The # 1 Cause of Loneliness
She said, "My Mom can't handle it. What can my sisters do?" Even with her closest friends, she'd rather not talk about it.
Over time, the "secret" took its toll on Rita.
She became extremely lonely and isolated. Then, severely depressed and even having suicidal thoughts.
Loneliness, if prolonged, nearly always lead to depression. Or, other types of psychopathology.
Psychologist Sidney Jourard, a well known author and university professor of psychology, gives us a clue about the #1 cause of loneliness.
He cited that "to make oneself fully known to at least one significant human being" is a basic human need.
If that basic human need is blocked, stymied, or taken away, maladjustment results.
Maladjustment is often the struggle to avoid being known by another.
Rita got severely lonely not because she lacked family or contacts with friends and people.
But, she felt she had no one with whom she can truly "be herself" with little shame or self consciousness.
When a person has family and friends but no one with whom she is "truly her self," the loneliness produces withering.
It keeps one from keeping life moving along.
Psychotherapy is a natural anti-depressant and medicine for the lonely.
It gives one a "jump start." To arrest further development or escalation of loneliness and depression into dangerous levels.
It provides a struggling person a booster transitional context to truly "be himself."
To stay connected. To find his deepest core. To discover "new flow."
Until he is able to do it independently by himself.
To cure - internally and externally - the primary cause of his loneliness.
"Trust in Him at all times ... pour out your hearts to Him, for He is our refuge." (Psalm 16:8)