A daily dose of solitude

 The British psychiatrist Anthony Storr complained that in the late 20^th century psychology was all about relationships.

If a person came for help, a therapist would begin with relationships. How did the patient get along with mom, dad, the significant other?

Storr argued that we are not the sum of our relationships. We also have our own interests, which we cultivate in solitude. If you’re an artist, you create things, and you don’t typically do that by convening a committee. If you’ve ever written anything, you know what it’s like to be in a world of your own.

Roy Bedichek, a Texas writer I admire, often traded notes with friends about how to live a whole life, a healthy life. He talked about his routine, his diet, his sleeping habits. He made it a point to spend time alone.

 

I’m one of those physicians who believes in the therapeutic values of absolute solitude. Here at home I can take a dose every day and I know it does me good. While I can’t get the religious comfort that many do out of solitude, I do get, it seems to me, a sort of stability that is firm ground to stand on while dealing mentally with the natural trials and tribulations which come to us all.

 

I like that word “stability.” I’m no psychologist, but the people I have known who spent little time alone thinking their own thoughts did not strike me as stable.

• Sources: The Roy Bedichek Family Letters, selected by Jane Gracy Bedichek; Denton: University of North Texas Press, 1998, p. 402. Whenever I think of the diaries, letters, essays and memoirs, I think of Bedichek.

Anthony Storr, Solitude; New York: Free Press, 1988.