Like a kind of explosive greenhouse effect, locked inside one's own mind,
or one's own family, problems seem to grow out of all proportion,
taking on a dramatic quality and losing their real contours.
Loneliness — that which is endured more or less consciously —
is a breeding ground for many conditions, a common denominator
of all mental illnesses, and both cause and effect of every
form of addiction. The function of community has always been to
counterbalance the effects of loneliness through the sharing of life's
principal events.

Isolation is often not perceived by those who suffer from it:
immersed in the crowd of the city, in contact with colleagues and
neighbours, it seems the last thing to worry about.
And yet relationships play out between conforming masks, following
defensive scripts, not between real people. One constructs a
socially desirable façade, similar to the smiling figures
offered by television, and if the operation succeeds, others
reflect it back like mirrors; but this image, which one has
chosen to project, then feels alien to us. The true core of the
self, protected by a cocoon that shields it but also isolates it, is never
recognised.
Fear of others' judgement blocks the spontaneity with which
vulnerability would otherwise wish to emerge; the most
vulnerable people feel ashamed of showing their own humanity,
and prefer to hide and play a standard role.

In the end, one can no longer share one's inner states
with anyone, not even with oneself. And the result
is a deep and inexplicable suffering, or actions that feel alien to
oneself. It is known that like cures like, as in
homoeopathy: real contact with those who resemble us, even if only in
certain deeper aspects, is therapeutic. Group therapies
and self-help groups work, beyond any specific techniques,
precisely because of this non-specific effect of being with one's peers:
doors and windows can be opened, life and emotions allowed to flow in and out,
things can be put in perspective and one can forgive oneself.

Olga Chiaia
Psychologist Psychotherapist