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exacerbating it and making it considerably more difficult for Veterans to breach their subjective solitary confinements and overcome their loneliness. I will conclude with intervention strategies that may be and are employed by clinicians, Veterans and their support networks. As a preliminary step, however, it is necessary to attend to the constituting elements of loneliness and its multifariousness.
Loneliness: Definition and Heterogeneity
It is common to think that loneliness is tantamount to isolation and thus that increasing social interactions is the remedy for loneliness. However, one merely needs to observe the instances wherein loneliness transpires and instances where it fails to do so, to realize that this is not exactly the case. After all, as many may reflect, being alone is not always such a bad thing. Indeed, we often thrive in seclusion; we create and give birth to our most esteemed work when away from the hassles and distractions of the world and the nuisance of dealing with other people. It is in isolation that we may often experience our most profound breakthroughs in life, and in detachment we often find safety and reassurance. This kind of oh-so-blessed isolation is not loneliness. Rather, this is what may better be termed solitude (Storr, 1988), the positive side of being alone (Gotesky, 1965). To make things slightly more complicated, loneliness, as the term is used in the social sciences (Stein & Tuval-Mashiach, 2015), may be experienced with all its anguish and torment when completely surrounded by other people, whether in a crowd or buzzing social event. Indeed, as I elaborate more thoroughly below, sometimes, it is precisely when one is embedded within a social interaction that loneliness manifests in its most overwhelming, agonizing and relentless form. This understanding may in itself be redeeming, as Veterans try to understand why they feel so utterly alone although their
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