·      Terminology. When you think about goal setting, you realize that it’s a process and that requires effort to reach your target; whereas a resolution is a decision or intention. It has to be more than a wish, but it’s only the first step in reaching a goal. There’s no implication that planning or effort is involved. It’s as if saying it makes it so. Naturally, it doesn’t. Change isn’t easy. Instead of making several New Year’s “resolutions,” make ONE you can keep, and it will give you confidence that you can do more.

·      Motivation. Change requires work. To be motivated, your heart has to be in it.  To realize your goals and resolutions, you must be inspired and really want to make the effort necessary to leave your comfort zone. Inspiration infuses you with energy and power. It stimulates your creativity, promises a better future, or connects you to a larger purpose. It fills you with positive emotions that overcome fear and inertia. Love mobilizes parents to work hard and protect their children, disregarding their own comfort and safety. For change to last, make sure your motive expresses your true self and fosters your highest good. Your goal must be congruent with your core beliefs. Resolutions to make changes for someone else’s approval, for monetary gain, or because you think you “should” are hard to sustain.

·      Self-Discipline. In addition to desire and motivation, you need self-discipline. It’s been said that success is 99 percent perspiration and one percent inspiration. Change requires focus and sustained effort before results are noticeable. The process is not a straight path, but a spiral of movement forward, slips, stagnation, and leaps ahead. It’s easy to get discouraged and be swayed by the pull of habit. Expect to feel discomfort. You may feel confused, awkward, or anxious. Studies show that on average that changing habits requires at least two months of vigilant monitoring, and they still sneak up on you. Be patient. Continue to exert your will-power, and over time your persistence will pay off.  

For years, every January I’d make resolutions and set goals for the coming year. Twelve months later, I’d see if I’d accomplished them, never considering the “how to” middle part. Of course, “good intentions” didn’t get me very far. Here are six tips that I’ve learned:

1.    Create an action plan. I’d get overwhelmed and lose confidence when I thought about a major goal. Break it down into smaller steps by month, week, and daily to-do lists. Actionable steps become manageable and doable.

2.    Heighten self-awareness. People often seek therapy to raise their self-esteem or overcome addictions and codependency. If your resolution is to change your habits, self-awareness and vigilance are needed in order to interrupt old patterns. Daily meditation and journaling are potent and helpful tools in monitoring and changing your thoughts, feelings, and behavior.

3.    Encourage yourself. Discouragement is normal. Become a positive coach, and continually give yourself positive feedback, praise, and recognition. Look for small signs of progress and celebrate them. If you have low-self-esteem, you may talk yourself out of your desires and think you lack the skill, worth, or ability to achieve them. Underlying depression does the same thing. Self-doubt and negative self-talk paralyze you in a past expression of yourself. They sap energy and motivation, and can easily persuade you to give up.

If you aren’t making progress or slip into old habits, don’t dwell on your “mistake.” Rather than stay stuck in self-judgment and guilt, admit what you did or didn’t do, and quickly get back on track. Stay solution-oriented. Ask yourself, “What am I going to do about it?” Self-forgiveness improves both self-esteem and future behavior.

4.    Have a vision. To create a powerful motivation for change, picture yourself as you’d like to be and see yourself happy and confident behaving in the new way. Rather than focusing on what you don’t want, focus on what you desire. Here are some suggestions to manifest the new you:

·      Draw the future you.

·      Imagine what it would be like if you were the future you in this moment. See yourself carrying out your New Year’s resolutions. Notice the expression on your face, and experience how you would feel in your body. See the future you as having accomplished your goals. Experience yourself feeling proud, happy, and confident. See people in your life responding favorably to you.

5.    Get support. Some changes entail facing the unknown or a perceived danger, such as life after a divorce, moving to a new city, or standing up to intimidation. They require courage, and support can be a great help. Addictions and habits are hard to break, especially if they’re driven by temptation, like drugs, food, and sex. Support and encouragement from friends, family, a mentor, support group, or therapist are vital until new patterns are established as part of your self-definition.

Many people make changes on their own. If it’s been difficult for you, or if you find it hard to muster motivation and self-discipline, it may be that an internal shift is required before anything external can permanently change. Sometimes, unconscious beliefs about yourself and what’s possible hold you back. Consider that therapy can lift depression and move you through the challenges outlined above. It can raise your self-esteem, facilitate insight, and guide you in facing the unknown and maintaining new behavior.

©Darlene Lancer 2012

We all know that it’s important to lead by example when it comes to anger management, especially when dealing with young children, but do we? When tears followed my outburst, I realized my misstep and abandoned the project to pay attention to my daughter, which, as a parent, was the right decision.

At 3 ½ she is at the prime age for immature emotional outbursts, which makes my response even more crucial. Young children aged 3-5 generally lack the impulse control needed to avoid ripping up a drawing or knocking down a block tower when something doesn’t go their way. However, it is how they react following that outburst and how the adults around them explain it that makes all the difference in terms of their ability to manage anger as they age and enter school.

Like many social skills, anger management starts in the home. As adults, we get caught up in our own lives frequently and it is easy to take out our frustration with others on our children, like I did this morning. Obviously, we need to learn to control these events, but no one is perfect 100% of the time. I believe it is the response that we give after the outburst that matters most. By explaining anger in age appropriate ways and labeling the emotion early on, children are more likely to pick up on both the inevitability of and the proper response to the anger emotion. 

Anger Management at School

As teachers and school counselors, we have little control over the reactions our students face in their homes, but we can extend the lessons of anger management into the classroom in similar ways. Labeling the emotion is a first step, which goes hand-in-hand with open discussions regarding anger. These discussions should include what makes each child angry and why, as well as what responses each has to the emotion. Naming a problem goes a long way in helping to solve it, and since lack of anger management skills is closely tied to bullying in school, taking the time to mention the importance of this emotion from an early age is an essential component in bully prevention strategies.

Consider some of the following resources for lesson plans and ideas in the classroom:

Elementary School: The book When Sophie Gets Angry – Really, Really Angry by Molly Bang is a great starting point for a discussion of anger, even for preschoolers. Other books and activities for anger management can be found here.

Middle School: Since this age group can be reluctant to share emotions with each other freely, anger-related journal questions or homework can be used as a means to begin the discussion internally before bringing it to the group. PBS Kids suggests an interview with an adult that can also serve as a means to open the floor to discussion at home.

High School: PBS again provides a wonderful lesson plan in anger management and the importance of the “I-Message.” By phrasing anger in the 1st person, older teens can begin to see the personal elements of the emotion.

It’s Okay to Be Angry

Anger is inevitable, even if it’s misplaced. I know that my stress is no excuse for being “mean Mommy,” and this morning I immediately recognized that. Plus, I know better than to try to “sneak” work into the day when I’m alone with my kids, so the fault was with me, not my daughter. Even though she’s 3 and unlikely to understand the full implications of it, I apologized to her and explained why I yelled.

Anger management starts with example and it’s important to show children that at times when you do lose control, you can stop yourself and right your course. I wanted her to know that it’s okay to be angry, but that in expressing that anger, we need to also exert control and remorse.

Writer: Andrea Ditter-Middleton

Bio: Andrea is a college writing teacher whose work experience includes everything from coordinating YMCA after-school programs for at-risk youth to tutoring developmental writing students to general classroom instruction. In addition to writing professionally, Andrea currently teaches a range of adult community college students in both online and physical classroom settings. At home, she keeps in shape by running after her two young daughters.

The student bodies of universities today are more diverse than ever before, and the emotional and mental health issues among those students are also more varied. While common issues discussed in school-operated counseling services were once primarily feelings of homesickness, stress, and depression from social circumstances or grades, issues frequently addressed in counseling offices today are often much more severe.

Currently issues of suicidal tendencies and substance abuse are taking their place in a long line of other serious mental health problems. The National Survey of Counseling Center Directors has found a marked increase in severe psychological problems over the last decade. Common mental health issues noted in this survey include eating disorders, alcohol abuse, on-campus sexual assault, and self-inflicted injury patterns. The reasons for the prevalence of such psychological problems are speculated to be just as varied as the student populations themselves.
The demand for on-campus counseling centers has increased as well, with many universities reporting at least a 50 percent increase in counseling services (in both number and duration of appointments) in the past several years. However, some may argue this drastic increase in the use of counseling services for serious mental issues is not as much related to new problems within the student body as it is to greater willingness to be open about such issues. In fact, some have suggested the trend of increased diagnosis could largely be due to changing perceptions and clinical impressions, rather than actual verified evidence through more detailed psychological exams.

While this increase in the use of counseling services may prove that students are actually more readily taking advantage of such resources, many scholars believe the number of students suffering from mental and emotional problems is still greater than even the use of counseling services indicates. The negative social stigma attached to seeking therapy often prevents students from taking advantage of on-campus counseling services or attending activities related to mental health. However, if all students were made aware of the fact such mental and emotional issues were actually commonly experienced by many of their peers, they might be more willing to seek help, as knowledge of the frequency of the issues could help counteract the negative stigma attached to them.

About the Author: Marina Salsbury planned on becoming a teacher since high school, but found her way instead into online writing after college. She writes around the Web about everything from education to exercise.

According to the Center for Disease Control (CDC), more than one in 20 Americans (ages 12 and older) are depressed. Considering the declining economic environment, decrease in gainful employment and the general lack of access to mental health care, it doesn’t take a psychology degree to know that more and more Americans are feeling less comfortable about the state of the world and the lack of security in their lives.

The CDC goes on to report that 80% of the individuals who reported being depressed experienced functional impairment, while 27% reported their depression made it extremely difficult to operate on a day-to-day basis. Furthermore, the CDC reports that only 29% of depressed individuals contacted a mental health professional, like a therapist, in the last year.

While many Americans may look to prescription medications to help manage depression, others may be more inclined to talk with a mental health care professional about their personal issues. A psychologist or a psychotherapist can help you talk through your issues and give you strategies for how you can best respond and react to the changes that will surely occur in your life.

Why Therapy Is Helpful
The psychotherapy approach offers patients a way to share their thoughts and feelings with another person and provides patients with a pathway to understand how they process information and experiences. Touted as a talking therapy, psychotherapy is helpful for individuals who suffer from a range of dysfunction, emotional issues and behavioral problems, as well as those going through a change in life or pursuing career and relationship counseling. Therapy is performed by a certified psychotherapist and is known as an effective treatment for mood, personality and anxiety disorders, as well as with eating and substance abuse disorders.

There are several different forms of psychotherapy – all of which work to help individuals talk through their problems with the help of a certified mental health care professional. Psychotherapy can be used on both men and women and has also been determined to be a useful tool for communicating with children. According to the Mayo Clinic, while most psychotherapy focuses on helping an individual change their behavior; there are other forms of therapy – such as group therapy – that focus on the communication patterns and experiences of more than one individual at a time.

Behavioral Therapy
Behavioral therapy, also known as cognitive behavioral therapy, is one of the most common types of therapy. This particular method focuses on helping the patient understand how their brain processes information by helping the individual become aware of patterns like self-sabotaging behaviors.

Behavioral therapy is especially helpful for teaching individuals how to deal with difficult situations – such a confronting a phobia, for instance. Additionally, this method provides individuals with strategies for responding to life’s challenges in a more healthy and effective way.

Group Therapy
Group therapy is a form of therapy in which two or more patients work with one or more psychotherapists. In this type of setting, group members can share their experience, offer advice and compare coping strategies.

This method is commonly used with individuals suffering from a mental illness like post-traumatic stress disorder or in substance abuse programs like Alcohol Anonymous. Many rehabilitation centers include some form of group therapy in their rehab programs in order to provide an environment where patients can share their stories, experiences, and lessons learned.

Psychoanalytical Therapy
This one-on-one form of therapy involves the psychotherapist identifying patterns and past events that may be impacting the patient’s life. Using this type of method, therapists look for patterns or events that may play a role their patient’s current dysfunction. Psychoanalytical therapy is performed by a psychoanalyst and basically suggests that a person’s childhood and specific life events shape a person’s behavior as an adult.

Therapy for Children
There are also psychotherapists who specialize in talking with children and young adults. If your child seems stressed, or if they need help coping with life’s difficulties, they may want to talk to a therapist in your community.

If you are one of the one in 20 Americans who need to take control of your mental health, or if you need to develop coping skills to help you lead a worry-free life, think about talking with a therapist in your community. But, before you decide to share the details of your life with a new doctor, get a quality referral from a friend or mentor, or search for a certified therapist online using a consumer referral website.

About the Author: Allison Gamble has been a curious student of psychology since high school. She brings her understanding of the mind to work in the weird world of internet marketing with psychologydegree.net.

While many of us know that difficult marriages can lead to affairs, they happen even in happy marriages. How can this be? After all, most people say they believe in monogamy. An affair occurs when one spouse shifts the intimate emotional energy in the marital relationship to another partner. Intimacy is the emotional bond we share with our mate, a feeling of connection, safety and attachment.

According to Dr. Shirley Glass, a prominent researcher, she says that people who never intended to be unfaithful form deep, passionate relationships before they realize they have crossed the line into romantic love. This has been increasing in the workplace where coworkers are spending more time with each other. Many affairs start when one worker confides in the other about an unhappy relationship and closeness forms or when both are working on a creative project together. She says, secret, emotional attachments outside of the marriage can be just as great a betrayal as extramarital sex. When it is combined with sex, the threat to the marriage is catastrophic.

She goes on to say that men still have sexual affairs, but more are having emotional affairs than ever before; while woman more often have affairs as a result of long-term marital dissatisfaction.

Peggy Vaughn, an expert on affairs, adds the following reasons leading to infidelity: seeking novelty, excitement, curiosity, enhanced self-image, boredom, desire to fill gaps in existing relationship, desire to punish one’s partner, glamorizing affairs in the media, and the privacy of the chat rooms.

Affairs: What We Know From Research

• Affairs are becoming more common in the workplace.
• It can take a couple of years to get over-with reminders from time to time, such as, a song on the radio, going over yearly calendar, etc.
• The one betrayed may have symptoms of Post Traumatic Stress-feeling the rug has been pulled out from under them,  feeling badly about themselves (“I’m not good enough, desirable or attractive”).
• Women tend to be more concerned with ‘emotional affairs’; while men with ‘sexual affairs.’ (This may be changing as we get more information.)
• Affairs are usually stuck in the first stage of a relationship which is the Romantic Phase where there are chemical changes in the body to enhance the feelings-it is a fantasy. In a committed relationship, the Romantic Phase can last up to about 3 years.
• 80% of affairs don’t work out to successful committed relationships.
• To begin healing from an affair, it needs to end. There can be no contact. If there is contact accidentally, the partner must be told at once or trust will be further eroded.
• One of the key ingredients to help partner to heal from an affair is continued compassion and patience (be willing to answer questions over again). There is a ‘lag’ time for the partner. They have had the information for a much shorter time than the one who had the affair. They need time to ‘catch up.’
• If both partners are committed to get through the affair with treatment, usually their relationship is more satisfying than before the affair.

Continued Reading

It is highly recommended that couples read about affairs and how to heal from them. Some books and website suggestions:

• Emily Brown, Affairs: A Guide to Working Through the Repercussions of Infidelity.
• Helen Fisher, Why We Love, the Nature and Chemistry of Romantic Love.
• Shirley Glass, Not Just Friends.
• Janis Abrams Spring, After The Affair.
• Website of Peggy Vaughn, DearPeggy.com.

Author: To learn more about the author, Ann Klein, LCSW-C, please click here to view her complete profile.

Well there is no guarantee that this relationship will work out better.  But the best chance you can give yourself and your new partner is to understand what happened in the old relationship.  That past relationship was created by two people and there’s no getting around that reality by thinking that your ex was the only one who made mistakes.  Frankly, most divorced people are able to see the truth in this.  But the effort you’ve made to understand how you contributed to the end of your marriage will only help your new relationship.  How?  Well this new relationship will push your buttons just like the old one did.  Why?  Because they are your buttons and any partner will unknowingly, and hopefully unintentionally, push them from time to time.  But if you know yourself enough and understand where and how you could have handled things differently, then you can feel more confident about not repeating the same mistakes.  That’s where therapy comes in.  Therapy isn’t about beating yourself up for past mistakes, but about understanding why you behaved in the way that you did, gaining some compassion for yourself, and learning how you can handle things differently.  So when it is time to move on to a new meaningful relationship, you may still have fears about your past marriage pop up, but you are able to honestly look at yourself and say that you now know better.  You can comfort and quiet your fears with some compassion and self-forgiveness that say, “I did the best that I knew how at the time, but now I know better.”  As the saying goes, “When you know better you do better.”  Will you go on to make some new mistakes in your new relationship?  Sure.  But they’ll be different because you’re now different.  You’ve learned, and that knowledge alone can calm those “moving in” fears when they come up, allowing you to more confidently enter a new, important stage in your life.

About the author:

Dr. Fernandez is a NYS Licensed Psychologist, with a Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from Columbia University and over a decade of experience holding a managerial position in a Fortune 500 company. To learn more about Dr. Fernandez you can view her profile here.

It may be that your partner has become too anxious as a product of interpreting your request for counseling as a sign that the relationship is in serious danger, and may only have the strength to defend against the anxiety by denial and non-participation. Your partner may also feel too threatened by the notion that he or she is to blame for your relationship difficulties, and visualizes a therapy session as one in which you persuade the therapist of this unilateral conception. The fear here is that of you being the complaining, “righteous” partner who co-opts the therapist in a biased alliance against him or her. In addition, your resistant partner may not feel as competent to present his or her case to the therapist as you might, since after all, you are fueled by pain and indignation of one kind or another.  Again, for this mate, refusing to go to therapy is a way to reduce anxiety, at least short-term.

If you find yourself in this situation, it is useful to examine your emotional stance in the relationship with respect to judging and blaming. Dominating your partner with blame only serves to maintain a power imbalance and your sense of being victimized and deprived. If your partner is the source of blame and judgment and paradoxically still won’t attend sessions, it may be that this person feels hopeless about the possibility of change or too vulnerable to relinquish the role of blamer in order to learn more about the contributions that he or she makes to the problems that are straining the relationship. 

Solutions to this problem may be emerge through the use of compassion, an emotional attitude sometimes not easy to find in the midst of the acute pain and anger that are ordinary products of disappointment in love. Recognizing the dynamics presented here may serve as a framework for re-shaping your attitudes about your resistant partner from helplessness, disrespect, and judgment to interest and care about what is very likely to be underlying fearfulness and vulnerability. If you can do that, then you may be able to have conversations with your partner that are characterized by a softer tone, and more demonstrations of true empathy – the ability to de-center and put yourself in your partner’s shoes. This act will have healing potential and effect some change even before you both arrive at the therapist’s office.

If your partner still refuses to attend therapy sessions with you, it is advisable for you to go by yourself. There is much helpful work that you and your therapist can accomplish regarding how you live in the relationship, and as you become stronger, so, like ripples formed by a stone being dropped in water, the positive energies that you bring home may be helpful to both of you, whether or not your partner ever attends.

Author: John Gerson, Ph.D.

~About the author ~

John Gerson is a New York State Licensed Psychologist with 40 year’s experience helping people with a wide range of life problems.  His training and experience are diverse, and has equipped him to be a skilled individual, couples and family therapist. He is an institute trained Couples Therapist, having graduated from theWestchesterCenterfor the Study of Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy.

Dr. Gerson earned his Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from theUnionInstituteGraduateSchool, and holds two Masters degrees in Psychology and Vocational Rehabilitation Counseling from Columbia University. Postgraduate training in Psychodynamic Psychotherapy was done at the Washington Square Institute for Psychotherapy and Mental Health and the American Institute for Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy.

Dr. Gerson has offices in Katonah andNew York City, and holds memberships in the American Psychological Association, the New York State Psychological Association, and the Westchester County Psychological Association. To learn more you can view Dr. Gerson’s profile by clicking here.

It’s so rare for sons to have that “heart” conversation with their Dads, because in our culture, “it’s just something that guys don’t do.” It’s hard for guys to connect with their fathers through an emotional connection. It’s usually through activity, or sport, or some shared hobby or activity, that dads and sons can meet, connect, and come together.

So, on this Father’s Day, I challenge you to come together and connect with your Dad. Remind him how great of a guy he is, and how much he has given to you over the years. Say it in words or actions, not in another electronic gadget that he may not really need anyways. Say it in a way that he’ll understand. You may have negative feelings towards D.O.D., but can you push them aside (or deal with them) for trying to make a connection with him on this special day.

In addition, I also see Father’s Day as a kind of “Fathering Day,” where the things that dads aren’t quite able to give their sons – whatever that may be for you – you learn to give to yourself. It’s kind of a “self-fathering”: giving to yourself what you needed, and didn’t get, from your dad.

Maybe it’s money management. Maybe it’s the art of communication. Maybe it’s learning about different relationship survival skills. Good old dad may be the greatest, but there may be some things that he didn’t pass down to you that you needed to thrive in some of your relationships, or things that you actually needed to unlearn.

“Fathering Day” is helping yourself fill in the gaps to help yourself thrive in the places where Dad might not have been able to help you. It’s honoring what you have been given from him, and making adjustments to help you thrive and succeed on top of what you’ve already got.

About the author : Jason Fierstein MA, LPC

As the “man that men will talk to,” Jason Fierstein, MA, LPC, is a counselor for men and couples and practices in Phoenix, AZ. He works with guys who want to improve their lives, and make happier wives. He is currently accepting new clients. Please visit his profile for more information or visit his website at http://www.phoenixmenscounseling.com/.

Unlike the readers of my last post, who were so articulate and insightful about the sweetness of solitude, many professional researchers have had a much harder time recognizing that solitude can actually be beneficial. Maybe part of the reason is that psychologists – especially social psychologists – are so attuned to humans as social animals who need and crave connection with other people. In fact, the title of a journal article that has attracted much attention over the years is “The need to belong.”

I don’t dispute the social needs of humans. I just don’t see them as incompatible with an appreciation for solitude. To get a sense of psychologists struggling with the notion that time alone can actually be a good thing, consider these two examples of titles of journal articles:

• “When the need to belong goes wrong”
• “Finding pleasure in solitary activities: desire for aloneness or disinterest in social contact?”

Titles such as these seem to suggest that if you spend time alone, there must be something wrong with you. Maybe your need to belong has “gone wrong.” Maybe you don’t really want to be alone, you are just anxious and avoiding other people. But that’s not what the studies show. Some people really do want their time alone and regard it as something positive and constructive; they are not skittishly fleeing scary humans.

In a study of fifth through ninth graders, Reed Larson found that over time, the older children choose to spend more time alone. What’s more, their emotional experience was improved after they had spent some time on their own. Those adolescents who spent an intermediate amount of time alone – not too much, not too little – seemed to be doing the best psychologically.

The psychologists who really do get it about the sweetness of solitude are the ones I mentioned in my last post – Christopher Long and James Averill. The title of their key theoretical article is “Solitude: An exploration of the benefits of being alone.” No apology. No befuddlement that humans might actually benefit from their time alone.

Here’s how they characterize solitude:

“The paradigm experience of solitude is a state characterized by disengagement from the immediate demands of other people – a state of reduced social inhibition and increased freedom to select one’s mental and physical activities.”

Many readers made similar observations in the comments they posted to Part 1. Although there can be benefits to spending time with others, there can also be rewards to “disengagement from the immediate demands of other people.”

There is research (again by Larson) in which people are beeped at random times during the day and asked about their experiences. Unsurprisingly, people report feeling less self-conscious when they are alone than when they are with others.

Other than the welcome emotional respite, what’s so good about feeling less self-conscious? Long and Averill think that it is good for creativity. They note findings from other research showing that adolescents who can’t deal with being alone are less likely to develop their creative abilities.

The theme that resonates most with me is the argument that other people can be distracting and taxing. I’m not talking specifically about being with people who are annoying and demanding. Instead, the idea is that just having other people around – even wonderful other people – can sap some of your cognitive and emotional resources. You might, even at some very low level, use up some of your psychological energy wondering about their needs and concerns, or considering the impression you may be making on them (even if you are not insecure about that), or maybe even just sensing their presence when you are sharing the same space and not even conversing.

There is a freedom that comes with solitude, and (as Long and Averill note) it is both a freedom from constraints and a positive freedom to do what you want and let your thoughts wander. Here’s another quote from them that I especially appreciate, as it showcases their perspective that spending time alone and getting something out of it can be a strength, rather than a cause for concern:

“the (positive) freedom to engage in a particular activity requires more than simply a freedom from constraint or interference: it also requires the resources or capacity to use solitude constructively.”

Antarctic researchers, who have chosen a pursuit that requires spending a lot of time alone, score especially high on a scale measuring “absorption.” The scale assesses enjoyment of experiences such as watching clouds in the sky, and becoming particularly absorbed in a movie you are watching.

In solitude, Long and Averill suggest, we sometimes think about ourselves and our priorities in new ways. Our thinking about other matters, too, may be more likely to be transformed during times of solitude.

The particular intersection of solitude and single life – like so many other aspects of solitude – has yet to be studied in any detail. My guess is that people who are single – especially if they are single at heart – like their solitude more than people who crave coupling do. I’ll end with one more quote from Long and Averill. They were not discussing single people when they said it, but it strikes me as relevant:

“…cognitive transformation can be threatening rather than liberating. At the very least, in order to benefit from solitude, the individual must be able to draw on inner resources to find meaning in a situation in which external supports are lacking.”

References:

Long, C. R., & Averill, J. R. (2003). Solitude: An exploration of the benefits of being alone. Journal for the Theory of Social Behavior, 33, 21-44.

Bella DePaulo is author of Singled Out: How Singles Are Stereotyped, Stigmatized, and Ignored, and Still Live Happily Ever After. She is a visiting professor at UC Santa Barbara. belladepaulo.com

Published on March 20, 2011 by Bella DePaulo, Ph.D. in Living Single

“You poor thing – you’re ‘alone’ – you ‘don’t have anyone.” I’ve been railing against this use of the word alone to describe single people for a long, long time (here and here, for example).  To say that single people are alone, in this sense, is to believe that unless you have a spouse or romantic partner, you don’t have anyone. By this manner of thinking, all of the other important people in our lives, such as friends, relatives, neighbors, mentors, and colleagues, just aren’t anyone at all.

There is another meaning of alone, though, that also gets pinned on single people, and in a bad way. That’s the time that we spend with no one else around. More than 31 million of us live alone. (That’s a striking number, but because more than 100 million Americans are divorced, widowed, or have always been single, it falls far short of the majority of us.) Of course, even living alone does not preclude the possibility of having other people around – even lots of them – but it can add up to lots of time spent with no other hovering humans.

Solitude

Those who would pity us for the time we spend alone think of our experiences as loneliness. That’s the negative sense of being by yourself – having no other humans present with whom you can connect in a meaningful way, but wishing that you did. Surely, there are singles who feel lonely when they are in their homes (or even out and about) on their own, just as there are coupled people who feel lonely when their romantic partner is not at their side. But there is far more to the experience of being alone than feeling miserable and lonely. There is a reason (actually lots of them) why solitude is so often called sweet. We just don’t hear about that as often.

Researchers in psychology need to own up to their fare share of the blame in this equation of spending time alone (or living alone) with loneliness. Type solitude into PsycInfo, probably the most comprehensive database for scholarly articles in psychology, and you will get 592 references. Doesn’t sound so bad, until you take a close look at them and realize how few are based on empirical research (those articles are tagged as phenomenology, psychoanalysis, narratives, and spirituality, among other categories) and how many construe solitude in a bad way. (For example, #13 of the 592 is about “anxious solitude.”) Now type in loneliness, and you get 5,128 references.

Slowly – very slowly – this is beginning to change. Christopher Long and James Averill wrote an article that provides the theoretical grounding that future empirical researchers can use as a guide. “Solitude: An exploration of the benefits of being alone,” appeared in the Journal for the Theory of Social Behavior in 2003 (vol. 33, pp. 21-44). Now, when I check back to see if anything new on solitude has popped up in PsycInfo, I am sometimes pleasantly surprised.

Notwithstanding all of the psychologists fretting about loneliness, real people living their real lives often seem to crave time alone, then savor it when they get it. That’s my sense, based mostly on unsystematic observations. (For example: A 2008 post, The American psyche: Tipping toward solitude?, has been one of my most popular. A more recent one, Extraversion and the single person, has also been popular.)  It is time for researchers to show us the numbers.

It is not only when you are home alone that you can experience solitude. Solitude also happens in nature and even when you are alone in a crowd. I’m withholding Long and Averill’s definition of solitude for now, because it would give away too much of what I’d like you to think about while I work on the second part in this series. If you like this topic, generate your own ideas of what’s so sweet about solitude. (Post them in the comments section if you are willing.) Think not just about emotional aspects (though those surely matter a lot), but also cognitive and intellectual ones. (For example, are you smarter or more creative when you are on your own?) Consider, too, the big questions of who you are and who you want to be, what (and whom) you believe in, and what you think is most important in life. Is solitude especially good for that sort of pondering? Don’t dismiss the little or mundane things, either. Is there something special about making your way through your everyday routines when you are on your own?

Let’s take back our time alone! It is about sweet solitude, not just loneliness.

Bella DePaulo is author of Singled Out: How Singles Are Stereotyped, Stigmatized, and Ignored, and Still Live Happily Ever After. She is a visiting professor at UC Santa Barbara. belladepaulo.com