Hi everybody,
Important research is
finally beginning to emerge! This research helps explain why grouping large psychiatric populations together and simply applying a "scientific" therapeutic technique only works for a relatively small percentage of people.
New Research Reveals That Lonely People Process the World Differently https://scitechdaily.com/new-research-reveals-that-lonely-people-process-the-world-differently/The research was done by USC professor Elisa Baek, Ph.D. and her team.
Some quotes from the article:
"This finding is significant because it reveals that neural similarity, which refers to how similar the brain activity patterns of different individuals are, is linked to a shared understanding of the world. This shared understanding is important for establishing social connections. People who suffer from loneliness are not only less similar to society’s norm of processing the world, but each lonely person differs in unique ways, as well. That uniqueness may further impact the feelings of isolation and lacking social connections."
"Baek said, 'It was surprising to find that lonely people were even less similar to each other.” The fact that they don’t find commonality with lonely or nonlonely people makes achieving social connection even more difficult for them. The ‘Anna Karenina principle’ is a fitting description of lonely people, as they experience loneliness in an idiosyncratic way, not in a universally relatable way,'she added." (Tolstoy's Anna Karenina principle: “Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” )
"Comparing the brain imaging data between the two groups, the researchers discovered that lonelier individuals exhibited more dissimilar and idiosyncratic brain processing patterns than their non-lonely counterparts.
"This finding is significant because it reveals that neural similarity, which refers to how similar the brain activity patterns of different individuals are, is linked to a shared understanding of the world. This shared understanding is important for establishing social connections. People who suffer from loneliness are not only less similar to society’s norm of processing the world, but each lonely person differs in unique ways, as well. That uniqueness may further impact the feelings of isolation and lacking social connections."
"Baek said, 'It was surprising to find that lonely people were even less similar to each other.' The fact that they don’t find commonality with lonely or nonlonely people makes achieving social connection even more difficult for them."
“The ‘Anna Karenina principle’ is a fitting description of lonely people, as they experience loneliness in an idiosyncratic way, not in a universally relatable way,” she added.
This is why I had to "connect" to each person in my practice in a different, unique way, including seeing one patient ("The Mathematician and the Teddy Bear" author, now happily married and traveling the world) 4 times per week.
Richard
P.S. It is ironic, given my book, that it is Russian literature that is used/quoted!
