Q: What causes loneliness?
A: Therapists consistently observe that loneliness is rarely just about being physically alone. Across different therapy niches, it is often linked to unmet emotional needs, attachment wounds, life transitions, grief, identity struggles, relational trauma, and experiences of not feeling seen or understood. Counsellor and psychotherapist perspectives suggest that loneliness frequently reflects a lack of felt connection rather than a lack of people, with many of their clients feeling alone even in relationships when their inner world has not been met or attuned to over time.
A Note on Loneliness
Loneliness is one of the most complex and hidden experiences we face. It often shows up in ways we don’t expect – appearing not just as a longing for company, but through emotional eating, relationship struggles, or the quiet ache of feeling “apart” during major life transitions.
Many people are surprised to learn that loneliness isn’t simply about social isolation. It is deeply tied to how we internally experience connection. The roots of loneliness are often relational, shaped by early experiences like childhood emotional neglect or disruptions in our first sense of belonging.
When our emotional needs were overlooked or inconsistently met in early life, we can grow up expecting disconnection. This is why it’s possible to feel profoundly alone even within supportive families, marriages, or social circles. It isn’t a personal failure; it is often a survival strategy that kept us safe by keeping us at a distance.
Rather than seeing loneliness as a problem to be solved, we can see it as a doorway to understanding ourselves more deeply. By acknowledging these old patterns of disconnection, we can begin to soften the “not good enough” story. Healing happens as we move toward a more authentic relationship with ourselves, eventually allowing us to feel truly present with the world around us.
What Causes Loneliness? 11 Experts on the Hidden Roots of Disconnection
This round-up brings together expert practitioner perspectives from diverse therapeutic niches to explore how loneliness is understood, experienced, and worked with in the therapy room. By integrating the latest research on loneliness with clinical insight, the collection highlights the many ways loneliness can manifest including the hidden loneliness that may sit beneath a wide range of presenting concerns.
When the Village Vanishes: Navigating Mid-Life Alone by Mel Eden
Most of us have felt the dull ache of loneliness at one time or another. For many though, loneliness has become a chronic issue that is having detrimental impacts on their health and wellbeing.
Read more here.
Why Highly Sensitive People Need a Different Approach to Loneliness by Jerry Souter
Ever notice how you can be at a party, surrounded by conversation and laughter, and still feel completely alone? For Highly Sensitive People (HSPs), this kind of loneliness is painfully common.
Read more here.
The Lonely Aloneness of IVF by Anne Altamore
The IVF Roller Coaster is a crowded, yet lonely place. At times, one can feel extremely alone and abandoned.
Read more here.
The Hidden Loneliness of Straight Spouses by Karen Bieman
Aloneness can be neutral – even restorative. Loneliness is different. It’s a painful awareness of emotional disconnection, a sense of longing mixed with invisibility, abandonment, or being unseen by those who matter most. No one understands this more acutely than straight spouses.
Read more here.
Loneliness and the Ask for Belonging by Frederikke Jensen
Just as there is always potential to feel lonely, there is potential to reach a point where an inner core of resilience is found, and loneliness is dealt with differently than before.
Read more here.
Is Your People-Pleasing Keeping You Lonely? By Daniela MacAulay
People-pleasing might seem like an effective strategy for preventing rejection and loneliness and perhaps, at some point in your life, it was. Now, however, it’s likely standing in the way of the closeness you’re longing for.
Read more here.
Belonging Before Behaviour: When Students Feel Alone at School by Lillian Mary Tan
Loneliness in schools is often misunderstood as a social problem or a behavioural issue. In reality, it is more accurately understood as a lack of felt belonging. A student can be surrounded by peers, actively participating in class, and still feel deeply alone if they do not feel seen, understood, or emotionally safe.
Read more here.
Alone at the Top: Why Health Business Owners Are Quietly Lonely by Jo Muirhead
We built our businesses to be with people – to help clients, collaborate with colleagues, and contribute to our communities. Yet for many of us, there’s a quiet truth sitting beneath the busy diaries, the back-to-back appointments, and the neatly curated “I’m fine” responses: We are lonely.
Read more here.
How To Deal With Loneliness In The Mother-Daughter Relationship by Jan Williams
Loneliness in the mother-daughter relationship is more common than many people want to admit. It can happen slowly over the years or show up suddenly during a big life change.
Read more here.
Why Loneliness Is Rising: The Emotional and Nervous System Factors We Do Not Talk About Enough by Nisha Trivedi
Loneliness is not the absence of people. It is the body asking for an emotionally safer way to be met.
Read more here.
Loneliness, Childhood Emotional Neglect, and Emotional Eating by Jodie Gale
Many people who emotionally eat describe experiences like “food is my best friend” or “food keeps me company.” These coping strategies often trace back to early relational wounds, where emotional needs were unmet or overlooked.
Read more here.
A Deeper Call for Connection
Ultimately, loneliness is a call for deeper connection—not just with others, but with ourselves. When we begin to understand where our feelings of disconnection and “not being enough” truly come from, the path to healing opens up. By tending to these hidden roots with compassion, we can move out of isolation and back into a life that feels more present, grounded, and whole.
