Loneliness Essay

3250 Words13 Pages
Loneliness Loneliness is inevitable and generally, a common emotion. The person may examine their deepest thoughts and feelings throughout the stage of loneliness. In this essay, loneliness will be explored and its association with old age. Another sub concept that will be discussed is an adverse event in life such as bereavement. This will be analysed in relation to loneliness. In addition, the concept loneliness and the two main issues, old age and bereavement, will be link to clinical experience. A reflection of the overall Enquiry Base Learning will also be incorporated. Loneliness has various meanings that vary between individuals, as loneliness is a subjective feeling. De Jong-Gierveld (1987) as cited in Griffin (2010, p3) define loneliness as: ‘A situation experienced by the individual as one where there is an unpleasant or inadmissible lack of (quality of) certain relationships. This includes situations in which a number of existing relationships is smaller than considered desirable or admissible or situations where the intimacy one wishes for has not been realised. Thus, loneliness is seen to involve the manner in which a person experiences and evaluates his or her isolation and lack of communication with other people.’ Similarly, Age UK (2011, p7) define it as: ‘Loneliness…can be understood as an individual’s personal, subjective sense of lacking these things (social or familial contact, community involvement, or access to services) to the extent that they are wanted or needed.’ Both De Jong-Gierveld (1987) and Age UK (2011) view loneliness as the absence of an individual to be socially connected to some form of relationship hence, the feeling of alienation. They have also identified that loneliness occurs when an emotional fulfilment of an individual to be needed or wanted by another individual is missing. Therefore these authors convey that
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