Abstract
The question of ‘What is loneliness?’ must be faced before any attempt to discuss its nature, causes and implications in later life can be made. Indeed, it will be seen in Chapter 3 that the various answers to the question ‘Are you lonely?’ imply that elderly people sometimes interpret the question rather differently. The question does not call for any dictionary-type definition, for it is obvious that there are different types of loneliness, and in later life we may experience varieties of loneliness that are not common in our earlier years.
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Notes
Bertrand Russell, The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell, Vol. 1, London: Allen & Unwin, 1967, p. 13.
Rubin Gotesky, ‘Aloneness, Loneliness, Isolation, Solitude’, in J.M. Edie (ed.), An Invitation to Phenomenology, Chicago: Quadrangle Books, 1965.
Ronald Rolheiser, The Restless Heart, London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1979.
L.A. Peplau, T.K. Bikson, K.S. Brook et al., ‘Being Old and Living Alone’, in L.A. Peplau and D. Perlman (eds.), Loneliness: A Sourcebook of Current Theory, Research and Therapy, Chichester: Wiley, 1982.
Jonathan Swift, Gulliver’s Travels, Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1967, p. 258.
Peter Ackroyd, Dickens, London: Minerva, 1991, p. 548.
W.F.R. Stewart, Loneliness the Other Handicap: Loneliness — Its Causes among Physically Disabled People, Amberley: Disabilities Study Unit, 1982.
Alex Comfort, A Good Age, Revised Edition, London: Pan Books, 1990, p. 116.
Plato, The Symposium, quoted in B.L. Mijuskovic, Loneliness in Philosophy Psychology and Literature, Assen, The Netherlands: Van Gorcum, 1979, p. 10.
See H.B. Gibson, The Emotional and Sexual Lives of Older People: a Manual for Professionals, London: Chapman & Hall, Chapter 9, 1992.
E.M. Forster, A Passage to India, Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1936, p. 195.
A.N. Wilson, Against Religion: Why We Should Try to Live without It, London: Chatto and Windus, 1991, p. 1.
Clark Moustakis, Loneliness and Love, New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 1972.
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© 2000 H. B. Gibson
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Gibson, H.B. (2000). What is Loneliness?. In: Loneliness in Later Life. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230510203_1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230510203_1
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