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Existential isolation and well-being in justice-involved populations

Much work in psychology has focused on feelings of social isolation and/or loneliness. Only recently have psychologists begun to explore the concept of existential isolation (EI). EI is the subjective sense that persons are alone in their experience and that others are unable to understand their per...

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Autores principales: Sease, Thomas B., Cox, Cathy R., Knight, Kevin
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9795838/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36591099
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.1092313
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author Sease, Thomas B.
Cox, Cathy R.
Knight, Kevin
author_facet Sease, Thomas B.
Cox, Cathy R.
Knight, Kevin
author_sort Sease, Thomas B.
collection PubMed
description Much work in psychology has focused on feelings of social isolation and/or loneliness. Only recently have psychologists begun to explore the concept of existential isolation (EI). EI is the subjective sense that persons are alone in their experience and that others are unable to understand their perspective. EI thus occurs when people feel that they have a unique worldview unshared by others. Measured as either a state or trait, empirical studies have shown EI undermines life meaning and decreases well-being; people scoring high on EI report lower levels of need satisfaction, purpose in life, and meaningfulness and increased death-related concerns. There is also a positive correlation between EI and anxiety, depression, and suicidal ideation. The purpose of this perspective paper is to review literature on EI and discuss its relevance to people who have been involved with the justice system. Given their higher rates of substance use, mental health difficulties, and trauma, this traditionally underserved population is particularly susceptible to compromised well-being. We theorize that EI may impede the impact of therapeutic interventions in justice settings as more isolated individuals may feel disjointed from their counselors and peers, thereby decreasing levels of treatment engagement, participation, satisfaction, and perceived social support. Professionals may be able to mitigate issues related to EI by an enhanced focus on establishing authenticity within the therapist-client relationship (e.g., empathy, perspective taking, compassion), connecting with clients via I-sharing [i.e., matching on a shared experience(s)], and/or encouraging active participation in client’s behavioral healthcare needs (e.g., self-reflection).
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spelling pubmed-97958382022-12-29 Existential isolation and well-being in justice-involved populations Sease, Thomas B. Cox, Cathy R. Knight, Kevin Front Psychol Psychology Much work in psychology has focused on feelings of social isolation and/or loneliness. Only recently have psychologists begun to explore the concept of existential isolation (EI). EI is the subjective sense that persons are alone in their experience and that others are unable to understand their perspective. EI thus occurs when people feel that they have a unique worldview unshared by others. Measured as either a state or trait, empirical studies have shown EI undermines life meaning and decreases well-being; people scoring high on EI report lower levels of need satisfaction, purpose in life, and meaningfulness and increased death-related concerns. There is also a positive correlation between EI and anxiety, depression, and suicidal ideation. The purpose of this perspective paper is to review literature on EI and discuss its relevance to people who have been involved with the justice system. Given their higher rates of substance use, mental health difficulties, and trauma, this traditionally underserved population is particularly susceptible to compromised well-being. We theorize that EI may impede the impact of therapeutic interventions in justice settings as more isolated individuals may feel disjointed from their counselors and peers, thereby decreasing levels of treatment engagement, participation, satisfaction, and perceived social support. Professionals may be able to mitigate issues related to EI by an enhanced focus on establishing authenticity within the therapist-client relationship (e.g., empathy, perspective taking, compassion), connecting with clients via I-sharing [i.e., matching on a shared experience(s)], and/or encouraging active participation in client’s behavioral healthcare needs (e.g., self-reflection). Frontiers Media S.A. 2022-12-14 /pmc/articles/PMC9795838/ /pubmed/36591099 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.1092313 Text en Copyright © 2022 Sease, Cox and Knight. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Psychology
Sease, Thomas B.
Cox, Cathy R.
Knight, Kevin
Existential isolation and well-being in justice-involved populations
title Existential isolation and well-being in justice-involved populations
title_full Existential isolation and well-being in justice-involved populations
title_fullStr Existential isolation and well-being in justice-involved populations
title_full_unstemmed Existential isolation and well-being in justice-involved populations
title_short Existential isolation and well-being in justice-involved populations
title_sort existential isolation and well-being in justice-involved populations
topic Psychology
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9795838/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36591099
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.1092313
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