A distinction is made between active/voluntary and reactive/defensive aloneness. However, solitude as a defensive stance is a not so clearly depicted issue and warrants further insight. There are differences among theorists as to the infant’s degree of activity or passivity exhibited in his/her solitary life. Solitude may be, on the one hand, a retreat in front of the pain inherent in human relations. On the other hand, it is also deemed to provide a fertile ground for the cultivation of authenticity, creativity, and genuine relationships, although few psychoanalytic authors paid attention to this matter, as well as to the simple restorative function of solitude. Polarities or conflicts between opposites (e.g., pleasure‐seeking vs. object‐seeking motives, separateness vs. union, dependency vs. autonomy, personal uniqueness vs. similarity/conformity, privacy vs. sharing) form the core of several psychoanalytic interpretations of solitude and are treated from different viewpoints. Infancy is the sensitive period for the development of various types of symbolic function, which, among other things, form the content of solitude and are, in combination with the rich fantasy (even hallucinatory) life of the infant, the main routes to the reduction of loneliness. Experiences – either illusory and regressive or active and progressive – of unity as presymbolic experiences and as a way of transcending loneliness are also built during early infancy in the relationship with the caregiver.
Solitude is a multifaceted paradox, much as the self is (Modell, 1993), a paradox that is evident from birth or even before it. I argue that some facets of this paradox, as emerging from the psychoanalytic views discussed previously, are the following:
The newborn and infant is an essentially alone but merged‐with‐an‐other being.
There is an initial narcissistic (solipsistic) state coupled with social symbiosis.
From infancy, we need solitary moments and object ties, for tension reduction and excitation alike.
We are alone in the presence of the other, initially the mother (in the most fortunate cases), we are lonely in the presence of the other (in the rather unfortunate cases), and we fear being alone with the other (in the most unfortunate cases).
Experiencing real loneliness (and not the terror of aloneness) and enjoying solitude are achievements made possible only through bonding and genuine sharing.
The mutual recognition and sharing of aloneness in the mother–infant dyad leads to a healthy relationship.
A part of the self communicates with other parts of the self.
A variety of companions inhabit alone space and time.
Separateness, absence, and loss are the preconditions for symbolic connectedness.
The protection of a private core self is an outcome and prerequisite of genuine relations.
One can be with the other only through the capacity to be an integrated self.
To the question of whether the initial human condition is one of aloneness or connectedness, of monadic or dyadic existence, recent, research‐informed psychoanalytic views (e.g., Mitchell, 1997; Ogden, 1994) reply that it is both. A contemporary psychoanalytic suggestion (Eagle, 2011) for an integration of drive‐reduction and object relations theory provides additional support to the fact that solitude is a need for achieving self‐regulation and inner pleasure and a catastrophe when it opposes our inborn readiness for relatedness.
In order to understand the paradoxical nature of solitude and be able to benefit from aloneness experiences, it may be useful to take into account the notion of negative capability, introduced by poet John Keats in 1817 and applied in the psychoanalytic field by Bion (1970, 1992). Negative capability means that “man is capable of being in uncertainties, Mysteries, doubts without any irritable reaching after fact and reason” (Keats, 2002, p. 60). In other words, it is an attitude of openness and receptivity, which broadens psychic space. The individual is capable of keeping opposites in mind, thus enduring absence of connection, which is associated with the pain of loneliness, and fluidity, which is associated with the creative facets of solitude. Unsociability and social disinterest express this facet of the negative, that is, dwelling in aloneness without anxiety, but with the capacity to be patient, wait, and surrender oneself to this unsaturated state of open possibilities. It would appear that accepting the paradox of solitude and its dialectical tension – a paradox that can never be completely resolved – is a difficult yet major developmental and epistemological achievement.
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