Page 255 - Total War on PTSD

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 families are so welcoming and embracing. So what is loneliness if not an artifact of physical isolation?
Defining “loneliness” may be less intuitive a task than appears at first glance. However, most simply, it may be argued that loneliness is the subjective experience of undesired painful isolation (Stein & Tuval-Mashiach, 2015b). Let me explicate this definition. Loneliness is subjective in that although it may be precipitated by an objective social reality, it stems more from perceptions and appraisals of that reality than the reality itself. Underscoring the painful or aversive aspect of the experience is important for discerning loneliness from aloneness, which may be neutral in the feeling or emotion that it engenders, and solitude, which is positively experienced and at times deliberately sought (Gotesky, 1965; Storr, 1988). Additionally, and often taken for granted, any experience of loneliness necessarily involves an experiencing subject (i.e., a lonely person or consciousness) and an Other, in relation to whom and for whom one is lonely. Being lonely for something or someone gives rise to the realization that loneliness forever involves an discrepancy between the person’s desired and attained social relations (Perlman & Peplau, 1981). The extent of the discrepancy typically corresponds with the severity or intensity of the loneliness at hand and the extent to which it is undesired. As the famous aphorism goes: the higher the expectation, the greater the disappointment. Loneliness reflects a bitter shattering of social expectations and desires. Moreover, this discrepancy always relates to a relational need or provision that is experienced as lacking. The lonely, it may therefore be argued, are those that most direly need someone for something, but alas, find no one at their side at their time of need.
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