Loneliness in philosophy, psychology, and literature

Loneliness in Philosophy, Psychology, and Literature (third edition, 2012) argues that loneliness is innate to all human beings, i. e. universal, that it is intrinsic to the structures and activities of self-consciousness and therefore ultimately unavoidable. By contrast, all other theorists assume that it is conditioned by environmental and cultural conditions and hence avoidable. Accordingly, the first paradigm expounds a theory of self-consciousness in oppositionto behavioral models of human conduct that reduce the "mind" to the brain and mechanistic interactions. The second theory has a problem in accounting for the self because it reduces it to the body. The first study also connects loneliness as a form of narcissism and views it as the underlying source of anxiety, depression, and hostilty.