About Loneliness

Loneliness is a universal experience, familiar to almost everyone. Review by Mansfield et al. (2021) suggests it can be roughly divided into three types:

- Social loneliness – feeling a lack of social connections.

- Emotional loneliness – feeling the absence of close, meaningful relationships, even when surrounded by people.

- Existential loneliness – a deeper sense of separation from others and the world as a whole.

In my practice, I rarely see people who objectively have no one around them. More often, people are nearby, but connecting with them proves difficult.

Working with expats and neurodivergent clients, I notice similar challenges: both groups often need to invest extra effort to understand the “language of the majority” – not just words, but also unspoken social rules, hints, non-verbal cues, and the ability to read between the lines.

This constant effort can lead to fatigue and burnout. For me, the key in working with loneliness is helping clients find a balance between their need for connection and the resources they are willing or able to invest.

Mansfield, L., Victor, C., Meads, C., Daykin, N., Tomlinson, A., Lane, J., Gray, K., & Golding, A. (2021). A conceptual review of loneliness in adults: Qualitative evidence synthesis. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 18(21), 11522.