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The problem of loneliness demonstrates that sociological changes are important in psychiatric phenomena. Fromm concluded that 'men are lonely today because their emancipating triumphs over church, state, and family severed the primary ties that united them with others in the preindividualistic period'. Bowman comments that Fromm's brilliant analysis needs to be supplemented by the sociologists. In our society we meet less in primary groups such as family, play group, neighborhood, or village, and, since the immediate family is smaller than it was fifty years ago, adults and children have fewer intimate associations within the family. Even within the same community ties of family and kinship may deteriorate as differences in occupation or class introduce barriers to free communication. The pursuit of high socioeconomic status may alienate an individual from his family. The intimacies of neighborly contact tend to decline in the larger cities. But formal impersonal relationships are increasing. Moreover the feelings generated by competition are detrimental to the development and maintenance of friendliness. The author suggests that the sense of isolation may be considerably less in the lower ranks of an economic organization. Movement from one social class to another also produces a sense of loneliness. Subjective factors increase the difficulty still further. This point of view seems to have important implications for the processes and goals of psychotherapy. Two of these are discussed. 1. Psychotherapy could be greatly illuminated by sociological research that would offer therapists knowledge about the community in which the patient lives. For example, predisposing and precipitating factors may be found during investigations of the larger social environment. Detailed knowledge of the community and its subcultures might help the therapist deal more intelligently with the problems encountered by the patient in his daily life. 2. Social research may be