What Are the Effects of Loneliness and Social Isolation on Severe Mental Health?

When we look closely, isolation isn’t necessarily a measure of how many hours a person spends alone or how many friends and other connections they have. The phenomenon of social isolation just isn’t as simple as being alone. In fact, it’s possible for someone to be and feel isolated even when they are in the presence of other people. Let’s look at some of the ways that isolation can manifest for different people:

• Physical isolation can happen when someone lives in a remote area or otherwise has limited interactions with other people in their home life and throughout their days.
• Emotional isolation can but doesn’t necessarily depend on the actual state of being alone. Emotional isolation could be imposed upon someone—as in the case of an emotionally abusive, psychologically abusive, or neglectful relationship. It could also be self-imposed, intentionally or unintentionally, if someone is unwilling or unable to invest energy in emotional connections.
• Psychological isolation can be a complicated situation if someone is mentally disconnected from their own identity and personality or from their reality and the people around them.
• Rejection or ostracization are acts that purposely isolate a person. The experience of social isolation imposed by others likely comes with additional feelings of shame, pain, and other emotional trauma.
• A virtual lifestyle is becoming more and more common as people depend on Internet socialization over in-person relationships. A consistent psychological effect of all-virtual interactions is debatable, but there are certainly important aspects of human communication and relationships that are missing from purely virtual interactions.

It’s true that loneliness itself is not considered a clinical mental health disorder. But its close connection with our well-being makes it very worthy of our attention. To put it simply, isolation breeds more isolation. Researchers have observed that persistent loneliness can inspire:

• A self-preservation mentality and behaviors
• Fixation on negative thoughts and outcomes
• Hyper-vigilance toward social threats whether they are present or not
• Heightened stress and anxiety responses
• Poor sleep quality if hypervigilance continues

These effects of social isolation can weigh heavily on one’s mood, their perspective, their ability to cope with stress, and perhaps their very sense of self. In the context of social isolation, it is not always a simple and straightforward path of mental health decline. But it does tend to be progressive, especially as mental health disorders develop. Researchers Louise C. Hawkley and John T. Cacioppo have studied “the breadth of emotional and cognitive processes and outcomes that seem susceptible to the influence of loneliness”:

Loneliness has been associated with personality disorders and psychoses, suicide, impaired cognitive performance and cognitive decline over time, increased risk of Alzheimer’s Disease, diminished executive control, and increases in depressive symptoms.

And the effect of social isolation and severe mental health disorders also significantly impairs treatment access and recovery outcomes. The absence of caring and supportive relationships makes it less likely that someone will connect with treatment options in the first place or that they will be able to maintain recovery progress following treatment. And those who live in social isolation due to personal withdrawal may be less likely to seek or accept treatment. These limitations, on top of the detrimental negative effects of loneliness, can lead to severe and often unaddressed psychological distress.