On Connectedness — A Humanistic, Biological View

Being in close, intimate relationship with another person or persons is experienced by most of us from time to time in our lives. The experience may be temporary (as it can be a counselling relationship), or it may be more enduring as it often is between life-partners, or parents and their children, for example. Feeling connected to someone else, or to the group in which we live, even to the planet itself seems a basic human need. Its absence may result in feelings of isolation, alienation, loneliness and depression. So strong is this need, that many people devote their entire lives to its satisfaction, and many enter counselling or psychotherapy in an effort to recreate within themselves their lost capacity for intimacy.