Isolation in psychology

General Psychology (PSY201) Isolation

Malak Husain

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Table of Contents

Introduction ................................................................................................................1 Hypothesis ..................................................................................................................2 Isolation ......................................................................................................................2 Isolation: Children that are unseen ............................................................................2 An examination example of Isolation ........................................................................3 Forms of Isolation ......................................................................................................4 Who are feral children? ..............................................................................................6 Signs of isolation in children .....................................................................................8 Relationship between isolation and abuse .................................................................9 Relationship between isolation and depression .......................................................10 Effects of self isolation in a childs social development ...........................................11 Who is it to blame? ..................................................................................................11 Conclusion ............................................................ Error! Bookmark not defined.2 Works cited ........................................................... Error! Bookmark not defined.3

Introduction Our topic of study is isolation. Being isolated is a condition of being alone, unhappy, and feeling separated from others. Can you ever imagine yourself being alone for a very long time, without any interacting with what is outside? Won’t you have that strong feeling of leaving your room or the space you are living in? Unfortunately, some people cannot really risk that, they are more afraid of what is outside which force them to stay inside. That is how isolated people go through and the conflicts that happen inside their brain is frightening.

In our research, we are going to explain our hypothesis which is why we are doing this research. We want to know whether isolation of children is really carried on up to adulthood or not. To do that, we went to understand the topic itself and its reasons, signs, and how to deal with people who has such an issue. Although socializing is important, but it is not easy for those people.

Therefore, we gave some real stories that happened in the 1970s, revealing some strange and surprising cases where some people really managed to survive and live normally eventually.

After this research concludes, we are expecting to find out whether the isolation of children does stay up to adulthood or not. If so, that would be fortunate since they cannot cope with others anymore and effects them on the long run, while if it turns out positively, it means that many lives can be saved. Therefore, we hope that our results will enlighten our colleagues and keep them aware of such an issue.

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Hypothesis Our hypothesis on the topic is: whether or not child isolation is carried on up to adulthood.

To find out whether or not this hypothesis is correct, we have collected articles explaining isolation reasons, factors, signs, and how to deal with a child that faces isolation. In addition, we clarify the word “isolation “to understand everything related to it, and how these isolated children really feel all the time. We also mentioned some types of isolation which depend basically on the environment itself. We also mention the “feral children”, the children who lived isolated from human contact, and give some real stories that actually happened in the 1970s, and did it really affect their growing or not. Another misunderstood information we wanted to prove was whether or not adults have a higher chance of social isolation than children. A survey was conducted to figure out if we could reach to a conclusion.

Isolation This article centers on examining the importance, history, and effects of isolation. Being isolated is a condition of being alone, unhappy, and feeling separated from others. No one can live without relationship. You may withdraw into the mountains, become a monk, a sannyasi, wander off into the desert by yourself, but you are related. You cannot escape from that absolute fact. You cannot exist in isolation”. (Krishnamurti, May 12, 1895) Can you imagine what would happen if you had to stay all alone somewhere for a long period of time without any kind of interactions with people? Any normal person would feel exhausted of the loneliness. Therefore, let’s learn more about yourself and others and how isolation can be a major issue in our lives.”

Every terrorist regime in the world uses isolation to break people's spirits”. (hooks, September 25, 1952)

Isolation: The Children that are Unseen This article illustrates how children really feel and let us realize more about the troubles they go through in their lives. It also lets us appreciate the importance of socializing, since it provides good opportunity to understand numerous kinds of people, which is hard for those 2

people. “The worst cruelty that can be inflicted on a human being is isolation”. (Sukarno, June 6, 1901) Self-confidence will be low for these unseen children since they do not interact that much

with their surroundings. This issue requires some great changes to help these people become more socialized since socializing is a great tool for development of self-confidence.

Effects of Social Isolation 

Social Isolation Social isolation is a condition of complete or near-complete less contact with individuals

and society. As a symptom, periods of isolation can be chronic or episodic, depending upon any cyclical changes in mood. It varies from loneliness, which reflects a lack of interacts with others.

Social isolation can be an issue for different people of all ages, however effects may differ by age group.

True social isolation over years and decades can be a perpetual condition influencing all parts of a person's existence. Social isolation can let you feel lonely, fear of others, or negative confidence. Absence of consistent human contact can likewise cause conflict with the (surrounding) companions. The socially isolated individual may at times converse with or cause issues with relatives.

“The size of risk related with social isolation is practically identical with that of cigarette smoking and other major biomedical and psychosocial risk components.”

James S. House, Psychosomatic Medicine, 2001, Issue 2, Volume 63, pages 273 - 274[2]

Every day aspects of this type of social isolation can mean: 1. Remaining home for a period of time due to lack of access to social circumstances rather than wanting to be alone; 2. Both not reaching, and not being reached by, any acquaintances, even incidentally; for instance, never being called by anyone on the phone and never having anybody visits;

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3. An absence of meaningful, expanded relationships, and particularly close intimacy (both emotional and physical). 

Isolation to facilitate abuse Isolation (physical, social or emotional) is frequently used to encourage power and

control over somebody for a harsh reason. This applies in numerous settings, for example, work environment bullying, elder abuse, child abuse, religions and fundamentalist churches.

Isolation decrease the chance of the abused by escape from the abuse. It likewise disorientates the abused and makes the abused more reliant on the abuser. The level of power and control over the abused is dependent upon the level of his or her physical isolation.

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Isolation (Health care) In health care facilities, isolation is one of a few measures that can be taken to perform

infection control: the prevention of infectious diseases from being spread from a patient to other patients, workers, and guests, or from outsiders to patients. Different types of isolation exist, some in which the patient is avoided from others, and some which contact procedures is important.

Isolation is most normally utilized when a patient has an infectious (transmissible personto-person) viral or bacterial illness. Special equipment is utilized for such patients. The most usually things they used are the (outfits, covers, and gloves) and building controls (positive pressure rooms, negative pressure rooms, air flow equipment). These isolation wards might be pre-built already, or temporarily assigned for emergency.

Forms of Isolation 1. Strict isolation

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Is utilized for diseases that can spread through the air and sometimes by contact. Patients must be set in somewhere isolated to prevent the infectious diseases. Those who are kept in strict isolation places are regularly kept in a unique room that are specially made for that reason. These rooms are equipped with special stuff, like waste disposal that are given to workers after leaving the room.� Isolation is a self-defeating dream.� (hooks, September 25, 1952)

2. Contact seclusion It is used to stop the spread of illnesses that can be spread through contact with open injuries. Social insurance workers who contact the patient are required to wear gloves, and sometimes, an outfit.

3. Respiratory isolation Respiratory isolation is utilized for diseases that are spread through particles that are exhaled. Contact such a patient required to wear a mask.

4. High isolation The Aeromedical Biological Containment System (ABCS) is a high isolation module for very infectious patients. It is utilized to keep the spread of abnormally infectious, and irresistible diseases (e.g., smallpox, Ebola infection). It requires required the use of: gloves (or twofold gloves if fitting), protective eyewear (goggles or face shield), a waterproof gown, and a respirator.

Isolation can have the following negative impacts on patients and staff: 1. Patient will most likely be unable to get guests, and thus, turn out to be lonely 2. Patient might be anxious 3. Some children may feel their isolation is a punishment 4. Staff may need to invest more energy with patients

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

Isolation (psychology) Isolation (German: Isolierung) is a defense component in psychoanalytic theory initially

proposed by Sigmund Freud. While related to repression the idea separates itself in a few ways.

It is described as a mental procedure including the formation of a gap between an unpleasant or threatening cognition, and other thoughts. By limiting associations with other thoughts, the threatening comprehension is remembered less and is unlikely influence self-esteem or the selfconcept. Freud showed the idea with the case of a man starting train of thought and afterward stopping for a minute before continuing to another subject. His theory said that by adding an interval the person was "allowing it be understood symbolically that he will not prevent his thoughts about that impression or action to come into affiliated contact with other thoughts. “As someone against harmful thoughts, isolation keeps the self from enabling these perceptions to become recurrent and affecting to the self-concept.

Who are feral children?

A feral child (also called wild kid) is a child who has lived isolated from human contact from an exceptionally youthful age where they have next to zero involvement of human care, or human language. Some feral children have been kept by their own parents! A feral children may have suffer from extreme abuse or injury before being abandon or fleeing. Feral children are in some cases the subjects of old stories and legends, normally being raised by animals. For example, Mowgli was a feral child in Rudyard Kipling's "The Jungle Book".

Cases of feral children: 1. Oxana Malaya: At age 3, thrown out of the house by her alcoholic parents, forcing her to live among the dogs for warmth.

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Result: dismissed by the human world, she took the animals habits to survive. For a long time she ate raw meat, barked, and walked one her four hands and legs, and slept in a kennel.

Later on: Despite all that, Oxana has been recovered. She is now 28 and living in a home for the rationally handicapped. In addition, she has an amazing language skill where she can interact with people more often and had a boyfriend for a brief time at age 22. Sadly, she showed him how she could run and bark like a dog which was so convincing and made him run away like a frightened mailman.

2. Genie: Genie was discovered November 4, 1970 in Los Angeles, California. She is the most extreme cases of neglect ever documented. The initial thirteen years of her life she was strapped to a toilet, kept inside, segregated from society, and forced to be in a crib where she couldn't move her body. Her father, who continually abused her, would keep her caught inside. He kept his nails to scratch her. Genie's mother was nearly blind where she cannot defend herself or her daughter from her husband. Psychologists later understood his attitude since his mother passed away leaving him to feel the world was a failure. In October of 1970, Genie's brother had to flee from that environment and told authorities what his father was doing. November 4 was the first time Genie saw daylight. Psychologists began doing studies on her. They tried to show her how to speak and help her to live an ordinary life. As she advanced, they started to move her place to another. She began to remain quiet and stopped. Genie is currently in a mental ward, supervised by a doctor who help her.

3. Shamdeo: Found isolated in the forest of Musafirkhana, which is about 20 miles from Sultanpur.

Result: He was discovered at age 4, and had sharp teeth, craving for blood, earth-eating, chicken-hunting, love of darkness and friendship with dogs and jackals.

Later on: He was taken to the village of Narayanpur, although he loved raw meat, he never ate, but learnt some sign language. In 1978 he was accepted in Mother Theresa’s Home, where he was re-named Pascal and died in February 1985.

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Signs of Isolation in children There are many signs that lead to isolation in children, beginning with kids that suffer from learning and attention issues where they would feel left out and lonely most of the time. They don’t have friends that want to spend time with them, even though they might be surrounded by children with their age but not know how to interact and behave in a meaningful way, because they might fear that those children will reject and won’t understand them or share their characteristics and hobbies.

Research indicates that children who suffer from learning and attention issues have a high chance of feeling lonely and left out. They struggle with the idea of trying to fit in with the community they are surrounded by, which lets them have a harder time to get along with the idea that those issues they have comes with loneliness.

Another sign of isolation is when children feel restlessness where they have a difficulty entertaining themselves when they’re alone because of reading struggles or short attention span, which makes it harder for them to try to enjoy activities like normal children, such as reading a book or drawing.

The early stages in a child’s development is the most important role that effect their attention. In other words, it is in between the child’s hands in a specific limit to control themselves and focus because in most cases it is within their power. Research has indicated that the issues which happens in a home and a parent’s interruption to their children while they’re playing or reading a book can harm deeply the development of a child’s attention span, rather than letting them play or read a book without any disturbance.

Even though some children are surrounded by people, they might still feel lonely, and not all children who spend a lot of time with themselves are considered isolated from the world. If one sees that his or her child suffers with one of several signs of isolation such as learning and attention issues, they must seek for help. The sooner the child is cured and his problems are solved, the better it is for him to recover and improve his abilities to focus.

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Children who have low self-esteem are highly open to being isolated. They are always seeking the acceptance from their peers to determine the scale of their self-worth. And when they don’t find that acceptance, they feel unwanted and undesirable from others which lets them think that they are the problem, and this lowers their self esteem and their love to themselves. Which all leads to isolation and having them think being lonely and not interacting with other children is the only solution to the problem. And the more they spend time with themselves the more isolated they get, which keeps on getting worse if the problems are not discovered by others.

Isolation and Abuse Whether the abuse is physical or emotional, it is still considered as abuse. Isolation and abuse cannot be put separately, because abusers can target children that suffer from isolation, due to lack of communication, or any other factor that the abuser benefits from, because they know the isolators won’t seek for help. At the same time, the targets of the abusers are not always people or children that suffer from isolation, but what happens to them leads to self-isolation.

There was a case spoken by a child, where she lived with her single mom that had a boyfriend which she thought at the beginning was nice and kind. He would come every now and then to their house. One day the mother invited her boyfriend and friend over with the child being in the house. The mother had to go grocery shopping, and her friend went to take a shower.

The mothers spouse was playing normally with the child, until he checked no one was there, closed the door with the child inside the room, and abused her sexually. He told her not to tell anyone, or else he would hurt her family, so naturally she kept quiet. The child felt worried and scared to seek for help. This caused issues in school, where before she was a normal child that didn’t have any difficulties in her studies, and now she cannot read or write. Her verbal communication was getting worse, and she would isolate herself from her classmates.

This case explains to us how sexual abuse and isolation are related and the impact of abuse on the child’s behavior and outcomes. Here, isolation came after the sexual abuse that happened.

Some of which seek help at the end of the day, others of which keep silent and their word would not be heard from others.

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Isolation and Depression Depression is one of the most serious health concerns facing people. It is estimated that about 10 to 15 percent of children are diagnosed with depression at any time. Due to this, researchers indicate the numbers are getting higher not lower. The irony is that depression is one of the most treatable disorders because of the various curing ways. Children that are diagnosed with depression always feel that there is a bomb ticking inside of them and that it would explode any second.

In this case, a child that suffered with the feeling of being alone, stressed, hated by everyone, had low self-esteem, and most of all hated herself more. But what was the reason? Her parents. For every mistake she does, they would yell at her. If she did not meet her parents’ expectations, they would punish her. She would always hear unmotivating sentences from her parents. And so, the child built thoughts in her head that she isn’t good enough, and hated by everyone. This lead her to always feel the need to be alone and isolated from others. This case particularly is considered as verbal abuse from her parents. And in most cases children who suffer from verbal abuse also experience emotional abuse. Words cause emotional scaring more than you can imagine. Especially to children who are not aware of everything and believe whatever is told to them.

Another case where depression causes isolation, when parents of a child are going through a divorce, the main person effected is the child. The child feels left out and less important to them, in result the child seeks for attention that eventually is not given from the parents and leads to depression, where the child would have the urge to be alone and isolated. A research group recently conducted a study showing that an increased lifelong risk of depression is caused by parental divorce. A study shows within the past 35 years, children who experienced parental divorce are 56% more likely to go through depression both during their childhood phase, up to their adulthood.

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Effects of Self-Isolation on child’s social development Rene Spitz, an Austrian-American researcher and psychoanalyst, used child observation to determine just how detrimental a lack of important social interaction is to a child. Harry Harlow conducted a study using monkeys that furthered Spitz's studies and explored the devastating consequences of isolation. The results of these studies showed: the essential needs for a proper social development of a child is the feeling of being loved and loving back.

Social behavior shows how a child’s feelings, thoughts, and behavior is affected by the community they live in. developing relationships with other children is not just for the sake of being with friends and playing, but also for enhancing social interaction. Children that suffer from slow speech development are usually raised in a place where human interaction was limited or in isolation. Since they were infants, interacting with someone was not a normal thing. So as the children grew up, they would have zero experience with social interactions because of the social isolation they suffer from. As one of these factors, social isolation began to appear in the literature as early as 1964 (Leontyne Young, -Wednesday's Children).

Who is it to blame?

There is no question that parents are the main source or effect in a child’s development as they play the most important role in it. Many children seek the easiest way to blame all their problems on, which is their parents. Because the feeling of finding the cause of your pain is less stressful. However, a large study of more than 30,000 participants from 72 countries showed that putting the blame on the parents has no end and is not helpful at all and does not allow the child to feel better about his or her difficult experiences. Therefor a psychological study indicates that it is more dangerous for a child to blame the parents as an easy way out, rather than seek for the main root of the problem, and by blaming them, it shows that the risks of mental health is higher.

The answer to who is it to blame is actually no one. Children must learn to stop blaming others and also themselves for what is happening to them, and instead to learn how to seek for help and focus on the present.

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Results and Discussions The following types and factors discussed in this research were all pointed out to conclude that whether the isolation comes from abuse, either physical or emotional, or from feral children, all lead to two ways, either the case is cured with light side effects, or the issue is carried on throughout the child’s adulthood. Even though children are not taken so seriously in our society, they are more aware of what is happening around them more than what we know. And a study was proved that the phase of childhood does have a great impact on their future.

Although children are highly open to social isolation, a survey was conducted to prove whether or not adults have a greater risk of social isolation. The results showed that adults between 20 to 40 years of age have a less chance of social isolation than 40 years and above.

This information answers our doubts. Children are less likely to face isolation, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t any. The study showed the percentage of children was around 20%, and 30% for adults between 20 to 40 years of age, and 50% for adults over 40 years.

What we understood from the study was that in a way or another, adults above 40 have the highest chance of social isolation because of their status in life. Between 20 to 40 years, normal adults usually are surrounded by people, whether they are students at a university, or workers in a company, both ways social interaction with people is higher. While adults that are above 40 can either be retired, jobless, or simply never reached their goal. Health is also a reason why in that specific age isolation is higher because the older you get, the more health care you need.

Which leads to less social interaction and more social isolation. An interesting fact proven is that socially-isolated older adults are more likely to be die because of their loneliness and lack of interactivity. At the same time there are no studies conducted which prove social isolation in older adults make them sicker.

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Conclusion Isolation has many factors that can be seen through. But all factors are always negative to the victim, because isolation effects the child in the worst way, but the severity of it differs from a child to another. This research paper discusses whether isolation in children are only affected on them through their childhood or stays with them up to their adulthood. It was proved that 56% of children who suffer from isolation during their childhood phase carry this issue with them until they grow up.

Another finding concludes that various types of abuse such as, physical abuse and emotional abuse does have a great impact on child self-isolation. A study proved the physical abuse gained the highest percentage in causes of isolation.

In conclusion, isolation is considered as a deep discussion because of its various branches and causes. Especially for children that are still in their developing phase, if their voice is not heard on time, their future might go downhill. There must be more awareness on child isolation, one must hold their hand and lead them to the right direction to cure their issues.

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Works cited

http://theconversation.com/why-addressing-loneliness-in-children-can-prevent-a-lifetime-ofloneliness-in-adults-76248 http://www.enannysource.com/blog/index.php/2012/01/07/10-ways-to-tell-if-a-kid-is-lonely/ https://www.goodtherapy.org/learn-about-therapy/issues/isolation https://www.livestrong.com/article/1004775-effects-isolation-childs-social-development/ https://www.understood.org/en/friends-feelings/managing-feelings/loneliness-sadnessisolation/how-loneliness-can-impact-kids-with-learning-and-attention-issues https://evolutioncounseling.com/abuse-and-isolation/ http://www.beliefnet.com/wellness/galleries/6-signs-of-emotional-abuse.aspx?p=7 https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-art-closeness/201507/4-disorders-may-thriveloneliness https://www.speechbuddy.com/blog/uncategorized/speech-on-social-and-emotionaldevelopment/ https://theconversation.com/why-addressing-loneliness-in-children-can-prevent-a-lifetime-ofloneliness-in-adults-76248 https://theconversation.com/are-your-parents-to-blame-for-your-psychological-problems-81203 https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/out-the-ooze/201611/the-perils-social-isolation https://www.healthyplace.com/blogs/verbalabuseinrelationships/2011/11/isolation-is-key-for-theability-to-abuse/

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