ABSTRACT
This chapter explores a condition that Western culture may increasingly perpetuate-loneliness. To offer solutions and possible avenues for intervention, people propose a process model for loneliness in which an understanding of individual's attachment styles and their subsequent ways of processing interpersonal information may provide the conditions through which loneliness is developed and maintained-and the mechanisms through which it can be treated. A useful way to conceptualize the experience of loneliness is to place it within an attachment framework, particularly with respect to working models-our filters for interpreting and responding to others in interpersonal situations and close relationships. The proposed process model outlines the critical elements that must be considered and addressed in a comprehensive intervention model for reducing the experience of chronic loneliness. The chapter focuses on the foundations of the way people interact, and their particular experience of loneliness, people can target strategies for improving attachment security and restructure biased internal working models.
