Therapists and researchers alike often emphasize the importance of social support. A few inverse experiences of feeling supported – loneliness and social isolation – prove to have many negative effects. In particular, there are multiple negative effects of loneliness on health.
Loneliness refers to the cognitive-emotional experience of feeling alone. Social isolation refers to actually physically being alone, with few or no social contacts. Interestingly, each of these experiences does not guarantee the other. Individuals can experience loneliness even in the presence of having others around them. While some individuals are isolated but do not feel lonely.
Loneliness appears to have negative effects on multiple aspects of both mental and physical health. It puts individuals at increased risk of depression, anxiety, suicide, and cognitive problems. Additionally, loneliness is found to put people at increased risk for almost all negative physical health outcomes. This can include heart disease, stroke, emergency department visits, and hospital admissions.
To note, social isolation can also contribute to some of these effects (especially heart disease and stroke), even when individuals do not feel lonely. These experiences appear to put people at higher risk for Alzheimer’s disease and cognitive decline.
The effects of loneliness (and social isolation, in some cases) appear so pronounced that the surgeon general has warned about the negative effects of loneliness. Some municipalities have even made policy efforts to address “the loneliness epidemic”.
Even having social support does can mean an individual will be at risk for health problems. Having good social support predicts all sorts of benefits. But when people have support that is negative, it can have negative effects on mental health (e.g., difficult reactions to trauma) and physical health (e.g., smoking, being overweight). So assessing quality of social support prior to addressing loneliness is crucial, because critical or negative support can be detrimental.
So is there a way to help those who experience loneliness or social isolation? Researchers find that cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) and social skills training both appear to be helpful to address loneliness. They suspect that CBT may be helpful because it may help address the perception of loneliness that is also a part of the experience. They also suspect that elements of CBT (e.g., thought-challenging, behavioral activation components) likely to lead individuals to voluntarily contact social networks and sources of support.
There are good continuing education courses on CBT foundations and a classic book for therapists seeking to train in CBT to enhance therapist resources for loneliness. There are also some good strategies for clients to use for in-the-moment coping with loneliness and social isolation.
Loneliness and social isolation can be such a difficult experience. And many clients experience those in addition to multiple other difficulties. Luckily, there are some good approaches we can take to help clients counteract the effects of these difficult experiences in their own lives.
