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This study aims to explore the lived experience of loneliness among a group of people diagnosed with the contested diagnosis of borderline personality disorder (BPD). In so doing, it contributes to works offering dimensional conceptualisations of personality disorders and contributes to loneliness study more broadly which has seen a rise in interest since the Covid-19 epidemic and the subsequent enforced isolation and the resultant new phenomenon of sudden loneliness.

Participants with diagnoses of BPD were recruited through a combination of calls through online fora and announcements at self-help groups. A total of 25 people made contact, with interviews eventually being carried out with 14 of these. They were invited to take part in unstructured, recorded one-to-one interviews. Thematic analysis was used in this study, which used a narrative phenomenological approach using an Arendtian lens.

Through attending to the interwoven themes in the narratives of trauma, loss and loneliness, it emerged that the enduring loneliness experienced was compounded by repeated instances of testimonial injustice.

This study supports the need for a further deepening of our understanding of the complexity of experience at the interface of loneliness and mental ill health.

This study critiques the reductive assumptions behind websites, simplistic tool kits and training within the mental health arena dictating “what works” for loneliness. The paper argues for health professionals to develop a more nuanced listening to reported loneliness and that part of what may compound this complex experience among people diagnosed with personality disorder is epistemic injustice, rife within a climate of neoliberalism.

Neoliberalism has been identified as a key driver of distinct shifts in mental health policy and the commodification of mental health. Its fixation with medicalisation and its drive to treat “mental illness” as a problem within the individual positions people as self-contained agents and downplays, or worse, ignores the social, cultural and economic dimensions that contribute to the person’s distress. Neoliberalism’s discourse of “responsibilization” for example, urges individuals that families, communities and workplaces rather than publicly funded services become the main resources to respond to in times of mental distress. This, however, assumes a concreteness to these institutions which may be illusory and leaves those in difficulty dependent on presumed immediate social circles. These circles, however, if they exist, may contain the very people who have failed individuals or subjected them to the testimonial injustices so often cited in the narratives of this research.

The Arendtian account of loneliness rests on the premise that the human being of contemporary society is afflicted with a sense of isolation and homelessness, further exacerbated in today’s neoliberal context. By drawing on this account, the enmeshed and complex nature of mental illness, loneliness and dislocation from society and the ways in which continued epistemic injustice negatively impact on mental well-being are laid bare. Phenomenology of loneliness goes some way to helping people without the devastating life experiences common to those diagnosed, rightly or not, with a personality disorder gain a sense of the experience, and this research argues for psychological practice to be more mindful of this literature and the value of closely heard first-person narratives.

The purpose of this paper is to report on a study into the lived experience of skin picking disorder (SPD) and to explore the psychological impact of the disorder.

Researchers employed a qualitative phenomenological approach, using Interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA).

The study found that the sense of shame, common among participants, led to self-stigma, hiding, concealing and avoidance. Shame of SPD also interplayed with and compounded the shame of loneliness.

Limitations included a lack of a longitudinal component to the work. This is deemed important, as both the SPD and the experience of loneliness can shift over time as circumstances change, and individuals develop strategies for coping or, conversely, experience a worsening of the condition and the shame, loneliness and social isolation it can induce.

This study draws attention to the complex nature of both SPD and loneliness. It highlights how those living with the disorder are reluctant to seek help, resulting in low rates of treatment access and distrust in health providers.

As SPD is little understood, it can be erroneously deemed a “choice”; seldom discussed as a condition, it can lead to exclusion and withdrawal. The sense of shame of both appearance and behaviour interplays with and compounds the shame of loneliness and can force the individual into a further cycle of withdrawal and isolation.

While research suggests SPD should be acknowledged as a public health issue, research and literature is still relatively limited, and there are no qualitative phenomenological studies as yet that report on the lived experience of SPD.

Previous cross-sectional research has examined the effect of loneliness on mental health. The purpose of this paper is to examine longitudinal relationships in students.

A total of 454 British undergraduate students completed measures of loneliness and mental health at four time points.

After controlling for demographics and baseline mental health, greater loneliness predicted greater anxiety, stress, depression and general mental health over time. There was no evidence that mental health problems increased loneliness over time. There was no relationship with alcohol problems. Baseline loneliness predicted greater eating disorder risk at follow-up and vice versa.

This study is limited by a relatively small and heavily female sample.

Social and psychological interventions to reduce loneliness in university settings may improve mental health.

Universities should consider organising social activities to mitigate feelings of loneliness in students.

This study adds to the literature as a longitudinal analysis showing that loneliness exacerbates poor mental health over time. This also adds to the literature for students specifically, and suggests a possible bi-directional relationship between eating disorders and loneliness for the first time.

Loneliness is associated with a variety of physical and mental health problems as well as mortality. In the mental health context, loneliness is sometimes viewed as a symptom of mental disorder rather than a problem in its own right. The purpose of this paper is to assess the importance of addressing loneliness amongst mental health service users.

Narrative overview of current literature on loneliness and health outcomes.

Loneliness is highly prevalent amongst adults with a variety of different mental health diagnoses in the UK. Preliminary evidence suggests that loneliness is not a symptom of mental health conditions themselves, and thus is likely to be either a cause or a consequence of mental ill-health. Lacking good quality social relationships is a risk factor for a wide range of health problems. The evidence for interventions targeting loneliness in different populations is lacking. New interventions and further research to tackle loneliness amongst service users is warranted.

Loneliness has not historically been a key target for intervention within mental health services. This paper collates the evidence base to provide the foundation for a new wave of interventions to target the perceived social isolation of service users.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the experience of loneliness amongst people who have been diagnosed with borderline personality disorder.

The research used a narrative phenomenological approach.

The study found that the loneliness experienced amongst this group of participants was perceived to have taken root in childhood and was not a transient state. Its endurance, however, had led participants to develop a number of strategies as means by which to manage what was felt to be a deep seated painful sense of emptiness; some of these strategies were, however, risky or harmful.

Limitations of the study include the absence of longitudinal data which would have offered the opportunity for the close study of how people manage the experience over time.

The study has practical implications for mental health professionals wishing to better understand the difficulties faced by individuals with the characteristics described, but it also highlights the resilience of sufferers who, while living with acute loneliness continue to explore ways of managing it.

The study brings to the attention that the connectivity and sociability required and expected in today’s society emphasise the lack of lonely individuals, further stigmatising loneliness as deficit and taboo.

The paper offers a welcome addition to loneliness studies in its adherence to the phenomenological experience and offers a small corrective to the bulk of existing loneliness studies which, while valuable have been more attentive to exploring the constituent elements of loneliness than the lived experience of it.

This study aims to evaluate the factors influencing certain negative feelings, such as social isolation disorder and loneliness, on consumers’ intentions to travel for tourism.

This quantitative research used a survey questionnaire composed of eight interval evaluation questions and six demographic variables for the data collection. A total of 290 usable responses were gathered from social networks. The evaluation of the Measurement Model adjustment and the verification of the research hypothesis was done by a structural equations modeling.

The results reveal that social isolation is not a monolithic construction; instead of that, it is a construct formed by two interrelated factors, the social isolation itself, involving the individual and her/his personality, and the social integration, a factor of situational order, referring to the relations of the individual with his reference group. Factors are influenced by the ease/difficulty of the individual, in cultivating relationships with other people and significantly influence the intention to travel for tourism.

The study contributes to tourism management by breaking the phenomenon down into two dimensions and evaluating the impact of each of them on consumer attitudes, which should be very useful for the segmentation and positioning of tourism products.

Results support the evidence reported by Murphy, who found that people tend to want to make friends, but that this tendency did not appear to be evident about travel and supported Hawthorne’s findings, that the more socially isolated people are, the less they will want to interact with others, demonstrating that social isolation is indeed an inhibitor of social interaction.

This paper examines the effect of personality disorders, namely loneliness and shyness, on the family business successors' attitude towards social networking services (SNS).

In this study the personality disorder and attitude towards using WhatsApp are analysed in a sample of 511 family business successors, aged 18 and up to more than 50 years. Participants completed questionnaires designed for the purposes of the study specifically using for loneliness factor the UCLA Loneliness Scale (Russell et al., 1978) and for shyness the Sociability Scale (Cheek and Buss, 1981). We use two statistical methods: the first statistical technique is an exploratory factor analysis to show that shyness can be measured down into two dimensions (1) lack of confidence and (2) hesitancy, while loneliness also can be measured into the two dimensions: (1) amiability and (2) abandonment. The second statistical method uses structural equation modelling (SEM) to fit the data to the proposed model.

The results indicate that neither a lack of confidence nor amiability has a significant effect on the attitude towards instant messaging, while hesitancy and abandonment both have significant effects on attitude. Moreover, abandonment has a stronger effect on attitude than hesitancy.

In this study were not included other related social disorders that other scholars normally study in such projects. For example, narcissism, addiction and socially anxious are very important and have results that conflict with ours.

The causal relations between the two independent factors of shyness and loneliness and the dependent factor of attitude towards using an Internet and SNS in family businesses from the Arab world have not yet been clearly and fully explored. This study aims to fill this gap through studying the impact of personality disorder (loneliness and shyness) on attitude to use SNS by the successors of family businesses.

Anxiety disorders have a high prevalence in children. Those children with anxious symptoms are more likely to experience significant disruption in their lives. This disruption can interrupt or even stop a child from participating in a variety of typical childhood experiences. It is understood that genetic and environmental factors may cause this disorder. The purpose of this paper is to focus on environmental factors, namely, the mediating role of maladaptive schemas in mothers’ child-rearing and childhood anxiety disorders.

This study used correlation-modeling to assess the analysis. The sample included 326 students (aged 9-12 years old) and their mothers. The parenting style (Baumrind, 1973), Early Maladaptive Schema (Rijkeboer and de Boo, 2010), and anxiety disorders (Muris et al., 2006) questionnaires were used in this study.

The results showed a relationship between parenting styles of mothers and childhood anxiety disorders, a significant correlation between childhood maladaptive schemas and childhood anxiety disorders, a relation between child-rearing styles and childhood maladaptive schemas, and finally a mediating role on childhood anxiety disorders and mothers’ child-rearing styles for some childhood maladaptive schemas.

This research contributes to the knowledge base of the importance of children’s mental health. The paper analyzes the relationship of mothers’ parenting styles and children’s anxiety. It also focuses on maladaptive schemas as a mediator and its relationship with childhood anxiety disorders.

The purpose of this paper is to trace the trajectory of research done exclusively on the topic of Workplace Loneliness from 2006 to 2019. Based on the content analysis of 29 articles, this paper critically assesses, summarizes and consolidates the existing body of knowledge in the field of workplace loneliness.

This review is organized around five major themes – origin and the conceptual grounding of the construct; emergence of the concept of workplace loneliness, conceptualizations and overlap with the related constructs; measurement tools and techniques; analysis of its predictors, outcomes, mediators and moderators; and development of an integrated model specifying the nomological network of workplace loneliness for clarifying the current state of thinking and guiding future research in the area.

The concept of workplace loneliness started receiving attention from the year 2006 and gained momentum in 2016. The studies from wide range of countries show that workplace loneliness is not restricted to one geographical location but is a phenomenon that affects people and economies around the world. The review highlights the conceptualization and measurement challenges along with the need for theoretical development of the field. Further, the existing literature fails to provide a comprehensive picture of the predictors, underlying processes, contingencies and outcomes of workplace loneliness.

This study being one of the rare attempts to consolidate the existing body of knowledge on loneliness at work will provide academicians and practitioners with a comprehensive account of the state of research and development on an important and yet neglected issue of workplace loneliness.

This study aims to measure the impact of loneliness, physical activity (PA) and self-esteem on the health of retired people and also checks the moderating role of living arrangements and gender of the elderly people on this relationship.

Four standardized scales were used in the study to measure four different constructs: Self-Worth Questionnaire, UCLA Loneliness Scale Version 3, General Health Questionnaire-28 and Physical Activity Scale for Elders. Structural equation modelling was applied to the four constructs.

The study concluded that loneliness has a negative and significant impact on the health of retired people, while self-esteem and PA have a positive and significant impact on their health.

The study is among the few to include multiple instruments to measure abstract parameters in the field of health care. The paper brings out implications not just for academicians but also for policymakers, considering the complex situation prevailing in the emerging economy.