J.W. (Terry) Freiberg, social psychologist turned lawyer, explores what St. Teresa of Calcutta (Mother Teresa) called “The most terrible poverty” in his trilogy of books on loneliness – Four Seasons of Loneliness: A Lawyer's Case Stories (2016), Growing Up Lonely: Disconnection and Misconnection in the Lives of our Children (2019), Surrounded by Others and Yet So Alone: A Lawyer’s Case Stories of Love, Loneliness, and Litigation (2020). Loneliness and the feeling of being unwanted has grown significantly over the past 50 years and is pervasive in today’s culture. “It is one of the greatest public health crises of our time,” states Freiberg and others. The University of Chicago claims it is lethal. The chronically lonely are significantly more likely to become diabetic, have sleep disorders, develop high blood pressure, acquire Alzheimer’s, and have poorly functioning immune systems. In 1970, only 17% of us lived alone. Now it is estimated that one third of all American adults live alone, eat alone, and sleep alone, with 44 million Americans over the age of 45 suffering from chronic loneliness as measured by the UCLA Loneliness Scale. One in four Americans report that they spoke with no one about something important to them in the last six months. Crisis of loneliness This crisis of loneliness is a plague rooted in post-communal urban life. Our culture is characterized by the breakdown of the family, a significant rise in single parent families, eradication of multi-generational families, the uprooting of family and friends due to geographic dislocation, the vanishing of traditional communities, modern day employment with long commutes and workdays, social media cancellation...
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