Abstract

In 1978, when the Task Panel report to the US President’s Commission on Mental Health emphasized the importance of improving health care and easing the pain of those suffering from emotional distress syndromes including loneliness, few anticipated that this issue would still need to be addressed 40 years later. A meta-analysis (Masi et al., 2011) on the efficacy of treatments to reduce loneliness identified a need for well-controlled randomized clinical trials focusing on the rehabilitation of maladaptive social cognition. With the advances made over the past 5 years in the identification of the psychobiological and pharmaceutical mechanisms associated with loneliness and maladaptive social cognition, there is increasing evidence for the potential efficacy of integrated interventions that combine (social) cognitive behavioral therapy with short-term adjunctive pharmacological treatments.

Life in America in the 21 st century is unlike any period in human history. People are living longer than ever before, and the rise in the Internet has transformed how Americans work, play, search, shop, study, communicate, and relate to one another. People are increasingly connected digitally, but the prevalence of loneliness (perceived social isolation) also appears to be rising. From a prevalence estimated to be 11–17% in the 1970s (Peplau, Russell, & Heim, 1979), loneliness has increased to over 40% in middle aged and older adults 1 (Edmondson, 2010; Perissinotto, Cenzer, & Covinsky, 2012). Lees verder →