ABSTRACT
Loneliness is often contrasted with sociability: being together ‘cures’ loneliness. This is especially true in institutional settings. Schools and universities, for example, increasingly focus on sociable learning – group work, creating ‘social learning spaces’, and shared office spaces. Empirical research, however, suggests that loneliness is more likely to be created by such emphases on sociability. What is needed and wanted is a balance of opportunities for sociability and for healthy solitude. Without healthy solitude, people are denied opportunities to be in dialogue with those beyond the institution (the long dead, the fictional, the yet-to-be-born) and cut off from dialogue with themselves.
A school or university that educates in such a way as to promote healthy solitude and help individuals deal with the suffering involved in loneliness can be called ‘enstatic’: people are comfortable within themselves. This chapter explores how educational institutions can create opportunities for healthy solitude and more effectively host loneliness.
