ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the loneliness forms, how it develops within intimate relationships, and the effects that loneliness has on the partners involved. It explains these emotional compulsions: despair, dispirited self-doubts, and distress that are displayed by emotionally lonely people may deplete their energies, thus diminishing their abilities to search for and develop new romantic relationships. The chapter describes the circular and perpetuating mechanism that are termed as emotional loneliness and is accompanied by distress and restlessness coupled with despair and inability to give attention to anything other than the anguish it causes. It talks about the marriage therapists that ought to include relational factors in their assessment and understanding of marital loneliness so as to ameliorate dysfunctional, maladaptive cognitions and interactive behaviours to alleviate loneliness. This chapter analyses that regardless of the theoretical approach, any therapeutic intervention that aims at the improvement of relational quality and promotion of intimacy may potentially alleviate loneliness.
