generally exclude
children (James, 2012, 2015) – in part because it is assumed it will lead to death anxiety. In
marked contrast, anthropological studies of children in non-Western communities reveal the
wholly inclusive ways in which children of all ages actively observe and participate in issues
relating to and ritualizing death, such that the need for death education would be anathema.
The West, it seems, has much to learn in this regard.
Building on the literature relating to children’s rights and the child’s voice (Messiou,
2002; Adderley et al., 2015; Jones and Welch, 2018), therefore, it is particularly salient – if
not imperative – for grieving children in Western societies to have agency such that they are
enabled to make their own decisions and choices (and to change them); to voice their needs
and access support; and effectively to be in control of their own grief journeys and continuing
bonds. A simple, but poignant, example of this can be illustrated from a study by James (2015)
on bereavement and death education in primary schools: following the death of the mother of
two primary school-aged boys, which occurred just before the start of the school day, their father
asked both boys if they wanted to attend school or to stay at home. The younger sibling chose to
remain at home with Dad, while the older sibling (let us call him Joshua) wanted to attend school.

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The headteacher described his conversation with Joshua’s class teacher just before the bell rang
for lessons to begin:
The teacher said, ‘well I think we need to tell the class.’ I said, ‘well let’s put the child in control
here; let’s find out . . . [he may not want] a big announcement’. (From James, 2015: 157)
The headteacher’s subsequent message to Joshua was:
You’re in control, we’re here for you. If you want to be in your class and not talk about it, we’ll
do that for you. If you need at any point to come out and come and talk to us, we’re here for
you. (‘HT2’, cited in James, 2015: 157)
A similar example of facilitating child agency, from a different participating primary school,
highlights clearly the extent to which children’s needs or desires can be very individual:
We’ve had a bereavement this week, actually, and that little boy wanted to tell all of his class,
tell his teacher and then come in here [to the school’s nurture room] and tell me, [and] that’s
fine. (‘NTP9’, cited in James, 2015: 157–8)
Giving children agency can also require adults (or indeed older young people) to empower
children’s voices to be actively listened to, but also for their voices and thoughts to be uninterrupted
and not pre-empted. A lovely example of this was shared during an informal discussion with a
school counsellor who had been chatting with an eight-year-old girl (let’s call her ‘Rosie’) about
her grandmother’s recent death, the transcript for which is as follows:
Counsellor: I’m really sorry to hear about your Nana, Rosie. Where do you think she is now?
Rosie: [smiles and points to the ceiling]
Counsellor: Oh! Is she on the ceiling?
Rosie: [giggles, shakes her head and points upwards again]
Counsellor: Oh, silly me: she’s in the classroom upstairs!
Rosie: [more giggles, head-shaking and emphatic gestures upwards. . .]
Counsellor: I’ve got it: she’s on the roof!
This banter continued in a similar vein, with more and more giggles from Rosie, but it is tempting
to assume that she was trying to indicate that her Nana was in heaven, or that she was a ‘star in the
sky’. The counsellor, however, let the story unfold, without interrupting or trying to feed words or
ideas to Rosie until such time that she found her voice. Eventually it transpired that Nana was buried
‘up’ in Scotland. Her counsellor – clearly very experienced in relating to children and in giving them
agency – knew the benefits of letting Rosie lead the conversation, though even he was unable to
anticipate the ending. But it is highly likely that many adults having a similar conversation with a
child would be tempted to take the lead, especially if the child is perhaps a little shy, thus shifting the
agency and power to the adult, and possibly also resulting in the introduction of ideas that may be
confusing or at odds with the child’s understanding or beliefs. In terms of lonely dimensions of grief or
grieving, therefore, children who lack agency or empathic support may feel more isolated and lonely
in their grief. If this results in quiet or withdrawn behaviour, the child’s needs and emotions may be
particularly difficult to identify or meet.
Schools have a significant role to play in supporting bereaved children, and in liaising with
parents/carers and any outside agencies (Holland, 2008, 2016; CBUK, 2018b). Given the sensitive

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nature of supporting bereaved children, and the extent to which many adults may lack confidence
in this area, it is extremely important for whole school training in loss and bereavement awareness
and support to underpin and inform provision. Specific courses and resources are generally
available throughout Europe and North America, but for readers interested in accessing free
resources and in gaining an insight into child bereavement support provision, Child Bereavement
UK1 is one such charity exemplifying contemporary approaches and expertise.
Staff trained in supporting children’s loss and bereavement are also able to advise parents on how
to invite, and answer, their children’s questions, and on the avoidance of euphemisms which may be
taken literally by children, and which can also contribute to ‘magical thinking’ (Mallon, 2018). It may,
for example, be comforting to be told that ‘Nana is a star in the sky’, but – paradoxically – children
are known to cope far better with clear, honest explanations. One of the best examples of explaining
death to very young children is in Bruna’s (2006) Miffy book, Dear Grandma Bunny. Set in simple
rhyming language, with poignant line drawings, the story outlines Miffy’s experiences when Grandma
Bunny dies, and of seeing her first in her bed, and then in her coffin: ‘Miffy knows she isn’t sleeping
/ and she isn’t breathing any more’ (Bruna, 2006: 4). After the funeral, Miffy takes flowers and plants
to her grandmother’s grave, thus facilitating her continuing bond with Grandma Bunny, and providing
a form of proactive self-comfort. Supporting children’s grief tends to be reactive, rather than proactive
(Holland, 2003) – the view being that it is better to protect children from death until it is unavoidably
encountered. Not surprisingly, therefore, child bereavement theorists and practitioners advocate the
importance of naturally enabling children to learn about and openly question what death and dying are
(or may be) – both at home and in schools.

Conclusions and Recommendations

This chapter has focused on a range of issues and constructs relating to loneliness and bereavement. By
considering some of the socio-historical contexts which underpin contemporary views and practices,
particularly in Britain and Poland, we propose that when grieving is constrained in various ways, a
culture of loneliness, or ‘mortality loneliness’, can develop. It remains to be seen the extent to which
the Covid-19 pandemic may have exacerbated loneliness, but even at the beginning of periods of
social lockdown, communities generally characterized by relative anonymity appear to have adapted
quickly to become compassionate communities (see Douglas, 2020, for example).
Death remains both ubiquitous and elusive – the greatest mystery of all. But as social and
emotional beings, with both a capacity and need for meaningful interpersonal attachments, it is
imperative that we continue to recognize the ways loneliness can affect grief, and vice versa. Since
loneliness may also been described as an emotion of absence, or of love that is now absent (Stern,
2021), grief and loneliness appear to be natural responses to our human capacity for love. But
here’s the rub: our capacity to offer compassionate support to those experiencing lonely forms of
grief is significantly constrained and challenged by the predominant zeitgeist of socio-economic
individualism. We need, therefore, to recognize and reclaim our innate ability to be community-
minded. Kellehear’s concepts of compassionate cities (2005) and compassionate communities
(2013), coupled with the need for people of all ages and circumstances to be afforded agency, are
thus of paramount significance. Similarly, recognizing that grieving is natural and often complex,
rather than a solitary process aimed at resolution (Freud, 1917), enables us to be situated alongside
the person in grief: empathically, reflexively and with integrity.

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Lifelong Learning of Aloneness

Julian Stern

Introduction

If a person’s life is characterized by the ebb and flow of togetherness (as described in Chapter 1),
then this is not experienced passively. People actively learn from all the positive and negative
experiences of togetherness and of aloneness. By ‘learn’, I do not wish to sound absurdly
optimistic, suggesting that people can always gain from painful experiences. Experience of
persistent loneliness may teach us that we have little worth; experience of being trapped in an
abusive relationship may teach us despair. Consider these examples:

●● A baby can learn to cope with separation from a carer. The lesson may lead to independence,
or may lead to anger.
●● An adolescent can learn the power of silence. This may encourage a strong sense of self, or
it may lead to withdrawal into a lonely isolation.
●● An adult can learn from the loneliness of moving to a new city, and it may lead to increased
social activity, or to alienation.
●● An older person can learn from bereavement to make the most of every moment, or to
dwell in the past.

Learning continues throughout a life: learning is, in Hanks’s words, ‘a way of being in the social
world’, and not, or not simply ‘a way of coming to know about it’ (Hanks, in Lave & Wenger,
1991: 24). This chapter considers how solitude, silence and loneliness come and go throughout
our lives, and are learned – or lead to other forms of learning – that are important (in positive
or negative ways) to what it means to be a person. Such learning of aloneness is as important to
those living in close-knit communities (and to those who see social and communal structures as
central to their philosophies) as it is to those who live alone (and to those whose social theories
focus on individuals and individualism).
This chapter explores the learning of personhood through aloneness and the learning of
aloneness throughout life. It draws on the research presented throughout this Handbook as well
as other sources, to see how aloneness sits at the centre of so much of lifelong learning. In recent
years there has been a massive increase in research and popular books on various aspects of
aloneness, and this growing literature helped drive the creation of this Handbook. Researchers
have been able to link loneliness, isolation and poor health (Cacioppo & Patrick, 2008), and to
The Bloomsbury Handbook of Solitude, Silence and Loneliness

link healthy solitude and silence and good health (Moustakas & Moustakas, 2004). There have
been research guides to loneliness (Weiss, 1973), to silence (Hägg & Kristiansen, 2012) and to
solitude (Storr, 1988), and there have been separate guides from the perspective of psychology
(Margalit, 2010; Coplan & Bowker, 2014), public health (Hammond, 2018), education (Stern,
2014; Stern & Wałejko, 2020) and philosophy (Mijuskovic, 2012; Domeracki, 2018). Political
moves to appoint a ‘minister for loneliness’ in the UK (i Newspaper, 2018) and Australia
(Wahlquist, 2018) indicate the high level of social concern. But the various fields and disciplines
are rarely brought together. This Handbook, therefore, presents research based in schools and
higher education (Chapters 3, 4, 15, 16), psychology and therapy (Chapters 11, 12, 18, 20, 21),
and care (Chapters 23, 24, 25). The Handbook also brings together disciplines, from philosophy
and religious studies (Chapters 1, 2, 9, 10, 17, 22), through historical and cultural studies
(Chapters 5, 8, 13), to business studies (Chapter 6), politics (Chapter 7) and languages/linguistics
(Chapters 14, 23). In the current chapter, the work is revisited through the central concept of
personhood and the approach to understanding the world known as personalism. Following
accounts of personalism and the learning of aloneness at all ages, these ideas are applied across
the spectrum of accounts of people’s lifelong learning, from communal to individualist accounts.

Personalism and Aloneness

Personalism is ‘a philosophical and political movement [that] is antagonistic to both individualism

and collectivism and argues for a deeply relational view of the self’ (Fielding & Moss, 2011:
48). An early advocate, Mounier, similarly described personalism as a way that avoids the hard
individualism of isolated beings and the hard collectivism of merely being part of a larger
organization. ‘To exist is to say Yes, it is acceptance and membership’, he notes, and ‘[y]et always
to assent and never to refuse is to sink in a quicksand’ (Mounier, 1952: 47). Hence, ‘[t]o exist
personally means also, and not seldom, knowing how to say no, to protest, to break away’
(Mounier, 1952: 47). It is this combination of joining and breaking away that makes personalism
such an insightful approach to the role of aloneness in communal and social contexts.
Personalism is not a single theory or philosophy of personhood, but a movement (as quoted
earlier), and a way of directing people’s attention to personhood. For Rauch, Mounier’s personalism
is more of a ‘pedagogy’ than a single theory of persons. Mounier, he says, can better be seen as
‘a teacher . . . [rather than as] an academic philosopher’ (Rauch in Mounier, 1952: ix). People
described as personalists have been influential in religious, educational, psychological, political
and philosophical disciplines. Martin Luther King Jr, Karol Wojtyla and Michael Polanyi are
described as personalists (Beauregard & Smith, 2016: 9), as are the philosopher Macmurray
(Stern, 2012) and the personal construct psychologist Salmon (1988). All have been interested in
lifelong learning, in different ways. It is the ways in which personalism addresses individualism
and collectivism, and the ways in which it is broadly educational, that are at the centre of this
account of aloneness. Yet there is little in the personalist literature that describes positive forms of
solitude. I have argued elsewhere how two philosophers described as personalist, Macmurray and
Buber, are ‘missing’ solitude from their accounts (Stern, 2018). Like that account, this chapter
attempts to draw on personalist accounts to explore different forms of aloneness in distinctive
ways – recognizing the individualist and communal accounts well represented in this Handbook,
and starting from the phrase ‘alone together’. The phrase was used as the title of Turkle’s influential

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book on the lack of close online relationships, as ‘[t]he ties we form through the Internet are not,
in the end, the ties that bind’, although ‘they are ties that preoccupy’ (Turkle, 2011: 280). Half
a century earlier, Macmurray used the same phrase in a description of how important personal
relations are to each of us.
Macmurray describes personal relationships – in contrast to other kinds of relationships
including functional social relationships – as characterized by irreplaceability.
Our personal relations . . . are unique. As husbands or wives, as parents, as brothers, or as
friends, we are related as persons in our own right: and we are not replaceable. If I lose a
friend I lose part of my own life. This is not a mere poetic metaphor. For we are what we are
through our intercourse with others; and we can be ourselves only in relation to our fellows.
(Macmurray, 2004: 169, first published in 1956)
Such personal relationships, in turn, make for community of a particular kind, in which people
treat each other as ends in themselves, rather than (primarily) as means to further ends. Personal
relations are unique, therefore, and are also direct.
We cannot be related personally to people we do not know. We must meet; we must communicate
with one another; we must, it would seem, be alone together. (Macmurray, 2004: 169, first
published in 1956)
To be in a personal relationship and therefore to be in a community, this suggests, has to be a
matter of direct meeting rather than, for example, having common beliefs or membership of a
common organization. We must be ‘alone together’. This may mean we must at least attempt
to be together in personal relationships notwithstanding our fundamental ‘aloneness’. Such an
interpretation echoes his biographer’s account of Macmurray’s post-1945 sense of regret that ‘left
him, in a deep part of himself – and despite his fabulously good humour and generosity of spirit –
locked in a certain unrelievable loneliness’ as he ‘was banished by historical circumstances from
his natural milieu, a fish out of water, an artist without a culture, a believer with no community’
(Costello, 2002: 292). Yet there is another interpretation of Macmurray’s phrase. Perhaps there is
a sense in which he means that we can be together (in a personal relationship with others) even
when we are alone, as the personal relationships (our ‘togethernesses’) themselves make us the
persons we are, even when alone. The first, more pessimistic, interpretation of Macmurray’s
‘alone together’ reflects the later views of Turkle (at least with respect to online relationships)
and those of contributors to this volume, such as Mijuskovic (Chapter 16) and Domeracki
(Chapter 1) (with respect to all of life). The second, more optimistic, interpretation of ‘alone
together’ reflects a more communal approach to life, such as those described in this volume by
James and Krakowiak (Chapter 23). Macmurray’s ambiguity helps bridge these traditions.
Personalism grapples with what makes a ‘person’, and this is not always the same as what
makes a ‘human being’. There are many positions represented in this Handbook, but in the
current chapter, ‘person’ is used rather than ‘human being’, reflecting a sense of personhood that
may not exactly coincide with humanity. That is, a non-human animal (Morton, 2017), or even
plants and non-animate beings, might have elements of personhood. Separating ‘personhood’ and
‘humanity’ (and ‘humanism’) is partly derived from philosophical personalism (Burgos, 2018),
as personalists generally assert personhood as distinct from the biological category to which
human beings belong. (A number of important personalists were – and are – religious writers who

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attribute personhood to God or gods.) But the distinction between personhood and humanity is
also derived from various forms of transhumanism and critical posthumanism (Haraway, 2004;
Herbrechter, 2013; Nayar, 2018), which argue for the blurring of the boundaries of humanity, and
deep ecology (Naess, 2008), which argues for the ethical or political significance of different
beings and for at least an ‘expanding circle’ (Singer, 2011) of ethical significance beyond
humanity. An example of the challenge of understanding the aloneness of persons, in a ‘personal
world’ (i.e. a world in which personhood might be ascribed to non-human entities), is the
relationship of persons to what is called nature. Many accounts of solitude in nature (as Fulford
describes in Chapter 4) test what is meant by solitude. Being apart from other human beings can
enable being in a more direct relationship with ‘nature’, a mountain (in the account of Shepherd,
2011), a daffodil (Wordsworth, 1994: 287), a dog (Koller, 1990), or all the teeming life of Walden
Pond (Thoreau, 2006). This is one of the reasons that some personalists may ‘miss’ solitude, as it
is so hard to achieve while maintaining a broad sense of personhood.
Buber describes the difference between being an ‘individual’ and a ‘person’, attempting to
distinguish his views from those of his conversational partner, the psychotherapist Carl Rogers.
Being an ‘individual’ means being unique, but ‘a person . . . is an individual living really with the
world’ (Buber, 1998: 174).
And with the world, I don’t mean in the world – just in real contact, in real reciprocity with the
world in all the points in which the world can meet man. I don’t say only with man, because
sometimes we meet the world in other shapes than in that of man. But this is what I would call
a person and if I may say expressly Yes and No to certain phenomena, I’m against individuals
and for persons. (Buber, 1998: 174)
Buber’s personalism, like that of Macmurray, bridges the traditions of more individualist
approaches (which he ascribes to Rogers) and more communal or in some cases collectivist
approaches: it is a bridge and not a simple rejection. Understanding different forms of aloneness
is illuminated by such a philosophy. However, it is worth considering the whole spectrum of
theories in order to explore the lifelong learning of aloneness.

Learning Aloneness

Aloneness and togetherness are experienced differently at different life stages, as people learn
and develop over time. Infancy is described by developmental psychologists such as Bowlby in
terms of the ‘making and breaking of affectional bonds’ (Bowlby, 2005, title) and by Winnicott
in terms of the child’s transition from being ‘merged’ with the carer to a healthy ‘separation’
(Winnicott, 1964: 168) – healthy if the child is confident of the carer’s return. Both recognized
the ambivalence in separation and togetherness as related to the ambivalence of guilt (recognition
of one’s own wrongdoing) and more broadly of love and hate (which may be directed at the
same object). In adolescence and emerging adulthood, the separation and togetherness is more
comprehensive, one might say, with adolescents often fighting against their family ties (while
usually remaining in the family) and emerging adults often leaving home and creating new
families – described by Erikson as typically involving a contest between intimacy (and solidarity)
and isolation (Erikson, 1980: 178).
Building on the work of Winnicott, Galanaki (2005) explains how children from a very early
age learn not only to be alone, without a carer, but also to be alone while with another person.

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Aloneness as a ‘state of communicative rather than physical isolation’ (Galanaki, 2005: 128) is
gradually learned in the early years of life as a way to ‘simply exist’, without feeling the need to
communicate or engage. This is an important stage in the development of personhood, she says,
and it can be experienced positively, as solitude, or negatively, as loneliness. By the time children
reach school age, they are learning from a wider range of adults and from friends. Or, rather,
they are learning friendship. Friendship is typically developed alongside a sense of ‘choice’ and
‘freedom’. As Hey describes it, friendship is the ‘first practice of the “reflexive” self’ and is
‘lived by . . . young people as an ontology and epistemology of the self through the “other”’
(Hey, 2002: 239). Hey recognizes that this choice brings with it the choice to break friendships,
and children’s ‘making and breaking of relationships, and the ways they use these to distinguish
between self and Other’ (Epstein, 2002: 149) leads to a consideration of learning the ontology
of aloneness. Ollie, aged eight, describes loneliness as experienced ‘When I wen’t to the part
[park] I when’t whith some of my friends and they ran away’ (in Stern, 2014: 22). The breaking of
friendship is one of the most common routes into loneliness, and the absence of friends can also
be associated with learning healthy forms of solitude. Within schools, opportunities for solitude
are rare yet much sought, by all the children researched in my own project on the topic (Stern,
2014). In this Handbook, Lees (Chapter 2) provides a fascinating count of how the learning in
school should include learning solitude, as well as learning in solitude and silence (Lees, 2012).
Cleveland (Chapter 10) provides a therapeutic account of learning silence. As all these authors
stress, children and young people are agentic in their learning of aloneness: they have a say
in the processes, even if they do not have complete control. Bosacki (Chapter 11) provides an
account of adolescents’ use of silence: the increasing agency of adolescents is what allows them
to separate from the families or households to which they still belong.
Adult separation and togetherness are experienced and learned in the making of new families
(with young parents, especially after moving house, often reported as the loneliest of age-groups,
Weiss, 1973), and in work. Historically, it has been the influence of industrial work, more than
family life, on aloneness (in various forms) that has interested researchers. Nineteenth-century
sociologists (among many others) described the experience of industrial work in terms of
alienation or anomie in contrast to togetherness in community/communism or teamwork (Marx,
1964; Marx & Engels, 1970; Durkheim, 1952, 1973; Tönnies, 2001). They provide contrasting
views of the value or harm of separation and of togetherness. Littman‑Ovadia writes of the
‘balanced’ adult life made up of ‘solitary doing, communal doing, solitary being, and communal
being’ (Littman‑Ovadia, 2019: 1953). Weiss claims that
[s]ociologists have given a great deal of attention to ‘alienation,’ by which most mean
something like the social or psychological estrangement of an individual from an activity or
social form with which he is nevertheless at least nominally associated . . . [t]here seems to
be very little overlap between the phenomena considered in discussions of alienation and the
experience of loneliness. (Weiss, 1973: 4, but see Stern, 2021)
However, this is in part a matter of scale (as those sociologists describing alienation tended to
study the macro- rather than micro-level) and in part a matter of discipline. The emotion of
loneliness makes more of an appearance in literature and the arts (Stern, in Chapter 7) than it does
in sociological and even psychological research until the late twentieth century. There are some
studies of workplace loneliness and connectedness (Stern, 2013b; Stern & Buchanan, 2020).

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The work of Pirrie and Fang on the important role of the ‘quiet professional’ (Chapter 15) and
Weir (Chapter 5) complements accounts by Cain (2012), Whittaker (2015) and Rufus (2003),
all of whom write normative studies of workplace solitude as a healthy (or at times healthy)
alternative to modern economic forms of constant enforced sociability. How adults can or should
experience positive forms of aloneness in homes or workplaces, and how they can or should
avoid or mitigate negative forms of aloneness, can be described as learning processes – without
avoiding the political and economic dimensions of the experiences. Since 2020, there has been
much re-learning of adult aloneness in the workplace and home (which may be the same place),
as a result of the lockdown responses to the Covid-19 pandemic. Dubas (Chapter 19) provides a
superb account of learning in adulthood that occurs through what she describes as an ‘oscillation’
between aloneness and togetherness.
Into old age, the experience of aloneness is often of a loss of connection and loss of purpose
– as a result of a loss of paid work, loss of family (through moving away and through death), and
loss of position in society. And yet, despite popular views of old age as a lonely period of life
in contemporary society, it appears to be a time when loneliness rates are not particularly high.
There are problems of social isolation – for example as a result of lack of cheap or available
transport – but this is not, it seems, accompanied by more loneliness. As Townsend describes
it, ‘[t]o be socially isolated is to have few contacts with family and community; to be lonely is
to have an unwelcome feeling of lack or loss of companionship . . . one is objective, the other
subjective, and, as we shall see, the two do not coincide’ (Townsend, in Weiss, 1973: 175). In
a major study of old age, de Beauvoir also notes the contrast between old age as ‘seen from
without’ (de Beauvoir, 1972: 21) and old age as ‘being-in-the-world’ (de Beauvoir, 1972: 315).
She describes the ‘discovery and assumption’ of old age (de Beauvoir, 1972: 315) and in this
way stresses how old age, its isolation and its sometimes tenuous connectedness are created
and then learned in particular cultures and historical periods. Within this Handbook, there is
more on old age in Part III on loneliness than in the other parts, perhaps reflecting – while also
going beyond – the stereotype of lonely old age. Chinese traditions of ageing have not been so
lonely, so the account by Wong (Chapter 8) is a good example of self-development in solitude
continuing throughout a life into ‘sagehood’, which is positively associated with old age. The
accounts of Wray (Chapter 21) on the loneliness of dementia, and of Iwański (Chapter 22)
on the loneliness associated with the elderly and with those who care for them, take us into
experiences newly learned (such as living alone or living in care homes), and the experience at
times of ‘unlearning’ (through forgetting or losing skills or executive functions), characteristic
of many of us in old age. Yet even when facing one’s own death or the death of someone close
(James and Krakowiak, Chapter 23), there is a tension between the sense of the loneliness of
dying and death, and the possibility of having a ‘good death’ that helps develop the possibility
of continuing bonds.
In all these accounts of the lifelong learning of aloneness, are there different patterns
represented in those descriptions rooted in more communal and in more individualist approaches
to aloneness? Many of the more communal accounts are historically specific – showing
differences between different times or different cultures. From the famously historicist account
of childhood by Ariès (1996), through the historicism of adults at work in the sociology of Marx
(Marx & Engels, 1970), to the historicism of de Beauvoir (1972) on old age, the life course of
connection and separation is described as mutable and as subjective as well as objective and

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related to particular historical and cultural traditions. However, other authors stress more universal
psychological phenomena or philosophical interpretations of persons in society. Solitude, silence
and loneliness in more community-oriented traditions and more individualistic traditions should
both be noted. Personalism is a way of bridging many, if not all, of these varied approaches. And
so it is the range of views, from communal to individualist, historicist to universal, that is the
topic of the following sections.

Communal Aloneness
For some community-oriented writers, solitude is a challenge and can even be seen as pathological.
A good example of aloneness described by a communally oriented theorist is provided by
Csikszentmihalyi (2002), in a book on ‘flow’ which is often read as celebrating solitudinous
concentration. ‘Of the things that frighten us’, he says, ‘the fear of being left out of the flow of
human interaction is certainly one of the worst’ and ‘only in the company of other people do we
feel complete’ (Csikszentmihalyi, 2002: 165). He continues, in a passage that may be intended as
more rhetorical than empirical:
The density of human contacts that great cities afford is like a soothing balm; people in such
centers relish it even when the interactions it provides may be unpleasant or dangerous. The
crowds streaming along Fifth Avenue may contain an abundance of muggers and weirdos;
nevertheless, they are exciting and reassuring. Everyone feels more alive when surrounded
with other people. (Csikszentmihalyi, 2002: 165)
Of course, Csikszentmihalyi recognized the ‘long tradition of wisdom warning us that “Hell
is other people”’ and the idea that ‘[other] people cause both the best and the worst times’
(Csikszentmihalyi, 2002: 165). Yet his conclusion is that ‘flow’ can rarely be achieved, and that
the solitude needed is in a sense contrary to human nature – as ‘[t]here is no question that we are
social animals’ (Csikszentmihalyi, 2002: 165).
‘Whosoever is delighted in solitude,’ goes the old saying that Francis Bacon repeated, ‘is
either a wild beast or a god.’ One does not actually have to be a god, but it is true that to
enjoy being alone a person must build his own mental routines, so that he [sic] can achieve
flow without the supports of civilized life – without other people, without jobs, TV, theaters,
restaurants, or libraries to help channel his attention. (Csikszentmihalyi, 2002: 173, and see
also Chapter 13 of this Handbook)
Given the ambiguity of personhood, described earlier in this chapter, it is worth saying once again
that what counts as the ‘community’, and therefore what counts as separation from community, may
be interpreted in many different ways. Fulford (Chapter 4) describes solitude in order to engage with
‘nature’ (sometimes, tellingly, referred to as ‘communing’ with nature) and Simpson (Chapter 9)
describes solitudinous attempts to engage with God or gods. Our whole universe may be described
as a single community, as in the deep ecology of Naess (2008), or as a single community and in
some senses as a single organism in the Gaia theory of Lovelock (2000). In such models, solitude is
entirely relative – such as solitude from people, or solitude in order to get in touch with community.
Those senses of solitude, and of community, are certainly rich in their educational implications.
Nevertheless, there are many writers who are community-oriented and who see solitude and silence
as either problematic or at best a ‘rest’ in order to be able to return to the more ‘normal’ communality.

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Loneliness in such accounts is often seen as precisely the absence of the necessary belonging to
community. Peterson contrasts ‘Loneliness/Avoidance of commitment’ with ‘Intimacy’, describing
loneliness as a ‘disorder of love’, in his categorization of strengths and their opposites (Peterson, in
Csikszentmihalyi & Csikszentmihalyi, 2006: 45). Peterson’s model seems even more inimical than
that of Csikszentmihalyi to positive versions of ‘solitude’ or ‘silence’. Yet there are many community-
oriented theories that give a much bigger role to ‘good’ aloneness. Lantieri describes ‘schools with
spirit’ in which ‘[t]here would be places and time for silence and stillness, to help us face the chaos
and complexity of school life yet stay in touch with inner truth and the web of interconnectedness’
(Lantieri, 2001: 9). Here, silence and stillness are intended not as an avoidance of connection but
as a way to ‘stay in touch’ with ‘the web of interconnectedness’. In a similar approach, also based
in schools, Kessler writes of the ‘seven gateways to the soul in education’ which include ‘silence
and stillness’ (Kessler, 2000: 36). Silence is a ‘respite from the tyranny of “busyness” and noise’
(Kessler, 2000: 17) and a ‘tool for cultivating rest and renewal’ (Kessler, 2000: 36). ‘Like silence’,
she says, ‘solitude evokes fear in some young people’ especially because ‘people in authority’ use it
as punishment, ‘but is a rare solace for most’ (Kessler, 2000: 49). All the young respondents (aged
seven to eight, or twelve to thirteen) in my own research (Stern, 2014) expressed a wish for more
opportunities for solitude in school: this was not just wanted by the more contemplative or the more
introverted respondents.

Individualist Aloneness
More individually oriented writers, likewise, have a whole range of attitudes to the different forms
of separation. Hobbes (1968 [1651]) is often described as the model of ‘possessive individualism’
(Macpherson, 1962), and is positioned by Cacioppo and Patrick as the central figure in the post-
Renaissance shift to ‘greater isolation’ in Europe, exacerbated by ‘the rise of Protestant theology,
which stressed individual responsibility’ (Cacioppo & Patrick, 2008: 53–5). Hay writes of the
‘lonely European’ in a similar vein, also focusing on Hobbes (Hay, 2007: 64–7) and running on
to the ‘loneliness of Calvinism, and its illustration in Hogg’s Confessions of a Justified Sinner’
(Hogg, 1978 [1824]; Hay, 2007: 63). Hobbes himself certainly writes of the unlimited appetites
of people, albeit the appetite for knowledge is greater than for food or other pleasures (Hobbes,
1968: 124), and without enforced control by an all-powerful government (the Leviathan of the
title), life would be ‘solitary, poore, nasty, brutish, and short’ (Hobbes, 1968: 186). Solitude
is a form of suffering and people are by nature individually competitive, so it is fear – fear of
solitude and, ultimately, fear of death – that drives all human activities. ‘My mother gave birth to
twins’, he says: ‘myself and fear’ (Hobbes, quoted in Gert, 2010). (Winnicott and Bowlby might
have something to say about the Hobbes household approach to child-rearing.) What strong
government can provide is a respite from the battle to survive, a respite in which sociability can
be achieved. Hobbes combined possessive individualism with solitude as an evil to be avoided.
This, it seems, was translated by writers such as Locke and Hume into liberal political philosophy
in the eighteenth century. Locke, for Macpherson, ‘starts with the individual and moves out to
society and the state, but . . . as with Hobbes, the individual with which he starts has already been
created in the image of market man’ which is central to ‘English liberal theory’ (Macpherson,
1962: 269–70).
In Hobbes, and in later liberal theory, ‘market man’ chooses to engage with society rather than
suffer in solitude, and people should be taught to avoid the problems associated with solitude.

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Domeracki (Chapter 1) refers to loneliness as a ‘virus’, but one that seems to be endemic –
characteristic of all humanity. It is the sociable Hume who gives one of the strongest defences of
sociability and attacks on solitude:
Celibacy, fasting, penance, mortification, self-denial, humility, silence, solitude, and the
whole train of monkish virtues; for what reason are they everywhere rejected by men of sense,
but because they serve to no manner of purpose; neither advance a man’s fortune in the world,
nor render him a more valuable member of society; neither qualify him for the entertainment
of company, nor increase his power of self-enjoyment? We observe, on the contrary, that they
cross all these desirable ends; stupify the understanding and harden the heart, obscure the
fancy and sour the temper. We justly, therefore . . . place them in the catalogue of vices.
(Hume, 2010: 1410)
The poet Larkin wrote of longing for solitude, while aware that virtues ‘are all social’, so if you
dislike being deprived of solitude it is ‘clear you’re not the virtuous sort’ (Larkin, 1988: 56).
However, the ‘market man’ liberal model could also be used to celebrate solitude. Robinson
Crusoe, a novel by Defoe (2001) that was inspired by the real life of Alexander Selkirk, describes
the shipwrecked hero as building a good life, alone, prior to meeting the only other inhabitant.
Marx criticizes the absurdity of such ‘Robinsonades’, claiming that they are not about a ‘return
to a misunderstood natural life’ but a false and unimaginative conceit used by economists such as
Smith and Ricardo to describe an individualism in which a person is wholly responsible for their
economic activity, rather than being socially determined (Marx, 1973: 83):
The human being is in the most literal sense a ζῷον πολιτικόν, not merely a gregarious animal,
but an animal which can individuate itself only in the midst of society. Production by an
isolated individual outside society – a rare exception which may well occur when a civilized
person in whom the social forces are already dynamically present is cast by accident into the
wilderness – is as much of an absurdity as is the development of language without individuals
living together and talking to each other. (Marx, 1973: 84)
Notwithstanding Marx’s criticisms, economists have continued into the twenty-first century
using Robinson Crusoe to illustrate economic theory.1
Individualist approaches to solitude, silence and loneliness are as wide-ranging as the
community-oriented approaches. The radical individualist anarchist Stirner (1963) provides a
heroic account of the individual against society, in what some saw as a reductio ad absurdum
of the ‘market man’ of classical economics. Stirner’s was an atomistic view of humanity in
which ‘[t]he egotistic individual’ can at best ‘inflate himself to the size of an atom’ (Marx
and Engels The Holy Family, quoted in Selsam and Martel, 1963: 311). A much more subtle
approach is taken by Wittgenstein, an individualist in the form of a ‘solipsist’. He describes
solipsism as ‘correct’ as ‘[t]he world is my world’ and ‘I am my world’ (Wittgenstein, 1961: 57).
Wittgenstein’s philosophy is seen by some as not only solipsistic but as ‘haunted by loneliness’
(Floyd, in Rouner, 1998: 79). However, Rée (2019) provides a more ‘sociable’ account of his
life based on Wittgenstein’s family letters. The Tractatus ends, ‘[w]hat we cannot speak about
we must pass over in silence’ (Wittgenstein, 1961: 74), a proposed silence on all matters of
ethics and religion – indeed on all further philosophy, as he claimed the book was philosophy’s
‘final solution’ (Wittgenstein, 1961: 4). Yet Rée claims that ‘[a]s far as [Wittgenstein] was

331
The Bloomsbury Handbook of Solitude, Silence and Loneliness

concerned the fact that ethical and religious attitudes fall outside the limits of articulate thought
was not their weakness but their glory’ (Rée, 2019: 8) as it points to the ineffable. Much more
explicit work on individualism leading to loneliness is provided by philosophers such as
Mijuskovic (2012, and Chapter 16 of this Handbook) and Domeracki (2018, and Chapter 1 of
this Handbook). For Mijuskovic in particular, ‘all men are activated by a fear of aloneness or
loneliness – and . . . consequently every human thought, passion, and action derives from this
one original, ubiquitous source, or fund, of frightened, psychic energy’ (Mijuskovic, 2012: lii).
As Koch describes it, ‘Mijuskovic’s central thesis is as uncompromising as it is extreme: the
loneliness of man is “the original primordial fact”’ (Koch, 1994: 174), as ‘mere awareness of
our separate self-existence is, or automatically produces, a kind of ontic loneliness’ (Koch,
1994: 181).
Another version of individualism is that provided by Hay (2007), who describes it as distinctive
of, and problematic for, Europeans in particular. Hay’s account of the ‘lonely European’ is
clearly historicist and culturally specific (and see Wong in Chapter 8 for an account of Chinese
solitude). (Hay, 2006, is himself a relational, communal, theorist.) Is individualism a universal
human characteristic, or one specific to particular cultures? Mijuskovic’s account is of a universal
character, while that of Hay is culturally specific. Hay is joined, from a post-colonial perspective
(or at least fighting for a post-colonial world), by Fanon. Fanon attacks individualism head-on:
after European colonizers go, individualism will be ‘the first to disappear’, as ‘[t]he colonialist
bourgeoisie had hammered into the native’s mind the idea of a society of individuals where each
person shuts himself up in his own subjectivity, and whose only wealth is individual thought’
(Fanon, 1963: 36). European romantic views of the value of solitude are contrasted by Fanon with
African communalism, with colonial powers ‘outlawing’ communal senses of ‘[b]rother, sister,
friend’ and replacing them with the idea that ‘my brother is my purse’ and ‘my friend is part of
my scheme for getting on’ (Fanon, 1963: 36).
Whether personhood – individually or communally – develops universally or in historical,
social and cultural contexts, it is complex in its relationship to different forms of aloneness, and
there is no avoiding the sense of aloneness being learned. That is an underlying theme of this
whole Handbook.

Conclusion: A Research Archipelago

In Chapter 1, a description of how this Handbook came together described the various contributions
to research on solitude, silence and loneliness, from various academic perspectives and practitioner
and public policy contexts, as a kind of alliance or archipelago. That is, neither a single unified
discipline nor a mere topic-related collection of unconnected disciplines. As an archipelago,
there is, throughout the Handbook, a sense of how people come to realize their personhood
at every stage of their lives through experience of both aloneness and togetherness. Whereas
sociability, noise (especially talk) and intimacy are described in every educational, psychological,
philosophical and historical account of humanity, accounts of solitude, silence and loneliness
are – poetically – left out of the group, silenced, or seen as faults, even vices. Schools promote
‘buddy benches’ to avoid the horror of childhood solitude (Tan, 2016), and universities convert
largely silent libraries into noisy ‘social learning spaces’ (Bryant et al., 2009). What we present
here may not quite be a ‘manifesto’, in the style of Rufus’s Loners’ Manifesto (Rufus, 2003),

332
 Conclusion

but it is certainly an alliance against the ignoring, underplaying or marginalizing, of research

on solitude, silence and loneliness. The Handbook is broadly educational, but it draws on and
contributes to numerous professional and practices settings, and a number of disciplines. This
time, in this chapter, it’s personal.
As editors and authors, we look forward to a strengthening of research and of the relationship
between research and practice across all these areas. Alone and together, we hope to contribute to
a better understanding of solitude, silence and loneliness.

333
 Notes

Introduction
1 https​:/​/ww​​w​.who​​.int/​​news-​​room/​​fact-​​sheet​​s​/det​​ail​/d​​eafne​​ss​-an​​d​​-hea​​ring-​​loss.
2 http:​/​/www​​.camp​​aignt​​oendl​​oneli​​ness.​​org​/t​​hreat​​-to​​-h​​ealth​/.
3 http://www​.thesilverline​.org​.uk/.
4 http://www​.childline​.org​.uk.
5 As well as a Handbook, many of us – and a number of others – also join together in the ISRS: the
International Society for Research on Solitude (http://isrs​.usz​.edu​.pl/).

Chapter 1
1 It should be noted that in the Heidegger’s nomenclature, the term ‘negativity’ is not used in an
evaluative but factual meaning. Human life runs from nothingness emerging from non-existence
through the fact of birth (thrownness), through nothingness not defined in advance by any given
meaning or framework becoming something there each time (projection realizing its own possibilities),
to nothingness dissolving in death, annihilating this life irretrievably.
2 About the phenomenon of the falling see Heidegger, 2004: § 38, 224–30, 1962: § 38, 219–24.
3 In the sense given to this term by Rorty (Budziak, 2006: 10) or Popper (Kublikowski, 2004). They do
not write specifically of Tillich, who clearly sympathizes with existentialism. The following account
allows the existentialist-oriented Tillich to present himself as an essentialist without falling into
contradiction.
4 ‘Grand narrative’ and ‘metanarrative’ can be used interchangeably, and both concern paradigmatic
ways of perceiving solitude in philosophical categories developed throughout history.
5 Levinas juxtaposes lonely and inner thinking as equivalent (Levinas, 1998: 40; Migasiński, 2017: 183).
6 The term ‘difficult good’ brings to mind and is a play on the title of Levinas’s Difficult Freedom
(Levinas, 1991b).
7 McGraw describes ten types of solitude: social, erotic, cultural, metaphysical, cosmic,
epistemological, (in)communicative, (un)ethical, existential and intrapersonal (intraself) one
(McGraw, 2010: 107). In his earlier works the author also takes into account religious solitude
(McGraw, 2000: 112–19). McGraw describes some basic types of loneliness: spatial, temporal,
yearning, missing, mourning and bereaving one (McGraw, 2010: 107) and, more generally
distinguishes positive, desired, aloneness and its degenerate form, ‘unwanted absence of
meaningful intimacy and intimate meaning(fulness)’ or loneliness, which he calls ‘negative
aloneness’ (McGraw, 2010: 60–3). Finally, he describes some basic types of aloneness:
aloneliness, loneness, alonism, lonism, lonerism, reclusiveness, seclusion, physical and social
isolation, desolation and solipsism (McGraw, 2010: 17).
8 It seems to me that on the typology of solitude McGraw takes a similar view (McGraw, 2010: 17).
9 The term ‘monoseology’ comes from the old Greek language from the words ‘μόνωσις, εως,
ἡ’ meaning ‘solitude’, ‘abandonment’ (and its variants: ‘μονόω’ – ‘to make oneself lonely’, ‘to
separate from others’, ‘to be alone’, ‘to isolate’; ‘to be alone, abandoned, separated’; ‘μονώδης,
ες’ – ‘lonely’; ‘μονώτης, ου, ὁ’ – ‘loner’; ‘μονωτικός, ή, όν’ – ‘lonely’; ‘μόνος, η, ον’ – ‘alone,
lonely’, ‘deprived (of someone or something)’, ‘one, only, single’ and ‘λόγος, ὁ’ – ‘theory’,
‘science’, ‘explanation’.
Notes

Chapter 4
1 The capitalized ‘Nature’ that appears here is also in some of the literature on which the chapter draws
– particularly in the work of Henry David Thoreau. Here, ‘Nature’ implies a link with a higher being or
the divine revealed in the natural world, and Nature as the dwelling place of God. The use of ‘nature’
indicates phenomena of the physical world – the character and inherent qualities of the outdoor, natural
environment.
2 See ‘Introduction’, [online], Available at: https​:/​/ww​​w​.gut​​enber​​g​.org​​/file​​s​/573​​93​/57​​393​-h​​​/5739​​3​.htm​.
Accessed 30 March 2020.
3 See Torrey (1906) Paragraph 64: ‘Some scraps from an essay on “Sound and Silence” written in the
latter half of this month – December 1838’. [Online], Available at: https​:/​/ww​​w​.gut​​enber​​g​.org​​/file​​s​/573​​
93​/57​​393​-h​​/​5739​​3​-h​.h​​tm. Accessed 30 March 2020.

Chapter 6
1 ‘Chaordic’ is, simply put, an organization exhibiting both chaos and order (Hock, 2000).

Chapter 7
1 https​:/​/ww​​w​.bfi​​.org.​​uk​/fi​​lms​-t​​v​-peo​​ple​/4​​f4​bb5​​ef544​​37.
2 It is worth apologizing for the absence of a soundtrack, a gallery of pictures and extended quotations
from poetry and novels. However, thanks to the internet, the art, music and literature referred to
in this chapter are widely available online as well as in (physical) libraries. The author encourages
readers to consult the original artists – as he did while writing the chapter. It would, in any case, be
cumbersome to publish the chapter with all the accompanying art. The novelist Vikram Seth wrote An
Equal Music, about a group of musicians. An accompanying CD was produced, with examples of the
music mentioned, but Seth noted, ‘Why append a CD . . . to a novel about music? Is it not rather like
attaching a whale to a copy of Moby Dick?’ (Seth, 2000: 7).
3 One such ‘quiet’ form of solitude is enstasy, the quality of being ‘within oneself’. That is described
in the Introduction to this Handbook. However, it is not used explicitly of the art, music or literature
exemplified in this chapter.
4 For example, at https​:/​/ww​​w​.you​​tube.​​com​/w​​atch?​​v​=i4Q​​​M2uEN​​kE8 or https​:/​/ww​​w​.you​​tube.​​com​/w​​
atch?​​v​=RI3​​​jqcZy​​EW8.
5 Gardiner describes a similar paused bar of silence, in Bach’s Actus Tragicus, as an ‘active, mystical
silence’ (Gardiner, 2013: 149).
6 https​:/​/ww​​w​.bac​​hvere​​nigin​​g​.nl/​​en​/bw​​v​/​bwv​​-988/​.
7 http://www​.oxfordmusiconline​.com/.
8 http://www​.oxfordmusiconline​.com/.
9 https​:/​/ww​​w​.you​​tube.​​com​/w​​atch?​​v​=7LC​​​DWGHy​​HMk.
10 http://www​.oxfordmusiconline​.com/.
11 https​:/​/ww​​w​.you​​tube.​​com​/w​​atch?​​v​=JeF​​​waWFT​​GYU.
12 http:​/​/www​​.poet​​s​.org​​/view​​media​​.php/​​prmMI​​​D​/193​​66.
13 https​:/​/cu​​ltura​​colec​​tiva.​​com​/a​​r t​/10​​-pain​​tings​​-that​​-show​​-how-​​solit​​ude​-c​​an​-be​​-your​​-​best​​-comp​​
anion​​-2.
14 There are several performances available online, for piano (https​:/​/ww​​w​.you​​tube.​​com​/w​​atch?​​v​=JTE​​​
FKFiX​​Sx4), for symphony orchestra (https​:/​/ww​​w​.you​​tube.​​com​/w​​atch?​​v​=yoA​​​bXwr3​​qkg) and even
for a ‘death metal’ group (https​:/​/ww​​w​.you​​tube.​​com​/w​​atch?​​v​=kGE​​G4JiO​​​qew​&t​​=136s​).
15 http://yayoi​-kusama​.jp/.
16 https​:/​/ww​​w​.wor​​ldart​​found​​ation​​s​.com​​/yayo​​i​-kus​​ama​-m​​useum​​-inau​​gural​​-exhi​​bitio​​n​-cre​​ation​​-soli​​tary-​​
pursu​​it​-lo​​​ve​-br​​ings-​​close​​r​-art​/.

336
 Notes

Chapter 8
1 Counted by the author.
2 Shendu is the usual term used to denote the idea of vigilance in solitude, but other terms are sometimes
also used, such as jindu. In fact the two characters jin and shen are collocated to form the word jinshen,
which means ‘cautious’.
3 ‘Ideal people’ is the translation for junzi. Other translators often render it as ‘gentleman’ (e.g. Milburn,
2016; Pang-White, 2018), sometimes as ‘superior man’ (e.g. Chan, 1973) or ‘noble person’ (e.g.
Bloom, 2009).
4 This is the alternate translated title of The Book of Poetry.
5 The other two are that ‘his father and mother are both alive and his older and younger brothers present
no cause for concern’, and that ‘he can get the most eminent talents in the world and educate them’
(Bloom, 2009: 148).
6 理 (li) and 氣 (qi) , respectively, in Chinese.
7 As Lee (2000) observes, Benjamin Franklin’s table of morality bore a very interesting resemblance
to these Chinese ledgers of merit and demerit. Franklin kept ‘a small book, full of ledgers in which
he would mark the faults he made against the thirteen virtues . . . considered to be important in the
conduct of a virtuous life’ (p. 673), the second of which happened to be silence. See also Maas (2020).
8 Transliterated as ren according to the official system used in Mainland China; variously translated as
‘Goodness’ (Confucius, 2003) and ‘humaneness’ (Keenan, 2011), among others.

Chapter 9
1 Gen. 2.18.
2 J. G. Zimmermann was a Swiss physician, naturalist and philosopher whose seminal book Solitude
(originally published in 1754) examined the advantages and disadvantages of solitude and its influence
on the imagination.
3 A term coined by Weber to describe the religious geniuses, the creative individuals inspired by
personal experience in solitude (Zeitlin, 1988). Within Judaism and Christianity these include, among
others, Moses Maimonides, Saaida Gaon, Martín Buber, St Ignatius of Antioch, Origen, Augustine of
Hippo, Teresa of Avila, Martin Luther and Thomas Merton.
4 Hitbodedut (Hebrew: ‫התבודדות‬‎) ‘self-seclusion’ is a form of private meditation that places emphasis
on solitude, involving extemporary, spontaneous prayer and direct communion with God. It was
developed in the late eighteenth century by Rabbi Nachman of Bratslav, the founder of Hasidic
Judaism who described it as ‘the highest practice of all. One must therefore set aside an hour or more
each day to talk with God by themselves . . . One can pour out their words before their Creator. This
can include complaints, excuses, or words seeking grace, acceptance and reconciliation. One must beg
and plead that God bring them close and allow them to serve God in truth’ (R. Nachman).
5 Jews who are returning from a secular lifestyle looking for personal, spiritual transformation.
6 Third order normally denoted lay brethren who live in their own communities but follow the guiding
principles of the order to which they belong. In the Benedictine community they are known as ‘oblates’
(Latin oblãtus –‘to offer’), as Benedict did not write separate first and second rules for men and
women, and a third order for laity.

Chapter 10
1 https​:/​/ww​​w​.you​​tube.​​com​/w​​atch?​​v​=92X​​​VwY54​​h5k.

Chapter 12
1 http:​/​/www​​.ambe​​r​.com​​.pl​/a​​ktual​​nosci​​/89​-w​​ywiad​​y​/337​​5​-w​-c​​iszy-​​i​-sam​​otnos​​ci​-ro​​zmowa​​-z​-m​a​​cieje​​m​
-roz​​enber​​giem.
2 John 8.

337
Notes

Chapter 13
1 https​:/​/ww​​w​.reu​​ters.​​com​/a​​rticl​​e​/us-​​brita​​in​-cr​​ime​-l​​gbt​/t​​eenag​​ers​-a​​dmit-​​homop​​hobic​​-lond​​on​-bu​​s​-att​​ack​
-o​​n​​-two​​-wome​​n​-idU​​SKBN1​​Y220H​.
2 https​:/​/ww​​w​.bbc​​.co​.u​​k​/new​​s​/uk-​​engla​​nd​-me​​rseys​​i​de​-4​​87362​​97.
3 For more information about the school protests, see https​:/​/ww​​w​.bbc​​.co​.u​​k​/new​​s​/uk-​​engla​​nd​-bi​​rming​​
h​am​-4​​99785​​51.
4 The far-right government of Jair Bolsonaro changed this to Ministry of Women, Family and Human
Rights, which is under the command of a pro-life, anti-feminism religious fundamentalist.
5 Bolsonaro made the ‘gay kit’ as a central piece of his electoral campaign. In his inaugural speech in
2019 he singled the fight against ‘gender ideology’ at schools as his main political platform as president.
6 Elsewhere named ‘genderism’ and ‘gender theory’. As a rhetorical device, ‘gender ideology’ is used
in a number of anti-gender movements worldwide. For a discussion of the history of the term, see
Butler (2019) and Corredor (2019). For an analysis of its transnational contours, see Corrêa (2018)
and Moragas (2020).
7 See Butler’s comments on this attack here: https​:/​/ww​​w​.ins​​idehi​​ghere​​d​.com​​/news​​/2017​​/11​/1​​3​/jud​​ith​-b​​
utler​​-disc​​usses​​-bein​​g​-bur​​ned​-e​​ffigy​​-​and-​​prote​​sted-​​brazi​​l.
8 https​:/​/as​​sets.​​publi​​shing​​.serv​​ice​.g​​ov​.uk​​/gove​​rnmen​​t​/upl​​oads/​​syste​​m​/upl​​oads/​​attac​​hment​​_data​​/file​​/8057​​
81​/Re​​latio​​nship​​s​_Edu​​catio​​n_​_Re​​latio​​nship​​s​_and​​_Sex_​​Educa​​tion​_​​_RSE_​​_and_​​Healt​​h​_Edu​​catio​​n​.pdf​.
9 In corpus-based linguistics, a ‘concordance’ refers to a specified number of words to the left and right
of the search term. Examining a word’s concordances can help to build up a semantic profile of that
word which can contribute to revealing any underlying discourses in the text(s) under scrutiny.
10 Search terms (or ‘node words’) are lemmas, that is the base forms of words which can vary in terms of
word class, grammatical tense and so on. So promot* includes promote, promotes, promoting, promoted,
promotion and so on. In corpus-based linguistics, lemmas are indicated through the use of an asterisk.
11 https​:/​/ww​​w​.pro​​grama​​escol​​asemp​​artid​​​o​.org​/.
12 Available at https​:/​/ww​​w​.cam​​ara​.l​​eg​.br​​/prop​​osico​​esWeb​​/prop​​_most​​rarin​​tegra​​?codt​​eor​=1​​70703​​7andf​​​
ilena​​me​=PL​​+246​/2.
13 Ofsted stands for the Office for Standards in Education, Children’s Services and Skills. It is a non-
ministerial department which has responsibility for inspecting services which provide education and skills
for learners of all ages, and for regulating services that care for children and young people in England.

Chapter 15
1 Garbo went on to become even more successful when her first sound film proclaimed, ‘Garbo talks!’
This is a salutary lesson for ‘quiet professionals’ everywhere.
2 https​:/​/ww​​w​.the​​guard​​ian​.c​​om​/fi​​lm​/20​​19​/oc​​t​/05/​​garbo​​-lett​​ers​-f​​or​-sa​​le​-ec​​ho​-lo​​ne​ly-​​life-​​of​-fi​​lm​-ic​​on.
3 OED, 2005.
4 https​:/​/ww​​w​.tim​​eshig​​hered​​ucati​​on​.co​​m​/blo​​g​/phi​​losop​​hical​​-defe​​nce​-t​​radi​t​​ional​​-lect​​ure.
5 Psychoanalytic geographers Kingsbury and Pile describe that it is ‘the unstable ground of ordinary
human suffering’ (Kingsbury & Pile, 2014: 8), out of which the pillars of psychoanalysis emerge. Even
more evocatively, ‘[L]ike Rome, psychoanalysis lives in its ruins’ (Kingsbury & Pile, 2014: 8).

Chapter 19
1 Causes of aloneness were presented here in four general categories: the external – civilization-related,
external – environmental, internal – personal, and the ontological (Dubas, 2000: 116–18).
2 The concept of the inner world – see, for example, Jan Szczepański (1988). The inner world is
a certain kind of firewall against the hardships of the outside world and the difficult existential
experiences, a protection against loneliness and a chance to develop solitude.
3 Malewski (1990).
4 Independence is the key category describing adulthood from the socio-normative perspective
(Szewczuk, 1959).

338
 Notes

5 Due to the broad Polish understanding of the word ‘aloneness’ and in order to emphasize the
simultaneous presence of loneliness, I shall frequently use the term ‘aloneness-loneliness’, similarly
to Łopatkowa (1983).
6 Due to the specificity of late adulthood, also referred to as old age, these studies do not include the
age group of seventy or older. People who were older and potentially less able, less independent and
less active were also excluded from these studies. The age group of sixty to seventy is more often
characterized by the features of mid-adulthood (despite retiring), that is good health, independence,
varied activity and interest realization. In the light of the latest research, mid-adulthood is being
prolonged (Leszczyńska-Rejchert, 2019).
7 I would like to express my gratitude to the students who conducted the interviews, namely: Gabriela
Dobińska, Dominika Fijałkowska, Aleksandra Grotowska, Maciej Jabłoński, Monika Kamieńska,
Katarzyna Okólska, Gansarnai Oyun, Joanna Siewierska, Izabela Socha and Natalia Zygmunt.
8 Codes used in the text: from 1 to 10 – a number determining the ordering number of a studied subject;
F – female, M – male; 28 – calendar age of the studied subject.
9 This is to do with shaping the pre-trust in the first years of a person’s life (Erikson, 2000).
10 Techniques for overcoming loneliness: the me–other people relationship, the me–me relationship, the
me–God relationship, the me–nature relationship (Dubas, 2000: 123–4; 282–99).
11 Loneliness is one of the three main existential concerns of man, next to death and suffering (Fabiś,
2013).

Chapter 21
1 I am grateful to Julian Stern and Christopher Sink for very helpful suggestions on a previous draft of
this chapter.
2 Not all those living with a dementia are old. Nor is aloneness, and its transition into loneliness, only
experienced by those living with a dementia. Much of what I say in this chapter could be applied equally
well to anyone living alone, to people living with other disabilities, and, indeed (as I will indicate), to those
who find themselves in a caring role. My discussion is not intended to exclude these groups. But the focus
on dementia, and, within that, on older people, who are more often additionally socially compromised due to
naturally occurring co-morbidities, will facilitate exploring the impact of acquired cognitive impairment on
communication, which is the main purpose of the chapter.
3 This phrase is consistently associated with Kitwood, though I have yet to find a published source in
which he states it.
4 For a full discussion of whether altruism can be defined in this way, and a more general exploration
of the proposal that all communication is undertaken for the benefit of the speaker, see Wray (2020:
159–67).
5 Humans also communicate in other ways: facial and body gestures, non-linguistic sounds like
grunts and laughs, and so on. I focus here on language because it encodes at the deeper level that is
particularly relevant for the ensuing discussion.
6 Social ambiguities or awkward pragmatic gaps (Wray, 2020: 201ff) can then arise, when one or both
parties cannot determine what it’s appropriate to say next.
7 A broader set of recommendations for building social and emotional reserve for people living with a
dementia can be found in Wray (2020: 247–68).

Chapter 23
1 http://www​.childbereavementuk​.org/.

Conclusion
1 As at https​:/​/em​​l​.ber​​keley​​.edu/​/​~mcf​​adden​​/eC10​​3​_f03​​/Robi​​​nson2​​.pdf.

339
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398
 Index

Solitude, silence and loneliness are addressed throughout the book and do not therefore appear in the index.

Aaron, Richard  220 art and painting  13, 14, 16, 83, 89–103, 106,
Abramowitz, Jonathan S.  247 113–15, 164, 167, 213, 234, 246, 247, 327
Adair, John  70 artificial intelligence. See computing
Adderley, Rebecca J.  320 Asbury, Edward Titus  244
adolescence. See childhood and adolescence Ashby, W Ross  70
aggression. See anger Asher, Steven R.  154, 250, 255, 319
Ainsworth, Mary D Salter  312 Assor, Avi  160
Airenti, Gabriella  156 asylum. See refugees
Akdoğan, Ramazan  253 Athanasius of Alexandria  3
Albania 85 Athens 67. See also Greece
Alerby, Eva  6, 36, 44, 131–4, 136, 189–99 Augé, Marc  22
Alexander technique  69, 76 Augier, Mie  79
alienation  26–7, 83, 85, 98, 100, 103, 136, 158, Ault, Nancy  52–3
171, 201, 233, 238, 241, 251, 327 Austin, John Langshaw  180
Alzheimer’s disease. See dementia Australia  15, 49
America. See United States of America authenticity 71
Anderson, G Oscar  240, 244 autism spectrum disorder  8
Anderson, James R.  314 Averill, James R.  34, 35, 37–9, 42
Andersson, L.  240–1, 243, 244 Aylaz, Rukuye  304
anger  43, 158, 172, 233, 258 Aznar, Ana  159
Anglicanism. See Christianity
Anglo-Saxon language  92, 99 Baarsen, Berna van  300, 317
Anikin, Andrey  152, 153 Babbie, Earl R.  267
animals, non-human  4, 15, 60, 213, 218–19, 224, Bach, Johann Sebastian  93–4, 336
293, 317, 325, 326 Bachelard, Gaston  76, 192, 195–8
anomie 327 Bacon, Francis  166, 329
Antonovsky, Aaron  251, 257 Bainbridge, John  200
Antonucci, Toni  313 Bakhtin, Mikhail  93–4
anxiety  8, 42, 63, 85, 153, 154, 158, 190, 205, 206, Ball, Stephen J.  39, 203–4
208, 241, 243, 244, 246, 247, 253, 256, 270, 302, Bandura, Albert  141–2, 156
315. See also fear Banerjee, R.  155
Aoun, Samar M.  318, 319 Banzan, Kumazawa  111
Appiah, Kwame Anthony  21 Baran, Bogdan  25, 26
Aquinas, St Thomas  229, 278 Barbour, John D.  116, 118–21
Arabic language  2 Barker, John  5
Archer, Margaret S.  278, 279 Barstead, Matthew  146
architecture 192 Bartlett, Monica Y.  244
Arendt, Hannah  6, 16, 47, 80, 83, 90, 233, 284 Bass, Bernard M.  71
Ariès. Philippe  312, 328 Batchelor, Stephen  34, 35, 37, 40
Aristotle  31, 124, 218, 224–6, 261 Bateson, Gregory  193
Arnold, Karen D.  242 Bauer, Georg F.  257
Arpin, Sarah N.  244 Bauman, Zygmunt  279, 282
Index

Baumann, Katarzyna  306 Boehner, Joel  56

Beatles, The  201, 206 Boelen, Paul A.  314
Beaulieu, Alain  77–8 Bohm, David  75–6
Beauregard, James  324 Bokszański, Zbigniew  21
Beck, Hamilton  28 Bollnow, Otto Friedrich  197–8
Beckett, Samuel  101 Bolsonaro, Jair  338
Beethoven, Ludwig, van  96–7 Bonanno, George A.  314
Belgium 239 Bonetti, Luigi  256
Bell, Robert A.  240 Bonhoeffer, Dietrich  104–5, 132, 281
Bengtsson, Jan  198 books and reading and writing  13, 14, 16, 47, 59,
Benjamin, Walter  93 89–104, 112, 146, 169–70, 205, 207, 213, 247,
Benkel, Inger  318 327. See also specific authors and specific books;
Bennett, Ruth  300, 301 libraries
Bennis, Warren G.  71 Borba, Rodrigo  6, 132, 133, 135, 174–88
Berdyaev, Nikolai  30 boredom  8, 63
bereavement. See death Bosacki, Sandra  132, 134, 135, 151–61, 327
Berger, Lee R.  311 Botez, Angela  83
Bergin, Christi Ann  255 Bound Alberti, Fay  xvii, 6–7
Bergin, David A.  255 Bowers, Barbara  50
Bergmark, Ulrika  189 Bowker, Julie C.  34, 35, 37, 38, 41, 43, 118, 217,
Bergson, Henri-Louis  166, 227 324
Berkeley, George  220 Bowlby, John  1, 7, 253, 312, 326, 330
Berlyne, Daniel E.  153 Bowles, Samuel  39
Berridge, Kate  311 Bowring, Richard  109
Berry, Wendell  103 Brazil  135, 174, 177–80, 183–7
Berryman, Jerome W.  152, 153 Brearley, Michael  70
Bessaha, Melissa L.  246, 247 Breen, Lauren J.  310, 319
Betts, Lucy R.  253 Bréhant, Jacques  14
Beutel, Manfred E.  239 Brentano, Franz  230–1
Bhagavad-Gītā  3–4, 60 Bretherton, Inge  312
Bhutan 85 Brexit (UK withdrawal from EU)  85
Biale, David  122 Britain. See United Kingdom
Bibby, Tamara  205 Bronfenbrenner, Urie  240–2
Bible  74–6, 116, 118, 121, 218, 281. See also Bronk, Andrzej  279
Christianity; Judaism Bronswijk, J E M H van  301
Biddle, Lucy  312 Brontë, Charlotte  98
Biesta, Gert  40 Brontë, Emily  98
Bilikiewicz, Adam  304 Brooker, Dawn  295
Birch, Sondra H.  255 Bruce, Robert V.  34
Bischetti, Luca  155, 156 Bruch, Heike  69
Black, Bruce  6 Bruna, Dick  322
Blaga, Lucian  16, 80, 83 Bruner, Jerome  153–4
Blakemore, Sarah-Jayne  151 Bryant, Daniel  106
Blanchard, Ken  70 Bryant, Joanna  332
Blasco, Maribel  138 Brzezinski, Zbigniew Kazimierz  23
Block, Peter  70 Buber, Martin  1, 122, 166, 193, 324, 326, 337
Bloom, Adi  40, 337 Buchanan, Michael, T.  15, 18, 46–57, 327
blues 99 Buchholz, Esther  34, 35
Blum, Robert  259 Buczyńska-Garewicz, Hanna  29
Blyth, Dale A.  244 Buddhism, Buddha  3, 49, 115, 121, 126, 144, 234
Bode, Carl  60 Budziak, Anna  335
Boden-Albala, B.  289 Buehler, Cheryl  258

400
 Index

Bugajska, Beata  307, 308 Chase, Catherine C.  153

Bull, Hedley  85 Chaucer, Geoffrey  92, 101
bullying  40, 146, 157, 175, 179, 180, 182, 183, Cheng, Anne Anlin  208
187, 256 Chewning, Susannah Mary  126
Bunkers, Sandra Schmidt  147, 148, 150 Chiang Hsun  104
bureaucracy 70 Child Bereavement UK (CBUK)  319–22
Burger, Jerry M.  47, 48 childhood and adolescence  7, 37–8, 90, 103, 134,
Burgess, June  297 135, 137–61, 172, 214–15, 217, 232–3, 240,
Burgos, Juan Manuel  325 242, 243, 246, 247, 250–60, 269, 271, 272, 274,
Burke, Christine A.  35, 36 280–2, 286, 300, 311, 312, 314–15, 317, 319,
Burke, Edmund  166 323, 326–8, 330. See also schools
Burnett, Richard  35 Childline  8, 335
Bush, Susan  113 China  17, 85, 87, 103–15, 157, 239, 240, 253, 256,
Busso, L.  71 328, 332, 337
Butler, Joseph  285 Chipua, Heather M.  240
Butler, Judith  178, 179, 201, 338 Choi, Suk Gabriel  109–10
Byrnes, Deborah A.  43 Chomsky, Noam  221–2
Chorley, Matt  35
Cacioppo, John, T.  8, 103, 213, 237, 242, 252, 306, Christianity  3, 4, 15, 17, 46–57, 65, 92, 104–5,
323, 330 107, 114, 116–28, 162–3, 167, 177, 178, 218,
Cacioppo, Stephanie  213, 237–9, 243, 246, 247, 234, 278, 330, 337. See also Bible
257, 259 Christie, Ernie  162
Cage, John  102–3, 167 Christodoulou, Georgia  160
Cahill, James  114 Chu, Po Sen  258
Cain, Susan  48, 56, 328 churches. See Christianity
Cairngorms  4, 59, 61, 62, 64–6, 204 Churchill, Winston  73, 74, 86–7
Callard, Felicity  xvii Churchman, C West  71
Camus, Albert  166, 218, 229 Church of England. See Christianity
Canada  157, 158, 160 Chyrowicz, Barbara  279
Caplan, Gerald  301 Cicero  166, 261
Capodilupo, Christina M.  157, 158 Ciegis, Remigijus  308
Capstick, Andrea  311 Ciobanu, Ruxandra Oana  248
Caranfa, Angelo  35 Cioran, Emil  83, 166
Cardinal, Roger  96 citizenship, citizenship education  1, 28. See also
Carlen, Pat  40 politics; rights
Carmeli, Abraham  71 Clandinin, D Jean  50
Cartesian, philosophy. See Descartes Clare, John  95
Castelli, Mike  54 Clark, Laura  35
Castro, Roney Polato de  175 Clark, Natalie E.  40
Catholicism. See Christianity classrooms. See schools
Cavanaugh, Alyson M.  258 Cleary, Thomas  108
Cavell, Stanley  59, 60 Clegg, David  311
Celtic 60 Cleveland, Rachel  247
Cervantes, Miguel de  79 Cleveland, Richard E.  132, 134, 135, 137–50, 327
Chan, Lisa  74, 75 Clifford, Jeannie  252, 254
Chan, Wing-Tsit  104, 108–9, 337 Cline, Erin  56
Chandler, David  78 coaching and mentoring  245, 246
Chang, Edward C.  243 Coburn, Tom  54
Channing, William Ellery  58, 60 Cohen, Ira J.  117, 121
Chao I.  112 Cohen, Sheldon  258
Chapman, Judith  51 Cohen-Mansfield, Jiska  247
charisma  15, 16, 70, 97–8, 102, 122, 126 Cohn-Sherbock, Dan  123, 124

401
Index

Cole, L E.  76 Czelakowska, Danuta  167

community, communion  32, 35, 65, 82, 83, 104–5, Czerepaniak-Walczak, Maria  163–4
111–12, 117, 118, 121, 123, 125, 235, 240, 245, Czerniak, Stanisław 24–6
246, 249, 257, 261, 275, 281, 282, 284, 300, 301,
305, 311, 317–19, 322, 324–30, 332 Damasio, Antonio  79
computing  21, 23, 34, 40–2, 64, 84, 93, 98, 146, Danneel, Sofie  244
150, 156–7, 162, 170, 198, 215, 239, 246, 256, Daoism  106–8, 112, 115, 132
258, 260, 261, 265, 296, 324–5 Dashiell, John F.  153
Confucius, Confucianism  17, 104–11, 113, 115, da Silva, Luiz Inácio Lula  184
132, 337 Davey, Judith  305
Congregation for Catholic Education (CCE)  49, Davis, Sarah K.  259
51, 53–5 daydreams 196
Conklin, Jeffrey  71 deafness. See hearing impairment
Connelly, F Michael  50 death and bereavement  1, 3, 4, 24, 28, 91, 92, 170,
Connelly, Mary S.  71 216–17, 220, 243, 265, 271, 272, 288, 300, 303,
Conrad, Joseph  228 305, 310–22, 328, 339
consciousness 218–35 de Beauvoir, Simone  5, 328
conversation. See dialogue De Beer, John  53
Cooper, David E.  35, 131, 192, 193 Debord, Guy  22
Coplan, Robert J.  34, 35, 37, 38, 41, 43, 118, 147, Defoe, Daniel  38, 94, 331
152, 154, 155, 157, 158, 217, 250, 253, 324 de Lange, Nicolas de  125
Coppard, Alfred Edgar  102 Dembling, Sophia  48, 56
Coppock, Vicki  44 dementia  216, 288–98, 301, 306–7, 309, 328, 339
Corden, Anne  316 Deming, W Edwards  72
Coriolanus (Shakespeare)  92 democracy  80, 83–4, 88. See also politics; power
Cornwell, Erin York  306 Deng Delong  114
Corr, Charles A.  312, 317, 318 Deniz, M Engin  241, 242
Corrêa, Sonia  178, 186–7, 338 Denmark  96, 239
Corredor, Elizabeth S.  338 Denzin, Norman  266
Costello, John E.  325 d’Epinay, Christian J Lalive  317
counselling and therapy  7, 200, 201, 205, 206, 210, depression  96, 161, 238, 241, 243, 246, 247, 256,
214, 233–5, 245–7, 259, 324 258, 302, 304, 306, 309, 315, 317
courage  169, 278, 281 Deresiewicz, William  71, 75
Covey, Stephen  70, 72 Derryberry, Elizabeth P.  xvii
Covid-19. See pandemics Descartes, René  29, 220, 222, 225, 230
Craddock, Emily  242 de Souza, Marian  49–51
Crane, Brent  73 Detrixhe, Jonathan J.  35
Cranwell, Brian  320 Dewey, John  39, 83, 157
Crawley, David  52 dialogue  32, 54, 152, 204–5
creativity  15, 54, 79, 92, 132, 162–73, 208, 209. Diana, Princess of Wales  312
See also art and painting; books and reading and Dick, Bob  51
writing; music; poetry Dick, Bruce  259
Crotty, Michael  50 Dickens, Charles  16, 100
Csikszentmihalyi, Isabella Selega  330 Dickinson, Emily  16, 73, 98, 99, 193
Csikszentmihalyi, Mihaly  160, 244, 329, 330 DiJulio, Bianca  236–9, 243, 244
Cuba 88 Dillon, Robin S.  282
Cummins, Phillip D.  223 Dilthey, Wilhelm  20
Cunningham, Lawrence S.  127 Ding, Xuechen  253
Cuyvers, Win  67 Di Sipio, Linda  54, 55
Cywiński, Aleksander  xvii, 16, 18, 80–8 Doka, Kenneth J.  317
Czech Republic  239 Dolichan Kollareth  159

402
 Index

Domeracki, Piotr  7, 8, 14, 19–33, 171, 263, 269, Emperor Augustus Caesar  91
277, 280, 282, 283, 324, 325, 331, 332 Emperor Claudius  161
Donaldson, Jean M.  299 Emperor Kangxi  108
Don Quixote. See Cervantes Emperor Qianlong  106
Donwood, Stanley  205 Emperor Yongzheng  105–6, 108, 115
Dostoyevsky, Fyodor  169, 229 Empress Renxiaowen  108
Douglas, Alfred  100 Engel, Susan  157
Douglas, Ian  322 Engelberg, Edward  98, 101
Downie, James  61 Engelke, Matthew  313
Drageset, Jorunn  243 Engels, Frederick  327, 331
dreams. See sleep England. See United Kingdom
Drucker, Peter Ferdinand  77 English language  2
Drwięga, Marek  25–6 Englund, Peter  189
Dryburgh, Marjorie  110 enstasy 3–4
Du, P.  108 environment. See nature, Nature
Dubas, Elżbieta (Elżbieta Dubas-Kowalska)  Epictetus  28, 166
xvi, 33, 214, 215, 261–76, 303, 328, 338, Epicurus  221, 225
339 Epstein, Debbie  174, 184, 327
Dubnow, Simon  122 Eraslan-Capan, Bahtiyar  244
Duhn, Iris  143–5 Erford, Bradley T.  141, 142
Dumm, Thomas  92, 280 Erikson, Erik  124–5, 141, 326, 339
Durà-Vilà, Glòria 49 Erlich, Shmuel  122, 124
Dürer, Albrecht  92–3 Erricker, Clive  38
Durkheim, Émile  327 Erricker, Jane  38
Dykstra, Pearl A.  237 Erwin, Michael S.  77
Dziedzic, Jan  312 Escher, Daniel  286
Escola sem Partido (ESM) (Non-Partisan
Earl, Patricia Helene  52 School)  178, 183–7
Eastaugh, Charlie  5 Estonia 305
Ebrey, P.  105 ethics  29, 110, 167, 205–6, 208–9, 215, 219–21,
Eckert, Penelope  175 229, 232, 234, 277–87
Eckhart, Meister (Master) (Eckhart von ethnicity. See ‘race’ and ethnicity
Hochheim) 166 Etzioni, Amitai  70
ecstasy  3–4, 16, 90–4 European Union  87, 299
Edery, Rivka  241 exile  1–3, 13, 16, 90–4, 98, 99, 103. See also
Efrati, Meira  252 refugees
Egan, Ronald  105 Ezer, Tamar  34, 44
Egypt  49, 118
Einav, Michal  237 Fabiś, Artur  339
Eisenhower, Dwight D.  69 Fabricio, Branca Falabella  175
Eisner, Rotem  247 families  1, 6–8, 45, 84, 91, 104, 123, 124, 146,
elderly. See old age 153, 157–9, 163, 166, 170–1, 186–7, 208–9,
Elias, Norbert  21 232–3, 235, 237, 238, 240–6, 250, 252–4, 258,
Eliezer, Rabbi Israel ben  122 260, 265, 268, 270–5, 277, 279–82, 285–6, 296,
Elijah (prophet)  119, 281 297, 299–309, 311, 314–18, 320–2, 325–8, 332.
Eliot, George (Mary Ann Evans)  94 See also homes
Ellenberger, Henri  224 Fang, Nini  132, 136, 200–10, 328
Ellis, Viv  177 Fanon, Frantz  6, 332
Elman, Benjamin A.  111 Farkašová, Etela  167, 169
Emerson, Ralph Waldo  43, 58, 75, 79 Fava, Giovanni A.  247
emotional intelligence (EI)  15, 71, 78, 259, 295 fear  80–2, 86, 88, 154, 161, 205, 230, 247, 270,
282, 330

403
Index

Feeney, Denis  90 8, 250, 251, 253–6, 258, 259, 268, 272–5, 277,
Feeney, Timothy K.  247 281, 282, 285, 286, 300–2, 314, 317, 327, 332
Feldman, David B.  254 fright. See fear
feminism. See genders and sexualities Fritz, Heidi L.  155, 156
Feng, Chunliang  251–2 Fromm, Erich  35, 261
Ferrari, Anderson  175, 179, 185, 186 Fromm-Reichmann, Frieda  233
Ferry, Luc  21 Fulford, Amanda  xvi, 15, 18, 58–67, 326, 329
Feuerbach, Ludwig  16, 100 Furlong, Monica  127
Feuerborn, Laura  160
Fichte, Johann Gottleib  227 Gable, Shelly L.  244
Fielding, Michael  39, 324 Gadacz, Tadeusz  261
Filek, Jacek  170 Gaia 329
Filippova, Eva  155 Galanaki, Evangelia  34, 35, 37, 43, 47, 56, 155,
Finnish language  2 255, 326–7
Fisher, John W.  111 Galla, Brian M.  160
Fitzgerald, Des  xvii Gallagher, Michael Paul  54
Fivush, Robyn  159 Gao, Fengqiang  256
flâneur  82, 93 Gaon, Saaida  337
Flavell, Linda  132 Garbo, Greta  200–2, 209, 338
Flavell, Roger H.  132 gardens  4, 105, 113
Fleming, Jean  52 Gardiner, John Eliot  336
Flick, Uwe  266 Gardner, William L.  71
Flint, Kevin J.  39 Garewicz, Jan  28
Floyd, Juliet  331 Gaspar, Tania  257
Fokkema, Tineke  237, 239 Gatto, John  43
Fopka-Kowalczyk, Małgorzata 302 Gaultiere, Bill  49
Foran, Andrew  196 genders and sexualities  16, 82, 99–100, 103, 135,
Ford, Donald H.  240, 244 157–60, 174–88, 207, 213, 218, 235, 236, 238,
forests. See nature 239, 242, 311, 313, 316, 317, 320, 331
forgiveness  215–16, 285–6 Genghis Khan  70
Forrest, Michelle  35, 146–7 George-Levi, Sivan  214–15, 250–60
Foster, Charles  4 Georgia 87
Foucault, Michel  192 Georgianna, Linda  5
France  88, 169, 239, 305 Gerhart, Diane R.  144
Francis, Dennis  175 German language  275
Frank, Arthur  xvii Germany  104, 234, 235, 239, 284
Frankenstein 98 Gert, Bernard  278, 330
Frankl, Viktor  168 Gert, Joshua  278
Franklin, Benjamin  337 Ghoshal, Sumantra  69
Fratiglioni, Laura  289, 295 Giannini, Heidi Chamberlin  286
freedom  1, 31, 43, 164, 170, 190, 219–20, 224, Gibbon, Edward  73
225, 231–2, 234, 235, 264, 294 Giddens, Anthony  85, 316
Freeman, Laurence  127 Giessner, Steffen R.  70, 71
Freire, Paulo  36 Giezek, Marta  305
French language  2, 93 Gintis, Herbert  39
Freud, Sigmund  205, 214, 227, 228, 232, 235, 310, Giroux, Henry A.  319
312, 313, 322 Giuffré, Salvatore  114
Friedrich, Caspar David  16, 96, 98 Glaser, Barney, G.  50–1
friendship  1, 3, 6, 15, 24, 60–3, 65, 66, 91, 92, 96–8, God/gods  92, 100, 118–20, 122–6, 164, 170, 219,
101, 107, 111–13, 146, 154, 157, 158, 162, 170–1, 220, 224, 225, 229, 232, 280, 283, 286, 325–6,
190, 196–7, 200, 201, 203, 237, 240–2, 244, 246– 329, 336. See also religion; specific religions

404
 Index

Goian, Ion  81–2 Harari, Yuval  xvi

Gold, Eluned  35 Haraway, Donna J.  326
Golden, Jeanette  242 Harber, Clive  37–40
Goleman, Daniel  71, 78 Harding, Walter  60
Golka, Marian  23 Hard Times 100
Goossens, Luc  37, 252 Hardy, Thomas  102
Gopnik, Alison  45 Harris, Thomas  6
Gore, Joanna Stephanie  39 Harrison, Henrietta  110–11
Gorer, Geoffrey  311 Harter, Susan  151, 156
Görg, Peter H.  120 Hartog, Joseph  277
Gottman, John M.  71 Hasankhoyi, S.  71
Gould, Glenn  94, 103 Hawkley, Louise C.  213, 237, 238, 242, 313
Gouldner, Alvin  50 Hawthorne, Nathaniel  58
government. See democracy; politics Hay, David  111, 330, 332
Gray, Peter  34, 43, 44 Hayes, Steven C.  247
Great Britain. See United Kingdom hearing impairment  96, 335
Greece  90, 95, 119, 171, 219, 225 Hebrew language  2
Greek language  74–5 Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich  16, 26–7, 100,
Green, James M.  183 224, 227, 232, 233
Green, Peter  3, 91 Heid, Markham  76
Greenleaf, Robert K.  70 Heidegger, Martin  xvii–xviii, 25–6, 29, 31, 64,
Grice, H Paul  291 193, 197, 230, 335
Griffiths, Martin  86 Heifetz, Ronald  69
Grippo, Angela J.  237–9, 243, 246, 247, 257, 259 Heinrich, Liesl M.  251
Gruer, Maggie  61 He Jingming  106
Grun, Anselm  162 Helbraun, Elizabeth  35
Guardini, Romano  166 helplessness  82, 289, 294, 298
Gueldner, Barbara  160 Hendricks, Jon  303
Guignon, Charles  96 Hennegan, Alison  99
guilt or shame  159, 233, 271, 326 Henriksen, Mads Gram  24
Gullone, Eleonora  251 Henwood, Patricia G.  252
Herbert, Zbigniew  135, 172
Habermas, Jürgen  16, 80, 84, 156 Herbrechter, Stefan  326
Hackett, Ruth A.  306 Herman, Aleksander  302
Hackman, Michael Z.  70 hermits  106, 107
Hägg, Henny Fiska  324 Hersey, Paul  70
Haidt, Jonathan  244 Heschel, Abraham Joshua  121, 124, 127, 128, 283
Haimes, Yacov Y.  72 heteroglossia 93
Haksar, Vinit  279 Hey, Valerie  327
Hale, Henry E.  86 Hickman, Craig  69
Halicka, Jerzy  302, 303 Hide, Kerrie  5
Halicka, Małgorzaty  302, 303 High, Sue  177
Hall, G Stanley  151 higher education. See universities
Hall, Jeffrey A.  35 Higuchi, Machiko  306
Hall, Radclyffe  16, 99–100 Hildebrandt, Lea K.  157
Hamer, Richard  91–2 Hillel the Elder  118
Hamlet 138–9 Hilliker, Laurel  316
Hammond, Claudia  7, 324 Hindi language  2
Hanks, William, F.  323 Hinduism  3, 4, 60, 126, 234
Han Zhuo  105 Hippler, Stefan  40–3
happiness. See joy Hippocratic Oath  78
HaRamban, Avraham ben  119 Hirschman, Albert O.  40

405
Index

Hobbes, Thomas  1, 16, 80–2, 330 individualism  32, 83–4, 111, 323, 324, 326,
Hock, Dee  336 328–31
Hockney, David  89 information technologies. See computing
Hoegaerts, Josephine  147 International Society for Research on Solitude
Hogg, James  330 (ISRS) 335
Hölderlin, Friedrich  16, 95–7, 100 intimacy. See genders and sexualities
Holdsworth, Laura M.  315 introversion 73–4
Holland, John  320–2 Iran 87
Hollenhorst, Steven J.  73 Ireland (Irish Republic)  96
Holocaust, Shoah  78 Islam, Muhammad  4, 49, 92, 116, 121, 234
Holt-Lunstad, Julianne  8, 236–42, 314 Israel  123, 243
Hoły-Łuczaj, Magdalena  29 Israelashvili, Moshe  257
homes  1, 4, 8, 13, 22, 26, 37, 42–3, 94, 95, 98, 101, Italy 31
102, 106, 112, 114, 117, 123–4, 136, 139, 142, Iwański, Rafał  8, 216, 299–309, 328
152, 160, 190–2, 197–9, 245, 254, 257, 271, 272,
275, 301, 302, 305, 306, 308, 309, 326, 328. See Jackson, Brad  69
also families Jackson, Philip W.  138
Honneth, Axel  16, 80, 83–4 Jackson, Robert  53
hope, hopelessness  3, 9, 15, 24, 67, 80–1, 107, Jacobs, Jill  123
158, 164, 203, 207, 208, 223, 230, 254, 257, 271, James, Sarah  214, 216–17, 310–22, 325, 328
298, 316 Jamie, Kathleen  4
Hope, Max  43 Jamison, Rhonda  154, 157–8
Horowski, Jarosław  8, 214, 215, 277–87 Jane Eyre  98
Houlbrooke, Ralph  311 Jantzen, Grace  5
households, housing. See families; homes Japan  42, 104, 109, 110, 239, 243
Howie, Dorothy  240 Jaspers, Karl Theodor  166
Hu, Danfei  70 Jaworski, Adam  35
Huang Jingren  106 Jazaieri, Hooria  161
Hudson, Wayne  51 Jennings, Patricia  147
Hulme, Eileen  156 Jeremiah 92
human rights. See rights Jesus  49, 53, 69, 74, 92, 93, 120, 121, 169, 173
Hume, David  166, 214, 220–4, 226, 227, 234, 330, John, Tara  236
331 John of the Cross  125
Hung, Ruyu  106–7, 197, 198 Johnson, Boris  69
Hungary 97 Johnson, Daniel M.  35
Huppert, Felicia A.  35, 36 Johnson, Judith  244
Hussain, Saddam  88 Johnson, Robert  99
Husserl, Edmund  29, 218, 226, 227, 230–1, 234, Johnson, T. B  280
235 Johnson, Toni A. M  174
Hutcheson, Ernest  102 John the Baptist  74, 119–20
Huxley, Aldous  20 Jolson, Al  99
Hyde, Brendan  138, 148 Jones, Christopher D.  73
Hyland, Terry  35 Jones, David  103
Hymel, Shelley  43 Jones, Dee A.  302
Hynes, Arleen McCarty  247 Jones, P.  71
Jones, Phil  320
Idan, Orly  251 Josephus (Titus Flavius Josephus, Yosef ben
Idel, Moshe  119 Matityahu) 74
Illeris, Knud  275 Jotischky, Andrew  125
imagination. See creativity joy  3, 4, 13, 23, 37–9, 41, 46, 62–3, 71, 73, 82–3,
Imai, Masaaki  72 91, 97, 103, 105, 109, 113, 123–6, 153, 155, 160,
India 60

406
 Index

161, 168, 201, 204, 208, 209, 224, 230, 232, 234, Kirkwood, Maria  57
235, 261, 263, 279, 282, 283, 311, 329–31 Kisielewski, Stefan  21
Joyce, James  102 Kitwood, Tom  288, 339
Jozsa, Dan-Paul  235 Kitzinger, Sheila  312
Judaism  4, 17, 74, 92, 116–28, 337 Klass, Dennis  312
Jule, Allyson  35 Klatte, Maria  134
Julian of Norwich  5, 92 Klein, Melanie  xvii
Jundziłł, Elżbieta 265 Kmiecik-Baran, K.  170–1
Jung, Carl  30, 121, 228 Knippenberg, Daan van  70, 71
Koch, Philip  4, 5, 13, 37, 38, 116, 263, 332
Kabat-Zinn, Jon  144 Kocherginsky, Masha  313
Kaczmarek, Kamil  261 Koller, Alice  4, 326
Kaczyński, Lech  313 Konecki, Krzysztof  267
Kafka, Franz  16, 101 Korab, Kazimierz  21
Kagge, Erling  4, 102, 131 Korczak, Janusz  167
Kahn, R. L  313 Korea  109–10, 132
Kaibara Ekken  110 Korem, Anat  253
Kaizen 72 Kraftl, Peter  43
Kalil, Isabela  178 Krakowiak, Piotr  214, 216–17, 310–22, 325, 328
Kalish, Richard A.  313 Krasicki, Jan  30
Käll, Anton  257 Kristiansen, Aslaug  324
Kamieńska, Anna  14 Krokos, Jan  23
Kandappa, Mano  40 Kromolicka, Barbara  1
Kant, Immanuel  218, 222, 224–8, 230, 231, 234, Kruczyński, Wojciech  20
235 Krupa, B.  304
Kaplan, Aryeh  119, 163 Kua, Ee-Heok  243
Kapusta, Andrzej  24 Kübler-Ross, Elisabeth  310, 312
Karpman, Stephen  44 Kublikowski, Robert  335
Kashdan, Todd B.  156 Kucirkova, Natalia  145–6
Kaufer, Katrin  75–6 Kugel, James L.  118
Kauppinen, Antti  279 Kumazawa Banzan  109
Keats, John  95 Kunowski, Stefan  166
Keenan, Barry C.  110, 111, 337 Kusama, Yayoi  103, 336
Kellehear, Allan  311, 318, 319, 322 Kvale, Steinar  50
Kemp Smith, Norman  225, 228 Kwieciński, Zbigniew  284
Kennedy, A. L  205
Kerouac, Jack  73 Ladd, Gary W.  255
Kessler, Rachael  5, 330 Laing, Olivia  xvii
Kethledge, Raymond M.  77 Lamb, Peter  85
Kierkegaard, Søren  5, 16, 34, 94, 101, 131, 162, Lamnina, Marianna  153
166, 218, 233 Langer, Ellen  144
Killen, Patricia  53 Langer, Susanne  314
Killgore, William DS  xvi Langton, Rae  180, 184
Kim, Junghyun  256 Lanier, Jason  41
Kim, Jung-Yeup  114 Lansdown, Gerison  319
King, Brittany M.  314 Lantieri, Linda  5, 330
King, Jr, Martin Luther  324 Laozi 108
King Ahab  281 Large, Tom  240, 241
King Lear (Shakespeare)  92 Larkin, Philip  16, 78, 98, 101, 331
Kingsbury, Paul  206, 338 Larson, Reed  37, 48, 157, 161
Kirkova, Zornica  107 Lasch, Christopher  22–4
Lash, Nicholas  169

407
Index

László, Ervin  76 Liu An  107

Latour, Bruno  76–7 Liu Zongzhou  110
Latsch, Alexander  242 Livingston, Gill  289
Latta, Robert  224 Livingstone, Sonia  256
Latvia 305 Li Zehou  114
Lawler, Kathryn  306 Llewellyn, Grace  43
Lawrence, David Herbert  102 Locke, John  220–2, 226, 330
leadership  14, 15, 46, 48, 50, 53, 68–79 Łódź 267
Leavey, Gerard  49 Łódź, University of  267
Leech, Kenneth  125 Lofland, Lyn H.  320
Lee, Thomas H C.  337 Logan, Emma L.  318
Lees, Helen E.  2, 5, 6, 14, 34–45, 103, 174, 327 lonesomeness  16, 98, 132
Legge, James  108 Long, Christopher R.  46, 49, 52, 54, 56, 75, 237
Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm  220, 224, 225, 227, 229 Łopatkowa, Maria  339
Leicester, Mal  94 Lopez, Shane J.  213
Leighton, Frederic  100 Lorenz, Konrad  312
Lennon, John  99 love  1, 7, 14, 43, 51, 57, 59, 79, 90, 92, 99, 100,
Leonardo da Vinci  89 103, 105, 107, 111, 125–7, 169, 183, 205, 206,
Leong, Joy  308 232–4, 237, 264, 271, 273, 283, 305, 311, 315,
Lerner, Richard M.  240, 244 322, 326, 330
Leszczyńska-Rejchert, Anna  303, 339 Lovelock, James  329
Leszko, Magdalena  280, 301 Løvlie, Lars  198
Leven, S.  254 Luhmann, Maike  238
Levinas, Emmanuel  30–1, 78, 166, 335 Luhmann, Niklas  240
Levine, David P.  200, 201, 204, 210 Lunbeck, Elizabeth  24
Lévi-Strauss, Claude  312 Lundman, Berit  295
Lewin, Kurt  70 lute  105, 113–15
Lewis, Ann  39 Luther, Martin  337
Lewis, Kevin  98, 99 Lynch, Michael  78
Li Bai  106, 113 Lyyra, Nelli  255
liberty. See freedom
libraries  137, 146, 190, 191, 196–9, 245, 246, 329, Ma, D.  108
332 Maas, Harro  337
Liddicoat, Anthony J.  184 McBain, Tristan D.  317
Lieberman, David A.  76 McCartney, Paul  99
Liiceanu, Gabriel  28–9 Maccoby, Eleanor E.  153
Li Jie  112 McCollum, Eric E.  144
Likert, Rensis  70 McDaniel, Kris  213
Lim, Lena L.  243 McDonald, Kristina L.  154
Lim, Michelle H.  258 Mace, Nancy L.  301
Lincoln, Yvonna  266 Macfarlane, Robert  59, 61, 205
Lindén, Axel  4 McGeachy, Margaret, G.  99
Lind, Erki  112 McGillivray, Anne  137
Linka, Anna  1 McGlashan, Mark  179–80
Lipps, Theodor  234 McGraw, John Gregory  19, 20, 32–3, 335
Liszt, Franz (Ferencz)  16, 97, 98, 102 McGuire, Shirley  252, 254
literature. See books and reading and writing Machiavelli, Niccolò  16, 80, 82
Litten, Julian  311 McKee, David  103
Littman-Ovadia, Hadassah  327 Mackenzie, Mrs  61
Litwin, Howard  313 McLaughlin, Colleen  141, 148
Liu, Lijun  304 Macmurray, John  1, 78, 324–6
Liu, Ru-De  253, 256 McNicoll, Wendelien  315

408
 Index

MacPherson, Andrew  248 Melser, Derek  44

Macpherson, Crawford Brough  330 Melville, Herman  100–1
Maddern, Kerra  39 Mencius 109
Maddrell, Avril  313 Mendes-Flohr, Paul  189
Maes, Marlies  151–2 Mengstie, Sisay  40
Magdalene, Mary  173 mental health  xvi, 8, 35, 36, 72, 75, 103, 147,
Magyar-Moe, Jeana L.  244 151–61, 233, 241, 243–4, 246–9, 251, 301
Maimonides (Moses ben Maimon)  337 mentoring. See coaching and mentoring
Maimonides, Rabbi Abraham  119 Merback, Mitchell B.  92–3
Main, John  127, 163 Mercury, Freddie (Farrokh Bulsara)  98
Maitland, Sara  xvi, 131 Merleau-Ponty, Maurice  192, 194, 195, 197
Malebranche, Nicolas  220 Merolla, Andy J.  35
Malewski, Mieczysław  266, 338 Merton, Thomas  73, 107, 111, 121, 126–8, 261,
Malgaroli, Matteo  314 280, 284, 337
Mallon, Brenda  322 Messiou, Kyriaki  320
Malmedie, Lydia  177 Meyerhoff, Eli  36
management. See leadership Michailakis, Dimitris  240, 243
Manchester, University of  199 Michalski, Krzysztof Jerzy  25
Mandeville, Bernard  166 Miguel, Luis Felipe  185
Manicheans 225 Mijuskovic, Ben Lazare  xvi, 1, 7, 214, 217–35,
Mann, Farhana  246, 247 280, 282, 324, 325, 332
Manney, Jim  56 Miksza, Małgorzata 173
Manolache, Viorella  82 Mikulincer, Mario  253, 254
Marcel, Gabriel  166 Mikułowski Pomorski, Jerzy  22
March, James  79 Milani, Tommaso M.  175
Marcoen, Alfons  37, 161 Milburn, Olivia  108, 337
Margalit, Malka  7, 250–60, 289, 294, 324 Miller, Eric D.  256
Margolin, Ron  122 Miller, Michael  51
Maritain, Jacques  278, 279 Milton, John  101
Markowitz, John C.  314 mindfulness  122, 143–5, 160, 210
Marquard, Odo  24, 25 Mirk, John  137
Marquette, Heather  126 Miskolci, Richard  178, 183
Marquis, Don  206 mistrust. See trust
Martin, Gabrielle N.  156–7 Mitra, Sugata  42
Martini, Carlo M.  281 Mittelmark, Maurice B.  251
Marx, Karl and Marxism  16, 100, 178, 233, 235, Mittler, Peter  240
327, 328, 331 Moayedoddin, Babak  314
Masi, Christopher M.  257, 259 Moby Dick 336
Maslow, Abraham  35, 48 Moita Lopes, Luiz Paulo da  175, 184
Mason, Steve  74 monasteries  3, 113, 117, 120, 126, 127, 145, 167,
Masschelein, Jan  67 170, 331
Matejko, Jan  166 Monbiot, George  41
Matos, Margarida Gaspar de  257 Mongolia 272–3
Matthews, Nicole L.  258 monks. See monasteries
Mattos, Amana Rocha  175, 179, 184, 185 Montaigne, Michel de  28, 166
Matuchniak-Karasuska, Anna  29 Montero-López, María 306
May, Theresa  236 Montessori, Maria  135, 167, 172, 173
Mayer, John D.  295 Montgomery, Catherine  43
Mehta, Ravi  134 Montgomery, (General) Bernard  70
melancholy  17, 28, 92–3, 106, 200, 312 Moore, Captain Tom  317
Melia, Susan  49 Moore, George Edward  224
Mellor, Philip A.  310, 311, 318 Moragas, Mirta  338

409
Index

morality. See ethics Newton, K M.  94

Morbitzer, Janusz  21 Newton, Nigel  44
Morrish, Liz  179, 241 New Zealand  85, 239
mortality. See death Neyfakh, Leon  41
Morton, Timothy  4, 325 Ng, Yee-Ling  111
Moses  49, 118, 119, 121 Nguyen, Thuy-Vy T.  156, 161
mosques. See Islam, Muhammad Nie, Qingqing  254
Moss, Peter  324 Nielsen, Mette Kjaergaard  315
Mounier, Emmanuel  324 Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm  166, 218
Moustakas, Clark  7, 324 Ni Peimin  104, 115
Moustakas, Kerry  7, 324 Nishimura, Takuma  255
Msibi, Thabo  175 Noddings, Nel  43, 44
Muhammad. See Islam, Muhammad El Nokali, Nermeen E.  242
Muller, A Charles  107 Norberg, Astrid  295
Mullin, Amy  257 Norman, Kathi  244
Mumford, Michael D.  71 North Korea (Democratic People’s Republic of
Murdoch, Iris  78, 90 Korea)  80, 85
Murphy, Jeffrie G.  285–6 Northouse, Peter G.  69
Murray, Christopher  255 Norway 305
Murris, Peter  147 Nouwen, Henri J M.  18, 116, 261
Murthy, Vivek  236, 237, 246, 248 Nowak, Antoni J.  30
Mushtaq, Raheel  300, 308 Nowak, Ewa  138
music  13, 14, 16, 17, 89–103, 121, 138–9, 167. Nowland, Rebecca  34, 255, 256
See also lute; piano; specific composers and Nye, Rebecca  111
performers
Muslim. See Islam, Muhammad Oakley, Lee  43
O’Connor, Frank  101–2
Nachmann, Larry D.  24 O’Connor, Moira  310, 319
Naess, Arne  4, 329 O’Connor, Stephen J.  295
Nagata, Kabi  100 O’Donnell, Ian  5
Naito, Asao  35, 40 Ofsted (Office for Standards in Education)  338
Najjari, Firouzeh  247 Ogle, Donna M.  149
Napoleon (Napoléon Bonaparte)  85 Oiveros, Lehmann  139
Narchal, Renu  242 old age  5–8, 28, 82, 169, 216, 217, 234, 238–40,
National Association of Head Teachers (NAHT) 242, 243, 246, 247, 265, 266, 269, 270, 288–309,
(UK) 176 314, 317, 319, 323, 328, 339
nature, Nature  4, 13–15, 58–67, 78, 81, 93–8, 100, Olearczyk, Teresa  131, 132, 134, 135, 162–73
102–3, 113–15, 142–3, 165, 167, 169–70, 192–3, Oliver, Christine  40
204, 220, 271, 312, 326, 329, 336. See also Ollendick, Thomas H.  147
wilderness Olson, Margaret  196
Nayar, Pramod K.  326 Olton, Roy  86
Nęcka, Edward  166 O’Meara, Thomas F.  26
Neff, Kristin D.  158 online. See computers
Neill, Alexander, Sutherland  36 Oosthuizen, Ann  100
Neilson, Matthew G.  159 Origen of Alexandria  337
Nelson-Becker, Holly  xvii Orkibi, Hod  257
neoliberalism  xvi, 136, 203, 205 Orón Semper, José Víctor 138
Nesmith, Michael  72 O’Rourke, Kevin  132
Netflix xvi Orr, Deborah  35
Netherlands 239 Ortega y Gasset, José  20, 30
Newport, Cal  42 Orwell, George (Eric Arthur Blair)  20, 87
Newton, Isaac  221–2, 226, 227 OʼSúilleabháin, Páraic S.  306

410
 Index

O’Sullivan, Michael  93 Philips, Katherine  93, 94

Oswald, Frank  305 Piaget, Jean  87, 141, 157
Oswell, David  319 piano  102, 103, 336
Ovid (Publius Ovidius Naso)  2–3, 16, 90–2, 94, 277 Piano, Jack C.  86
Piasecka, Małgorzata 264
Padova, University of  199 Piazza-Bonin, Elizabeth  317
Paganini, Niccolò  16, 97, 102 Picard, Max  131
painting. See art and painting Pickering, Sue  49
pandemics  xvi, xvii, 14, 16, 19–21, 42, 72, 84–5, The Picture of Dorian Gray 100
200, 206, 209–10, 213, 235, 311–12, 318, 322, Piersel, Wayne C.  40
328 Pietrzyk-Reeves, Dorota  23
Pang-White, Ann A.  108, 337 Piff, Paul K.  254
Papa, Anthony  314 Piirto, Jane  47
Parent, Kathryn Tetuan  317 Pikula, Norbert G.  300
parenthood, parents. See families Pile, Steve  205, 206, 338
Parkes, Colin Murray  312, 317–18 Pilkington, Cynthia L.  40
Parnas, Josef  24 Pirrie, Anne  6, 132, 136, 200–10, 328
Parnowski, T.  304 Pitcairn Islands  85
Parry, Ken  69 Plato  31, 83, 218, 219, 222, 225, 227, 230, 231
Pascal, Blaise  166 pleasure. See joy
Passchier, Wim F.  189 Pliny the Elder  74
Passchier-Vermeer, Willy  189 Plotinus 222
Pataky, Meghan Gabriel  317 Pluess, Michael  252
Paton, Herbert James  225 poetry  15, 17, 58, 60, 64, 77, 106, 113–15, 121,
Patrick, William  8, 103, 252, 323, 330 133
Patterson, Jo Ellen  247 Poland  97, 167, 173, 215, 239, 265, 267, 272–3,
Patti, Chris  78 302, 306–7, 312–14, 322
Patton, (General) George  71 Polanyi, Michael  195, 324
Pavlich, George  189 Polish language  171, 261, 268, 339
Pawłowska, Róża 265 politics  14, 80–8, 214
peace  14, 36, 45, 75, 81, 103, 106, 111, 121, 124, Pope, Alexander  93, 94
126, 131, 133, 136, 155, 162, 163, 168, 172, 173, Pope Francis  53
189–91, 195–9, 202, 232, 237, 268 Pope John Paul II  163
Pedler, Mike  71 Pope Paul VI  49
Peim, Nick  39, 43 Pope Pius XI  163
Penderecki, Krzysztof  166 Popper, Karl Raimund  21, 23, 335
Peng, D.  105 Porter, Bill  107, 133
Peplau, Letitia Anne  240, 244, 300 Portugal  96, 257
performativity 36 Potts, Shirley  314–15, 320
Perlman, Daniel  240, 244, 300 Powell, Jason L.  303
Perrin, Christophe  90, 277 pragmatism  80, 83, 84
Perry, Grayson  79 Pressley, Elvis Aron  99
Persian language  60 Priest, Quinton Gwynne  112
Persico, Tomer  122 Prigerson, Holly G.  317–18
personalism  324–6, 329 prison  3, 13, 317
Peters, Gary  89 privacy, private  14, 34
Peters, Tim J.  302 professions, professionalism. See work
Peterson, Christopher (Chris)  330 Protestantism. See Christianity
Petrakis, Vicki  49 psychoanalysis. See counselling and therapy
Petrarch 166 punishment  xvi, 2, 3, 37–8, 47, 73, 91, 137, 142,
Pexman, Penny M.  155 224, 233, 330. See also prison
Philips, Adam  201, 202, 205 Purcell, Henry  93

411
Index

Puszko, Hanna  25 Rokach, Ami  236, 237, 241, 243, 244

Putnam, Robert  xvii Romania  80, 91
Romano, John L.  257
Qatar 87 Romanticism  16, 82, 90, 94–8
Quadt, Lisa  217 Rome, Roman Empire  90
Quakerism (the Religious Society of Friends)  44 Rondeau, Jean  93
Qualter, Pamela  250, 255 Ronstadt, Linda  72
Rorty, Richard  21, 23, 25, 26, 335
Rabbi Gillman  118 Rosen, Charles  97
Rabbi Nachman of Bratslav  337 Rosiak, Marek  23
Rabelais, François 79 Rossiter, Graham  49
Rabins, Peter V.  301 Rotenberg, Ken J.  7, 43, 253
‘race’ and ethnicity  160, 177, 207, 213, 243 Rothbart, Mary K.  252
Radosh, Alice  316 Rothman, Allison M.  254
Rahav, Shakhar  110, 111 Rouner, Leroy S.  331
Rant, Melita Balas  76 Rousseau, Jean-Jacques  166, 229, 261
Rantzen, Esther  8 Rousseff, Dilma  177–8, 184
Rauch, R William  324 Row, Jess  45
Raum, Elizabeth  281 Rowe, Mary Budd  194–5
Rawstrone, Annette  320 Ruan Yuan  111
reading. See books and reading and writing Rubin, Kenneth H.  260
Recchia, Holly Elizabeth  155, 159 Rufus, Anneli  3, 4, 328, 332
Rée, Jonathan  331–2 Rumbold, Bruce  319
Reeves, Patricia  317 Russell, Bertrand  220
refuguees  1, 174. See also exile Russell, Daniel W.  251
Reid, Julian  78 Russia  87, 97, 243, 313
Reisman, David  7, 101, 261 Rustin, Michael  206
religion  16, 17, 31, 116–28, 236, 240, 289, 303, Rutter, Michael  39
324–6. See also specific religions; spirituality Rwanda  285, 286
Religious Society of Friends. See Quakerism Rymkiewicz, Wawrzyniec  25–6
Renaut, Alain  21
respectfulness  xvii, 111, 183 Sabat, Steven R.  296
Reuter, Dennis  148 Sacks, Jonathan  118–19, 123
Ricardo, David  331 Sadler, W A.  280
Richard, Aline  306 sadness  93, 153, 159, 258, 271, 285, 315, 320
Richardson, Henry S.  278 Sagan, O.  xvi–xviii
Richardson, Thomas  244 Said, Edward  97, 203, 209–10
Ricoeur, Paul  162, 230 Saint-Amant, Antoine Girard de  93
rights  1, 34, 36, 44, 86, 176, 177, 179, 300, 303, St Anthony  3, 49, 92, 120
338 St Augustine (St Augustine of Hippo)  6, 49, 225,
Riley, Gina  43 231, 337
Rilke, Rainer Maria  16, 78, 101, 167 St Benedict  126, 337
Rittel, Horst  71 St Ignatius of Loyola  56, 337
Robert, Marc  90 St Jean, Shawn  61
Roberts, Peter  197 St Jerome  92
Robertson-Snape, Fiona  85 St Paul  116
Robin Hood 82–3 Salij, Jacek  261
Robinson Crusoe. See Daniel Defoe Salmon, Phillida  324
Robson, Patricia  317 Salovey, Peter  295
Roehlkepartain, Eugene C.  244 Santana, Rui  308
Rogacz, Dawid  31 Santner, Eric L.  96
Rogers, Carl Ransom  326 Santos-Orlandi, Ariene Angelini dos  301–2

412
 Index

Sarah, Robert  164, 165 Shaver, Phillip R.  253, 254

Sarstedt, Peter  72 Shear, M Katherine  312, 314
Sarton, May  4 Sheard, David M.  297
Sartre, Jean-Paul  xvi, 16, 26, 89, 101, 169, 214, Sheldrake, Philip F.  116–17, 120
218, 227, 231, 279 Shelley, Mary  98
Saudi Arabia  87 Shen Congwen  112
Sauntson, Helen  6, 132, 133, 135, 174–88 Shepherd, Anna “Nan”  4, 15, 58–67, 204, 326
Savage, Anne  5 Shestov, Lev  166
Saxton, Emily A.  258 Shi, Xinxin  254
Scandinavia 60 Shiba Rokuro  104
Scharmer, C Otto  75–6 Shih, Hsio-yen  113
Schiller, Friedrich von  96 Shilling, Chris  310, 311, 318
Schirmer, Werner  240, 243 Shin, Jeong  110
Schmidt, Jerry Dean  112 Shovestul, Bridget  238, 239
Schmidt-Barad, Tomer  250–60 Shute, Nevil (Nevil Shute Norway)  71
Schneiter, C.  72 Shvedko, Anastasia  246
Schoch-Spana, Monica  311–12 shyness  8, 146, 154, 251, 253
schools  8, 15, 34–57, 75, 90, 135, 137, 140–2, siblings. See families
146–61, 167, 174–88, 198, 215, 240–2, 248, 250, Sicily 96
251, 254–8, 260, 270, 272, 280, 314–15, 317, Sillin, Jonathan G.  39
320–2, 324, 330, 332, 338 Silver Line, The  8, 335
Schopenhauer, Arthur  28, 166, 227–9 Sim, Disa  34
Schubert, Franz  102 Sima Qian  112
Schulz, Kathryn  61, 193 Simkin, Linda  316
Schwartz, Jay W.  152, 155 Simms, William Gilmore  52
Scollon, Ron  194 Simões, Celeste  257
Scollon, Suzie  194 Simon, Eti Ben  238
Scotland. See United Kingdom Simpson, Gillian  17, 18, 116–28, 329
Scruggs, Ryan  284 Sinatra, Frank (Francis Albert)  98
Scuton, Roger  86 Singapore 243
Sedaka, Neil  72 Singer, Peter  326
Sedgwick, Eve Kosofsky  179, 180 Sink, Christopher A.  xvii, 213–17, 236–49, 339
Seeman, Teresa  289–90 Skarga, Barbara  263
self-harm. See suicide and self-harm Skinner, Burrhus Frederic  76
Seligman, Martin E P.  152, 160, 244 Skinner, Ellen  258
Selkirk, Alexander  331 Ślęczek-Czakon, Danuta  171
Sellars, Wilfrid  23 sleep  172, 218, 238
Sendak, Maurice  103 Sliwa, Jim  238
Seneca  166, 261 Slovenia 305
Senechal, Diana  43, 45, 47 Smith, Adam  331
Senge, Peter M.  72 Smith, Bessie  98
Sennett, Richard  97 Smith, Peter Scharff  5
Șerban, Henrieta  xvii, 16, 18, 80–8 Smith, Simon  324
Seth, Vikram  336 Smith, Tiffany Watt  96
Seweryniak, Henryka  262 Snape, Dawn  250, 254, 258
sex, sexuality. See genders and sexualities Sobczak, Katarzyna Natalia  21
Sha’ked, Ami  237, 241, 243, 244 Sobota, Daniel  31
Shakespeare, William  16, 92 Sochaczewska, G.  171
shame. See guilt or shame social media. See computing
Shamir, Ronen  203 social networking. See computing
Shankar, Aparna  306 Socrates  31, 165
Sharabi, A.  241, 256 Söderlund, Helena  195

413
Index

Solano, Cecilia H.  252 Strange, Julie-Marie  311

solipsism 29 Strauss, Anselm L.  50–1
solitary confinement. See prison Stroebe, Margaret  314, 315
Solomon, I.  254 Su, Frank  199
soul. See spirituality Suggitt, Connie  317
South Africa  80, 85 suicide and self-harm  85, 93, 99, 243, 244, 317.
Souza, Margaret  314 See also death
Spaemann, Robert  278, 279 Sullivan, Harry Stack  251
Spain 96 Sundararajan, Louise  34, 35, 37–9, 42
Spain, Breeanna  317 Sunderland, Jane  179–80
Spanish language  2 Sundström, Anna  289
Spender, J-C  72 Sun Tzu  70
Sperber, Dan  291 Surrette, Tanya  157, 158, 160, 161
Spiegelberg, Herbert  230, 234, 235 Sutton, Philip W.  85
Spinoza, Benedict (Baruch)  4, 7, 94 Swartz, Holly A.  246
spirituality  14, 17, 67, 71, 75, 103–15, 126, 165, Sweden  195, 200
188, 191, 192, 199, 213, 219, 222, 224, 234, Świtoń, Anna  304, 306
236, 240, 245, 295. See also religion; specific Switzerland  85, 317
religions synagogues. See Judaism
Spithoven, A W M.  251 Syria 87
Spitz, René 233 Szahaj, Andrzej  21, 22
Spokane, Arnold R.  254 Szanto, Katalin  314
sport  70, 74, 157, 173, 241–2, 246, 270, 303 Szarota, Zofia  304
spouses. See families Szatur-Jaworska, Barbara  300–1, 303–4
Springfield, Dusty (Mary O’Brien)  98 Szczecin, University of  13
Stables, Andrew  197 Szczepański, Jan  272, 338
Stake, Robert E.  266 Szeligowska, Dorota  313
Standing, E M.  173 Szewczuk, Włodzimierz  265, 338
Staub, Ervin  285 Szmidt, Krzysztof  166
Staufer, Jill  201–2, 210 Szynkaruk, Olga  91
Steben, Barry D.  110, 111
Steffener, Jason  295 Taee, Katrina  315
Steger, Michael F.  156 Taiwan  85, 104, 208
Steil, Janice M.  254 Taizé 127
Steiler, Joseph Karl  96 Tan, Siu-Lan  332
Steiner, George  95 Tao Yuanming  133
Steiner, Rudolf  135, 172 Tartakovsky, Eugene  243
Stepanova, Jekaterina  113 Tarugu, Jayanthi  247
Steptoe, Andrew  314 Taumoepeau, Mele  153–4
Stern, Julian (L J Stern)  xvii, 1–9, 16, 18, 34–40, Taylor, Charles  77–8, 96
43, 47, 48, 51, 54, 56, 89–103, 131–3, 174, 213, Taylor, Richard  296
262, 263, 277, 280, 289, 295, 300, 313, 319, technology. See computing
322–33, 339 Tenebaum, Harriet R.  159
Stern, Yaacov  295 Teresa of Avila  125, 337
Stillingfleet, Edward  221 Tetlow, Joseph  56, 57
Stirner, Max, (Johann, Kaspar, Schmidt)  1, 331 Thayer, Colette  240, 244
Stoicism 225 therapy. See counselling and therapy
Stokes, Julie  320 Thích Nhất Hạnh  131, 145, 163
Stolz, Peter  308 Thomas, Virginia D.  35–7, 41, 43
Stone, Darwell  120 Thomism, Thomist. See Aquinas
Stonewall (charity)  176, 179 Thompson, Neil  317
Storr, Anthony  34–6, 73, 121, 324

414
 Index

Thoreau, Henry David  4, 15, 16, 58–67, 73, 75, 76, Venice 96
101, 326, 336 Vermes, Geza  74
Tibet, China  87 Verrier, Nancy  317
Tien, Adrian  115 Verrissimo, Manuela  255
Tillich, Paul  14, 26–7, 166, 335 Vervoorn, Aat Emile  107
Tiwari, Sarvada Chandra  302 Victor, Christina  xvii
Toffler, Alvin  20 Viertel, Salka  200, 202
Tolmacz, Rami  254 Vietnam 145
Tolman, Edward  76 Vincent, David  xvi, 34, 120
Tolvajčić, Danijel  26 Voltaire (François-Marie Arouet)  166
Tönnies, Ferdinand  327 von Wright, Moira  44, 192, 194
Torrey, Bradford  60, 64, 65, 336 Vracheva, Veselina P.  155–7
Townsend, Peter  7, 328 Vroom, Victor  70
transcendence. See spirituality Vygotsky, Lev  141, 153–4
Transcendentalism 58
Trump, Donald  87–8 Waddell, Margot  207
Trumpeter, Nevelyn N.  254 Wahl, Hans-Werner  306
trust  79, 107, 161, 162, 178, 210, 234, 237–9, 248, Wahlquist, Calla  324
253, 255, 257, 294, 339. See also hope Waiblinger, Wilhelm  95–6
Tur-Kaspa, Hana  255 Waite, Linda J.  306
Turkle, Sherry  21, 324–5 Walden Pond. See Thoreau
Tu Wei-ming  110 Wałejko, Małgorzata  xvii, 1, 5, 13–18, 36, 38, 39,
Twain, Mark (Samuel Langhorne Clemens)  99 43, 264, 265, 280, 324
Twenge, Jean M.  156–7 Wales. See United Kingdom
Tyler, Imogen  24 Walker, Matthew P.  238
Walker, Scott (Scott Engel)  73
UCLA loneliness scale  8 Wallace, Cara L.  318
Uhlenberg, Peter  299 Wallerstein, Immanuel  85
Ukraine  87, 243 Walter, Tony  310, 312, 313, 316–18, 320
United Arab Emirates  87 Walton, Gerald  40
United Kingdom (and England, Northern Ireland, Wampler, Karen S.  247
Scotland, Wales)  59, 64, 85, 88, 89, 96, 100, Wanderer, The 91–2
135, 174, 180–3, 204, 208, 236, 238, 239, 243, Wang, Bi  132
248, 311–13, 317, 321, 322, 324, 330. See also Wang, Fan-sen  110
Brexit Wang, Guojun  306
United Nations (UN)  80, 85, 86 Wang, Hui-Xin  295
United States of America, USA  16, 24, 42, 58, 82, Wang, Jingyi  239, 240
85, 87–8, 98, 99, 142, 143, 158, 236, 238–40, Wang, Qi  159
243, 246, 248 Wang, R.  105, 107, 108
universities  8, 133, 134, 189–210, 303, 308, 309, Wang Fuzhi  114
332. See also specific universities Wang Xiang  108
Wang Yangming  109–11
Valle, Ron  140 Wang Yanning  113
Valtorta, Nicole K.  306 Wasilewska-Ostrowska, Katarzyna  33, 304
Vandenakker, John Paul  126 Watson, Nicholas  5
Van der Gucht, Katleen  158 Watson, Roger  299
Van Doesum, Niels J.  160 Watts, Paul  295
Van Gogh, Vincent  166 Weare, Katherine  35
Van Meter, Jeffrey B.  146 Webb, Diana  3, 4
Vassilopoulou, Helen D.  255 Webber, Melvin M.  71
Vattimo, Gianni  279 Weber, Max  70, 102, 121, 234–5, 337
Weeks, Molly Stroud  319

415
Index

Weeks, Murray  155, 157 Woolf, Virginia  168, 169

Weil, Simone  73, 75 Wordsworth, Dorothy  94
Weinar, Leif  44 Wordsworth, William  16, 94–5, 98, 326
Weinbach, I.  265 work  1, 6, 8, 68–79, 83, 136, 200–10, 235, 240,
Weinstein, Netta  158, 161 270, 300, 302, 303, 309, 314, 316–18, 327–9, 333
Weir, David  xvi, 3, 15, 16, 68–79, 328 World Health Organisation (WHO)  189,
Weisman, Gerald D.  306 318
Weiss, Robert S.  1, 7, 171, 237, 241, 243, 244, Wray, Alison  8, 216, 288–98, 328, 339
251, 300, 324, 327, 328 writing. See books and reading and writing
Welch, Sue  320 Wu, G.  108
The Well of Loneliness 99–100 Wu Hung  105, 106, 115
Wenger, G Clare  304 Wuthering Heights 98
Wen Zhengming  114 Wyschogrod, Michael  78
Wessels, Francois  54
West, Ken  313 Xu Shangying  115
Whalley, Lawrence J.  295
White, Emily  1 Al-Yagon, Michal  253, 255
Whitley, Rob  238 Yang, Chunyan  156
Whitman, Walt  16, 98, 99 Yang, Jui-sung  110
Whittaker, Elvi  328 Yan Ying  108
Wickrama, Kandauda A S.  240, 243 Yarnell, Lisa M.  159
Wilde, Oscar  16, 100 Yates, Richard  7, 101
wilderness  17, 68–79, 81, 105, 107, 331. See also Yemen 87
nature, Nature Yi Gan  109–10
William of St-Thierry  3–5 yoga 4
Williams, Hank  99 Yolton, John W.  220
Williams, Rowan (Lord Williams of Yoneyama, Shoko  35, 40, 42
Oystermouth)  117, 120, 126–7 Yung, Bell  115
Williamson, Ben  41
Williamson, J Austin  258 Zahavi, Dan  24
Wills, Thomas A.  258 Zalewska-Pawlak, Mirosławę 265
Wilson, Deirdre  291 Zaleznik, Abraham  69
Wilson, John  315–17 Zeitlin, Irving M.  337
Wilson, Travis M.  154, 157–8 Zeng Guofan  108, 110–11
Winnicot, Donald Woods  xvii, 1, 7, 35, 200, 202, Zeng Shen  107
208–10, 326, 330 Zhang, Feng  255
Wittgenstein, Ludwig  2, 6, 136, 331 Zhao, Jingjing  253
Wnuk, Agnieszka  304, 306 Zheng Zhen  112, 113
Wohlleben, Peter  4 Zhou, Xinyue  244
Wojtyła, Karol Józef  278–9, 284, 324 Zhou Guangya  309
Wolf, Norbert  96 Zhu, Ying  153
Wolfe, David  34 Zhuangzi 107
Wolgensinger, Laure  259 Zilboorg, Gregory  232–3
Wong Ping Ho  xvi, xvii, 17, 18, 103–15, 131–6, Zimmermann, Johann Georg Ritter von  28, 42,
328, 332 120, 337
Wood, Alex M.  244 Zong Bing  113, 114
Woods, Judith  35 Zullig, Keith J.  244
Woodward, John C.  289 Zych, Adam A.  304

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