The loneliness of the long-distance (PhD) researcher

One of the most frequent complaints by students pursuing PhDs by research is that they are lonely. Thus a recent study of loneliness among doctoral students concluded that ‘both domestic and international [PhD] students from a range of disciplines experience social isolation, suffer a lack of emotional support and may struggle to engage in meaningful relationships with their peers’ (Janta, Lugosi, & Brown, 2014, p. 565). Likewise a recent report from Vitae, an organisation that supports academic researchers, has identified ‘isolated PGRs ... as being at risk [of contracting mental health problems], including those on fieldwork and remote campuses, part-time or mature PGRs’ (Metcalf, Wilson, & Levecque, 2018, p. 5). Yet the experience of loneliness among PhDs raises complex issues since a variety of social and psychological factors can contribute to a person’s perception of loneliness. That feeling must be differentiated from their social isolation, which sometimes – but far from always – evokes loneliness. Moreover, the presence of others is no proof against loneliness; individuals can feel desperately lonely in an anonymous crowd. According to Perlman and Peplau (1981, p. 31), loneliness is best defined as ‘the unpleasant experience that occurs when a person’s network of social relations is deficient in some important way, either quantitatively or qualitatively’. Thus, loneliness is a subjective feeling that is influenced by perceived inadequacies in our relationships with others but is not simply a reflection of those relationships. The stressful state of loneliness must also be differentiated from what Anthony Storr (1997) calls solitude and Donald Winnicott (1958) refers to as ‘the capacity to be alone’. For Winnicott (p. 416) this capacity is ‘one of the most important signs of maturity in emotional development’, which he traces back to the infant’s ability to feel satisfied in the protective presence of its mother figure but without needing to interact with her. This ability to be alone enables individuals to pursue their own independent lives; to be on their own in order to think, to be creative, to enjoy the world around them and, when needed, to restore well-being. People who possess what John Bowlby (1988) calls ‘a secure base’ are likely to be content with their own company. However, for others loneliness can be a very distressing sensation and one that may have