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Blog

The Ministry of Loneliness: self-care for the society of individuals

19/12/2018

7 Comments

 
Loneliness, like so many things in post-austerity Britain, has became all about productivity and profitability
Picture
Ruth Cain

​Only some of this is true, but it is true enough. I am divorced and live alone in London, a city of 10 million people, around one third of whom live alone. There are four or five people I would consider ‘real’, long-term friends. They are mostly spread across the country and indeed the world, from Durham to New Zealand. Although some friends tell me that I can always talk to them, there is no one who I would automatically feel able or entitled to call in a crisis. This makes me one of the two-thirds of people in the UK who reportedly feel they have
no one to turn to if in need. I work largely at home and so can spend several days not talking to anyone face to face, except the staff in my local supermarket or café. I spend a lot of time on screens, both for work and leisure, and have recently tried to cut down on social media as it is making me feel inadequate. Still, if I get rid of it, I will feel more cut off. I am not shy but the more time I spend alone, the harder it is to go out and talk to anyone, and the more anxious I become when talking to strangers or in groups. Recently, my instinct has been to turn down invitations.
​

This profile puts me squarely into a box of people who the government have deemed likely to be lonely, based on research into the characteristics and circumstances of lonely people. I’m not alone in this box: according to the charity Relate, almost a fifth of adults feel lonely often or all the time. You could say that I’m part of the zeitgeist. Loneliness is hot right now – both in the halls of Westminster and around the kidney-shaped tables of start-ups, incentivised to make a buck out of our unwanted solitude. On Valentine’s day, the BBC launched a loneliness survey and 55,000 people from around the world participated, making it the largest ever survey into the subject. The results were turned into a series of three radio documentaries that aired in October. I’ve lost track of the number of articles I’ve read this year about a woman (because they usually are women) who moved to London and felt achingly alone in the middle of one of the busiest metropolises on Earth. It seems like we’ve been given permission to talk and the floodgates have opened.

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    PSC is a network of people interested in applying psychology to generate social and political action. You don't have to be a member of PSC to contribute to the blog

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  • Home
  • About
  • Groups
    • England >
      • North East >
        • Sheffield
        • Leeds
      • North West >
        • North East
        • A North West Just Recovery following coronavirus
        • Manchester- PSPO letter
      • Midlands >
        • Midlands
        • Leicester
      • South East >
        • East Anglia
        • Hertfordshire
        • London
        • Oxford
        • Suffolk
        • Surrey
        • Sussex
      • South West >
        • Bristol and Bath
        • South West
    • Ireland
    • Northern Ireland
    • Jersey
    • Scotland
    • Wales - Cymru >
      • Elections 2021
      • Building Resilience and Community Wellbeing
      • Social and Political Causes of Poor Mental Health
      • Responding to Austerity and Mental Health in Wales - Accessible Document
    • Start a New Group
  • Blog
  • Position statements
    • UK >
      • Response to Panorama: Undercover Hospital Abuse Scandal
      • Esther McVey: PSC and RITB response
    • Cymru / Wales >
      • Connecting the Dots Report
      • Chemical Imbalance Myth
      • Review of use of dx PD
      • UK Inhumane Removal Plans
      • WG LGBT+actionplan
      • Ty Coryton
      • Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities: The Report
      • ECT Review
      • Black Lives Matter
      • COVID 19 and Internet Access
      • Save the T4CYP Programme
      • Support the Mind over matter Report
      • UN Report on Extreme Poverty in the UK Letter
    • England >
      • Psychologists for Social Change support the moratorium on school exclusions in England
      • Racism is Not Entertainment
      • Letter to Jeremy Hunt
      • UK Government Green Paper, Transforming Children and Young People’s Mental Health Provision
      • Exam Crisis
    • Ireland >
      • End Direct Provision
    • Northern Ireland
    • Scotland
  • Campaigns
    • Structural racism demands a structural response
    • Embed anti-racism in the NHS
    • COVID-19 >
      • Mutual Aid
      • COVID and mental health
    • PSC Manifesto 2019
    • Visioning a new education system
    • New Savoy Conference Statement
    • Formulating Policy >
      • Origins of Happiness? PSC response
      • Basic Income: Psychological Impact Assessment
    • Preaching to the Non-Converted
    • Psychologists Against Austerity >
      • Austerity Briefing Paper
      • Everyday Austerity
    • Private Health Watch
  • Join our mailing list