The Pervasiveness and Public Mental Health Significance of Loneliness: Assessing, Understanding, and Preventing Unbearable and Enduring Loneliness

This chapter considers loneliness and its role as potentially the most pressing public mental health issue around the world. Our chapter begins by documenting the many costs and consequences of loneliness. We then discuss loneliness in terms of its clinical significance. Most notably, we focus uniquely on loneliness that has become unbearable and discuss how this extreme form of loneliness is typically accompanied by significant mental health problems and associated risks and vulnerabilities. A central theme in this chapter is seeking to understand the roots of unbearable loneliness by considering elements of the self-concept that are implicated in the experience and persistence of unbearable loneliness. Relevant research investigations illustrating the role of self and identity issues in loneliness are described. Finally, given myriad public mental health concerns, this chapter concludes with a discussion of key themes that should be emphasized in prevention and intervention efforts designed to alleviate all types of loneliness, but especially loneliness that has become unbearable for those people who lack a meaningful sense of connection with other people.