Social distancing is hard on us because we humans are social animals, bio-electronically wired for connection.  While the present pandemic didn’t cause the isolation that characterizes our era, it certainly exacerbated it. In 2018, 28% of adult households in the U.S. were single-person households, and 63% of the adult population remained unmarried. But we are not happier, on the contrary: over 35% of adult Americans report themselves to be chronically lonely, up from 20% in 1990.

How do we surmount this current crisis and help to create healthy connections going forward, in our own lives and in the lives of our children? J. W. Freiberg‘s latest book, Surrounded by Others and Yet So Alone, looks at the problem of chronic loneliness through his unique lens as a social psychologist (Ph.D., UCLA) turned lawyer (JD, Harvard Law School). His case studies are infused with the latest brain science, which reveals that loneliness is actually a sensation, like hunger or thirst, not an emotion like anger, which we can talk ourselves out of.