A researcher looks at solitude

I’ve started following the research of Thuy-Vy T. Nguyen who studies solitude.

She’s a psychologist at the University of Durham. Her name is pronounced Twee-vee Nween.

One of the enormous holes in my education is the entire discipline of psychology. I somehow got out of college without a single course. I wish I could have read one of Dr. Nguyen’s papers decades ago. It might have lit a fire under a sleeping student.

My education, such as it is, disposed me to think that solitude is a good thing. Philosophers spend time alone reflecting on problems. Monks and artists spend time alone as part of contemplative or creative processes.

But a good deal of thinking in psychology has focused on unwanted time alone — loneliness. And some psychologists have studied whether an extreme sense of loneliness — social isolation — is a marker of mental illness.

How do you square those perceptions? Is solitude good and valuable or is it something associated with serious health problems?

Part of the confusion is conceptual. If you simply reject the idea that solitude is synonymous with loneliness and social isolation you can study people who have good reasons for being alone.

The research of Dr. Nguyen and her colleagues suggests that some of the benefits of solitude can be measured — an idea that would have astonished the younger, slumbering-student version of me.

One example: Psychologists measure the valence of feelings (positive or negative) and also measure arousal or intensity.

Dr. Nguyen and her colleagues have found that people who spend time in solitude have a kind of buffer when it comes to the intensity of the emotions. They experience feelings, good and bad, but the intensity of those emotions just isn’t as high as it is for people who don’t spend time alone.

People who like solitude and cultivate it tend to have an even keel, as my father would say. My father, incidentally, was a man who liked solitude and cultivated it. He was calm in any storm.

• Sources: Thuy-Vy T. Nguyen, “Time alone (chosen or not) can be a chance to hit the reset button”; Aeon, 8 April 2020.

https://aeon.co/ideas/time-alone-chosen-or-not-can-be-a-chance-to-hit-the-reset-button

A page about Dr. Nguyen with links to her scientific papers can be found here: https://www.solitude-lab.com