Possibilities of phenomenological clinical actions in psychology in the face of loneliness among university students in the contemporaneity

Abstract

In contemporary society, subjects are pressured by the culture of high performance and, often, due to the effort they make, they feel tired of being themselves. This culture is constituted by values such as unbridled competitiveness, failure of bonds and precariousness of solidarity. In the scenario, adolescents and young adults, affected by these values, may experience loneliness, compromising their quality of life and mental health. In view of this, our objective in the present essay is to carry out a reading on the feeling of loneliness in contemporary times, reflecting on it among university students and, from the experience as supervisor of psychological duty and intervention groups in universities, defending phenomenological clinical interventions to favor the re-signification of the suffering that loneliness triggers in this population. To do so, we define what loneliness is, outline some studies on this feeling among university students and describe phenomenological clinical interventions in the face of loneliness. We conclude, mainly, the need for interventions based on the ethics of collective action carried out in the university context itself, so that students can share the suffering faced with the experience of loneliness and build coping strategies.