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Man's sense of separation from Man, his awareness of his unique and alone self has been described and commented upon by numerous thinkers either as a personal perception or as a philosophic preoccupation. Granted the universality of this feeling of aloneness, we might speculate upon those people who simultaneously feel lonely—isolated and without close relationships to others—and alone in the sense we speak of it above. Apparently the feeling of aloneness is tolerable as a nostalgia might be, but loneliness having the force of a deprivation may be experienced as an intolerable hunger or despair. What might be the consequence when the feeling of uniqueness is fortified by, or becomes invested with, painful feelings of loneliness?
In my professional work, I have known three people whose feelings of uniqueness apparently had become so painful that a defensive phantasy system was developed in order to maintain ego integrity.
The first was a nineteen-year-old sailor, hospitalized on a U.S. Naval Hospital psychiatric ward because of a depression. I had called him into my office to obtain his personal and family history. As he sat before me, I saw a dark-haired, round-faced, good looking boy. He was in good contact, pleasant, cooperative, subdued and quietly tense. He began readily enough to give me his story.
The only child of parents who were divorced when he was still a baby, he had been awarded to his father because his mother had been neglectful of him. His father soon married a woman toward whom our patient felt a deep antagonism. The father, a professional man, had been “good” to him, indulgent and protective. The patient had been something of an isolate. He had had few friends, “was afraid of everything,” had no hobbies or interests, was destructive had temper tantrums, bit his fingernails and was still enuretic at