This is a volume on loneliness and what can be done to address its pain. While most books simply describe loneliness from one author’s point of view, this volume includes a comprehensive review of the literature and employs top researchers in the field discuss their own research findings, conclusions and clinical experience. It explores the relationship between loneliness and sexuality, loneliness and optimism, and parental loneliness during pregnancy and childbirth. It also addresses loneliness throughout the life cycle in children, adolescents, the elderly and disabled, leading to a variety of coping and therapeutic modalities aimed at helping those who suffer from loneliness in its various forms.


Part I: Perspectives on loneliness
1. Loneliness, Alienation, Solitude and our lives
2. Cognitive and motivational roots of universal lonesliness
3. Lonesliness and sexuality
4. Students' loneliness during cross-cultural adjustments

Part II: Coping with loneliness
5. Coping with loneliness during childhood and adolescence
6. Coping with loneliness in children with disabilities
7. Children and adolescents' coping with lonesliness
8. Coping with lonesliness at work
9. Addresing loneliness in romantic relationships
10. Optimism and loneliness: literature review
11. A meaning-centered approach to overcoming loneliness during hospitalization, old age, and dying

Part III: Prevention and clinical interventions
12. Loneliness and later life: concepts, prevalence, and consequences
13. Loneliness interventions for students with disabilities
14. Strategies to prevent loneliness
15. Helping the "poor get richer" -Successful internet loneliness intervention programs
16. Chronic loneliness within an attachment framework: processes and interventions

Epilogue: loneliness and coping with it: where do we go from here?