Loneliness

Loneliness Therapy | Psychologist in Maastricht | English & Greek

When you can feel alone even when other people are aroun

Loneliness is not simply about being physically alone. You can have friends, family, colleagues, or a partner and still experience a deep sense of disconnection. At the same time, you may spend a lot of time by yourself and not necessarily feel lonely. What matters is often the difference between the connection you have and the connection you need.

You may long for a relationship that feels emotionally close, for friendships where you can be fully yourself, or simply for the feeling that someone genuinely knows and understands you. Perhaps you have people in your life but still feel that you cannot talk to them about what is really happening inside you. You may find yourself surrounded by others while feeling strangely separate from them.

Loneliness can also develop gradually. You may have moved to a new place, lost an important relationship, experienced changes in your friendships, become more withdrawn, or simply reached a point in life where the relationships around you no longer feel as fulfilling as they once did. Sometimes there is no obvious event at all. You may simply notice that you have been feeling disconnected for longer than you expected.

Therapy can provide a space to understand your experience of loneliness without reducing it to simply “meeting more people.” We can explore what kind of connection you are looking for, what may be making connection difficult, and how your experiences and expectations of relationships may be influencing the way you relate to others.

Does this sound familiar?

You may find yourself wishing you had someone you could call when something happens, someone you could share everyday experiences with, or someone who genuinely knows what is going on beneath the surface. You may have people you speak to regularly but still feel that your relationships remain somewhat superficial.

Perhaps you find it difficult to form new friendships, especially once the initial interaction is over. You may meet people but struggle to turn those encounters into something more meaningful, or find yourself wondering whether they actually want to know you.

You might also feel lonely within relationships. You may be in a romantic relationship or have a close group of friends but still feel emotionally unseen or disconnected. Sometimes you may hold back parts of yourself because vulnerability feels uncomfortable, leaving you feeling that people know you without necessarily knowing the deeper parts of you.

Loneliness can also come with a great deal of self-questioning. You may wonder whether there is something about you that makes it difficult for people to become close to you, whether you are too much or not enough, or why other people seem to form relationships more easily.

You may compare your social life with what you see around you and feel as though everyone else has found their people while you are somehow on the outside. This can be particularly painful when the loneliness is not what you want, but you don't know how to change it.

Understanding loneliness

Loneliness is fundamentally about a perceived lack of meaningful connection. It does not necessarily mean that you have no relationships; rather, the relationships you have may not provide the level of closeness, understanding, belonging, or companionship that you need.

This is why simply being around other people does not always resolve loneliness. You can spend an entire day talking to colleagues, attending university, going out with friends, or being with a partner and still return home feeling that nobody really knows you.

There can also be different kinds of loneliness. You may miss having a close romantic relationship, feel disconnected from friends, struggle to feel that you belong within a community, or feel that there is no one with whom you can be emotionally vulnerable. Sometimes what you miss is not a particular person but a sense of belonging and being part of something.

Loneliness can therefore tell you something important about your needs. It may be signalling a desire for intimacy, companionship, belonging, emotional understanding, or shared experience.

At the same time, loneliness can become increasingly painful when it is accompanied by beliefs about what it means. If you begin interpreting your loneliness as evidence that something is wrong with you, you may become more self-conscious and discouraged in social situations. You may start expecting rejection or assuming that other people will not be interested in you, which can make it harder to approach them openly.

This is one reason loneliness can sometimes become both an emotional experience and a pattern that influences how you relate to the possibility of connection.

When loneliness becomes connected with how you see yourself

Being lonely for a long time can affect your sense of yourself. You may begin asking yourself why you are still alone, why relationships seem easier for other people, or whether there is something fundamentally different about you.

Perhaps you compare yourself with friends who are in relationships, people who seem to have large social circles, or people who appear to effortlessly make new connections. The comparison can make your own situation feel like a personal failure rather than a circumstance you are experiencing.

You may start telling yourself that you are awkward, boring, difficult to love, too independent, too needy, or simply not someone people choose to stay close to.

These beliefs can become particularly painful because they can influence the way you behave around other people. If you expect to be rejected, you may become more cautious. If you expect that people will not be interested, you may hold back. If you believe that vulnerability will lead to disappointment, you may keep conversations on a safer, more superficial level.

This doesn't mean that loneliness is your fault. It means that once loneliness has been present for a while, the experience can begin influencing the expectations and behaviours that surround relationships.

Understanding that process can create possibilities for change without turning loneliness into another reason to blame yourself.

How loneliness can affect your life

Loneliness can affect your emotional wellbeing as well as your relationships. You may feel sad, empty, restless, disconnected, or emotionally tired. You may find yourself thinking about relationships more often, wondering when things will change or wishing that you had someone to share your life with.

It can also affect your motivation. When you have been feeling disconnected for a long time, reaching out to people can begin to feel pointless or exhausting. You may stop initiating plans because you assume other people are busy or uninterested, even when there may not be clear evidence for that conclusion.

Loneliness can also influence existing relationships. You may become particularly sensitive to signs of rejection or distance, or feel disappointed when other people cannot provide the level of connection you are longing for. At other times, you may withdraw because being around people while still feeling lonely can feel more painful than being alone.

For some people, loneliness becomes connected with anxiety, low self-esteem, depression, social anxiety, or difficulties with vulnerability and trust. These experiences can overlap and reinforce one another, making it increasingly difficult to move towards the connection you want.

Perhaps the most important impact is that loneliness can gradually change what you believe is possible. You may begin to imagine that this is simply how your life will always feel, even when there may be meaningful possibilities for change.

How we can work with loneliness in therapy

Our work would begin by understanding what loneliness means for you rather than assuming that the solution is simply to become more socially active. We can explore what kind of connection you are missing, what relationships currently exist in your life, and where you feel most disconnected.

We might look at how you approach other people and what happens when someone begins to get closer. Perhaps you find it difficult to initiate contact, worry about being rejected, struggle to trust people, or feel uncomfortable showing more vulnerable parts of yourself. Maybe you have learned to be highly independent and rarely ask for support, even when you would like it.

Depending on your needs, we may draw from Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT), Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), and Schema Therapy.

CBT can help us explore beliefs and interpretations that may influence how you approach relationships, such as expecting rejection, assuming that other people are not interested, or interpreting ambiguous interactions negatively.
ACT can help you reconnect with the kinds of relationships and experiences that matter to you and take meaningful steps towards them even when vulnerability, uncertainty, or fear of rejection is present.
Schema Therapy can be particularly useful when loneliness feels longstanding or connected with deeper patterns around rejection, abandonment, mistrust, emotional deprivation, defectiveness, or feeling that you do not truly belong. We can explore how earlier experiences may have shaped what you expect from relationships and how you protect yourself from being hurt.

We can also look at the difference between being alone and feeling alone. Sometimes solitude can be nourishing, while at other times it can become a way of protecting yourself from the uncertainty and vulnerability involved in connecting with others.

The aim is not simply to make you more social or give you a larger number of relationships. It is to understand what genuine connection means to you and explore how you might move towards relationships in which you can feel more known, accepted, and able to be yourself.

Taking the First Step

You may have become used to being independent. Perhaps you rarely ask anyone for help, are comfortable spending time alone, or have learned to manage difficult experiences by yourself. You may even tell yourself that you don't really need anyone.

And yet, underneath that independence, there may be a part of you that misses being deeply connected to someone.

Perhaps you are tired of superficial conversations. Perhaps you want a relationship but find dating difficult. Perhaps you have friends but don't feel truly close to them. Or perhaps you are surrounded by people and still experience a sense of loneliness that is difficult to explain.

You don't need to know exactly why you feel lonely before starting therapy. We can begin by understanding what connection means to you, what you long for, and what may be making it difficult to experience.

Therapy can also be a place where you don't have to perform, minimise what you need, or pretend that you are more comfortable with being alone than you actually are.

If you'd like to explore whether working together could be a good fit, you can arrange a short introductory call.

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