Advice for Those Who Will Spend Their Quarantine Period Alone

Are you alone or solitary? While solitude is a state chosen by the individual, loneliness emerges as an unpleasant and unchosen condition resulting from the deterioration of a person's social relationships. Experts who identify three types of loneliness in terms of duration—short-term, situational, and chronic—point out that loneliness is associated with factors such as depression, anxiety, suicide, life satisfaction, hopelessness, shyness, excessive internet use, and stress. Gülçin Şenyuva, Specialist Clinical Psychologist at Üsküdar University NPİSTANBUL Brain Hospital, provided notable assessments regarding the concepts of loneliness and solitude.

Loneliness is a natural emotion for humans

Clinical Psychologist Gülçin Şenyuva, emphasizing that humans are social beings, stated: "People of every age wish to establish relationships and interact with others. However, loneliness is a natural emotion for every person. Whether in childhood, youth, adulthood or old age, a person may experience the feeling of loneliness at any point in their life. That is to say, loneliness is a shared experience for humans. For some, loneliness means having no one, for others it means lacking a romantic relationship, and for still others it means being alone. In psychology and sociology, the concept of loneliness carries a different meaning from the concept of being alone." he said.

Loneliness and solitude are different concepts

Defining loneliness as an emotional response to the failure to meet a person's need to connect with others, Şenyuva stated: "Loneliness involves emotional emptiness, yearning, the desire for closeness and the desire to change these feelings. Solitude, on the other hand, can be described as a temporary state for an individual, one that creates no tension and in which the person is self-sufficient. In other words, despite painful negativities in loneliness, solitude does not contain the emotions present in loneliness. Loneliness is almost always an avoided, unpleasant experience accompanied by feelings of anxiety, anger, sadness, and a sense of being different from others." he said.  

Loneliness is divided into three types in terms of duration

Pointing out that loneliness has three types in terms of duration, Şenyuva stated: "One is short-term loneliness, which is momentary feelings of loneliness that arise from time to time. Since they are momentary emotions, the person does not experience anxiety. The second is situational loneliness. This type of loneliness arises from causes such as migration, job changes, and divorce. It ends when the transitional period comes to an end. The third is chronic loneliness. It is the type of loneliness that arises from an individual's lack of satisfaction in their relationships over many years." he said.

Solitude is a choice of the individual

Saying that solitude is a condition selected by the individual, Şenyuva stated: "Loneliness, on the other hand, is an unpleasant and unchosen condition resulting from the deterioration of a person's social relationships. Studies have found that loneliness is associated with factors such as depression, anxiety, suicide, life satisfaction, hopelessness, shyness, excessive internet use, and stress. In order to prevent the emergence of such psychological distress, increasing interpersonal social communication is known to be the most important approach." he said.  

Loneliness is a negative emotion

Clinical Psychologist Gülçin Şenyuva, defining emotional loneliness as the manifestation of anxiety and feelings of emptiness stemming from the lack of a close attachment to any person, concluded his remarks as follows: "Social loneliness, on the other hand, is the absence of social connection and a sense of community, not belonging to a group, and the lack of a social relationships network. Because people need a satisfying social life in order to have healthy mental health. Being alone in a crowd is related to the concept of social loneliness. Beginning with a person feeling lonely in their surroundings and continuing with the reaction they develop toward that environment, it is the loneliness experienced by individuals who avoid social activities in the social sense and have become alienated from the environment and society in which they find themselves. While loneliness is a negative emotion, solitude is a state of a person's own volition that brings gains. The individual feels free when solitary. Moments are experienced in which thoughts gain importance and mature."