Strategies to prevent loneliness

TY - CHAP

T1 - Strategies to prevent loneliness

AU - de Jong Gierveld, J.

AU - Fokkema, T.

PY - 2015

Y1 - 2015

N2 - ‘Prevention is better than cure’. This also applies to loneliness experiences: preventing people from loneliness is better than helping them to reduce their feelings of loneliness through interventions. In this chapter, we argue the necessity of loneliness prevention strategies for handling future life events that might trigger the onset of loneliness. More particularly we opt for the coping strategy characterized as ‘improving one’s social convoy’ by investing time and energy in the quantity and quality of relationships, in order to increase social embeddedness of younger and older adults. We use a process model of coping with loneliness that we tailor to the requirements of adults who are currently not or only mildly lonely. In using the model, we address three phases of the prevention process: (1) awareness: being aware of the risk factors of loneliness and the importance of a social convoy; (2) meeting the preconditions for setting the social embeddedness objectives: to be willing, knowing how, and able to maintain or improve one’s social convoy; and (3) defining the route to build and maintain an optimal social convoy and keep the paths to reach the social embeddedness objectives.

AB - ‘Prevention is better than cure’. This also applies to loneliness experiences: preventing people from loneliness is better than helping them to reduce their feelings of loneliness through interventions. In this chapter, we argue the necessity of loneliness prevention strategies for handling future life events that might trigger the onset of loneliness. More particularly we opt for the coping strategy characterized as ‘improving one’s social convoy’ by investing time and energy in the quantity and quality of relationships, in order to increase social embeddedness of younger and older adults. We use a process model of coping with loneliness that we tailor to the requirements of adults who are currently not or only mildly lonely. In using the model, we address three phases of the prevention process: (1) awareness: being aware of the risk factors of loneliness and the importance of a social convoy; (2) meeting the preconditions for setting the social embeddedness objectives: to be willing, knowing how, and able to maintain or improve one’s social convoy; and (3) defining the route to build and maintain an optimal social convoy and keep the paths to reach the social embeddedness objectives.

KW - loneliness

KW - strategies to prevent loneliness

M3 - Chapter

SN - 978-1-13-802621-6

T3 - Researching Social Psychology

SP - 218

EP - 230

BT - Addressing loneliness. Coping, prevention and clinical interventions

A2 - Sha'ked, A.

A2 - Rokach, A.

PB - Routledge

CY - New York

ER -