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The Evolution, Neurology, and Clinical Assessment of Chronic Loneliness
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The epidemic of loneliness that plagues contemporary society is best understood by observing the line of evolutionary development that led to social mammals, primates, and finally humans. Throughout this development, brute strength, claws, fangs, running speed, and defensive acuity of the senses have all been sacrificed in favor of the development of the cortical brain that complements our two other evolutionarily older brain components. Understanding this evolutionary development of the modern human brain allows mental health clinicians to assess and treat chronically lonely clients. You will learn how the limbic brain generates the sensation of loneliness when a person senses their excessive disconnection and isolation. Two powerful clinical assessment tools for chronic loneliness will be discussed in detail, allowing mental health professionals to leave the training with new modalities to incorporate in their clinical practice.
J. Walter Freiberg, III, III, PhD, JD
J.W. Freiberg III holds a Ph.D. from UCLA and a J.D. from Harvard Law School. This double training enabled Dr. Freiberg to serve for over thirty years as General Counsel to Boston’s principal children’s social service and adoption agencies, and as attorney to scores of private mental health clinics. As the decades passed, Dr. Freiberg recognized that the psychiatrists and psychologists who sought his advice were increasingly likely to describe their patients as socially isolated and painfully lonely. Freiberg, who has been called “the Oliver Sacks of law” by America’s most famous psychiatrist, Bessel van der Kolk, M.D., shares stories of these spell-binding cases with us in three books which each won awards for “Best Book of the Year in Psychiatry/Psychology.” Four Seasons of Loneliness: A Lawyer’s Case Stories appeared in 2016; Growing Up Lonely: Disconnection and Misconnection in the Lives of Our Children was published in 2019; and Surrounded by Others and Yet So Alone followed in 2020. Dr. Freiberg has been interviewed on NPR and scores of podcasts, with over seventy of these being accessible on his website, . Each year Dr. Freiberg lectures on the topic of chronic loneliness at the Trauma Research Foundation; this May at the 36th Annual Conference of the foundation, his talk will bear the title: “Loneliness: its Evolutionary Purpose, Neurological Genesis, and Clinical Analysis.”
Speaker Disclosures:
Financial: J. Walter Freiberg, III receives royalties as a published author and has employment relationships with the Boston University and École Pratique des Hautes Études. He is general counsel to the Trauma Research Foundation, Inc. J. Walter Freiberg, III receives a speaking honorarium from Psychotherapy Networker and 小蝌蚪视频. He has no relevant financial relationships with ineligible organizations.
Non-financial: J. Walter Freiberg, III has no relevant non-financial relationships.