NARCISSISM AND LONELINESS

The research described here centers on how a narcissistic intrusion during early childhood may develop into narcissistic difficulties which manifest themselves, later in life, in feelings of loneliness. The results from a study of elderly women in Stockholm, Sweden, indicated that loneliness in old age is greater among an intruded group in comparison to those whose parental influence was not intrusive. The feelings of loneliness are even more severe if the mother was a housewife. There was also a relationship between social position and loneliness, but only for those women whose family orientation was not intrusive and whose mothers were housewives. The results encourage further study of the etiological contributions of parental influence during childhood on later experience of loneliness.