ABSTRACT
Walt Whitman's poetry reminds me of a kind of close relationship among males that many boys and men only dream about, one with comradery, intimacy, and physical affection. Whitman refers to young men who have a continued need for intimacy from other young men; they aren't boys on the cusp of their teenage years. Analysts and psychotherapists have differing degrees of comfort with the concept of soul. A state of alienation is one result for how the unbending beliefs and stark identification objects work to create barricades to all sorts of relationships. Alienation is more often understood as distance from others and oneself, seclusion, and loneliness. Leonard Shengold's and Donald Kalsched's ideas are useful for conceptualizing what happens to the soul when childhood trauma leads to life-sapping alienation. In the United States, the social alienation takes a lethal toll through an opioid epidemic.
