This year for Mental Health Awareness Week (MHAW), many organisations took part in an awareness campaign over digital channels around the theme of loneliness.
In advance of the awareness campaign, BACP wrote to the Chair of the UK Government’s COVID-19 public health inquiry, Baroness Heather Hallett, calling to have mental health added to the inquiry’s remit. 25 other organisations joined them in this call, including the Psychosynthesis Trust, as well as 800 therapists. The request acknowledged the pandemic’s impact on people’s mental health in the UK and how vital support services in this field have been since the pandemic began.
The request was successful; mental health and wellbeing have now been included in the inquiry. According to a statement on the inquiry’s website, “Baroness Hallett has also recommended that the Terms of Reference be reframed to put inequalities at its forefront so that investigation into the unequal impacts of the pandemic runs through the whole inquiry.”
Meanwhile, Psychosynthesis Trust team members took part in discussions over Mental Health Awareness Week to share their own experiences of loneliness and ways it can be tackled. Ideas for remedying loneliness included:
- Connecting with a community of like-minded people, whether through volunteering or using technology to find groups with similar interests.
- Differentiating between being alone and lonely.
- Making time to consciously ‘turn off’ the mind, relishing in the time to unwind.
- Taking the time to connect to yourself and understand your own needs, before choosing to connect with others.
- Connecting with nature, being mindful of your environment.
- Acknowledging how the fear of being alone can keep us disconnected from spending time with ourselves.
You can read more about the BACP campaign on the BACP website.
Thomas Yeomans’ article on the Levels of Loneliness also discusses the challenges this feeling can bring, and ways we can critically respond to it.