Loneliness
A sense of disconnection that doesn't depend on how many people are around you.
How it shows up
You can be lonely in a long marriage and not lonely alone in a foreign city. The measure isn’t the number of contacts but the feeling that someone knows you as you are. Prolonged loneliness burdens the body much as chronic stress does.
What we do with it in therapy
Often the difficulty isn’t the absence of people but how much of yourself you dare to show. We work on what would have to happen for you to take the risk.
See also
Midlife crisis
The period in which you ask whether the life you have built is really yours.
Reconciliation
Restoring a relationship after a rupture — unlike forgiveness, it always requires both people.
Differentiation
The ability to stay yourself while being close to someone — and to stay close even when you disagree.
