From Loneliness to Solitude in Person-Centred Health Care

This innovative book provides a new conceptual analysis of loneliness - a condition associated with severe health consequences, including increased morbidity and early death.

Arguing that social connection is not the only answer, it explores pathways for transforming loneliness to healthy solitude. The first part of the book draws on the humanities and arts, including psychology, philosophy, and literature to analyse the common, and potentially serious, problem of loneliness. It makes the case that the condition is less a deficiency than a state of self-disconnection that modernity feeds through social forces. The second part of the book looks at how person-centred health care can help educate persons to transform loneliness into healthy solitude. It provides an analysis of self-connection and spiritual connection, discussing how these forms of contact can mitigate risks associated with both lack of social connection, and social connection itself, such as self-disconnection and rejection by others. It goes on to demonstrate that connection to the self and spirit can make aloneness a resource and facilitate access to benefits of connecting with others.

This thought-provoking book provides students, scholars, and practitioners from a range of health and social care backgrounds with a new way of thinking about, researching, and practising with lonely people.

Stephen Buetow is Associate Professor of General Practice and Primary Health Care at the University of Auckland, New Zealand. He is Associate Editor of the Journal of Evaluation in Clinical Practice and the European Journal of Person Centered Healthcare.