Product Description

This study challenges the widely-held view that success in personal relationships is the only key to happiness. It argues that we pay far too little attention to some of the other great satisfactions of life - work and creativity. In a series of biographical sketches it demonstrates how many of the creative geniuses of our civilization have been solitary, by temperament or circumstance, and how the capacity to be alone is, even for those who are not creative, a sign of maturity.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #48112 in Books
• Published on: 1988-04-07
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 224 pages

About the Author
The editor, Anthony Storr, is a doctor, psychiatrist and analyst (trained in the school of C.G.) and author of 'Jung' (a Fontana Modern Master,1973) amongst many others.

Customer Reviews

A strong and articulate clarion call for the benefits of solitude
Anthony Storr, the British psychiatrist and writer who died of a heart attack in 2001, published twelve books in his lifetime. 'Solitude' was groundbreaking upon its publication in 1989, his key argument being that solitary pursuits "play a greater part in the economy of human happiness than modern psycho-analysts and their followers allow". Traditionally, psychoanalysis has tended to view those who generally do not generally engage in or avoid close personal relationships as psychologically immature, as having a character deficit to be remedied. Today legions of self-help books and women's magazines bolster this tenet by extolling interpersonal relationships as life's holy grail (especially, but not exclusively, for women). Storr counters that interpersonal relationships are not the only way of finding emotional fulfilment and that solitude can be creative, fulfilling and foster emotional maturity. Drawing upon both voluntary and enforced states of solitude, he claims that it is crucial in "attaining peace of mind and maintaining mental health".

An especial need to be alone in adult life can be traced back (in many, if not all, cases) to "some degree of insecure attachment in early childhood". Solitude can then take on a compensatory and healing function: "a retreat from unhappiness, a compensation for loss, and a basis for later achievement". Indeed on the basis of the lives of famous writers (Trollope, James, Kafka), philosophers (Kant, Wittgenstein) and composers (Wagner, Beethoven, Bach), he argues that what began as compensation for deprivation can become a rewarding way of life. These artists and thinkers could "best express [their] true self in some form of creative work rather than in interaction with others".

Storr characterises those who especially like to retreat into solitude as often having a depressive tendency and - regarding those who managed to create art out of time spent alone - having often suffered the loss of a parent in their childhood years (e.g. Sylvia Plath, John Berryman, Louis MacNeice, John Donne and S.T. Coleridge). "[T]he greater the disharmony within, the sharper the spur to seek harmony, or, if one has the gifts, to create harmony", he states. Storr is at his strongest when conveying his incisive insights in clear and cogent prose, which often culminate in nuggets of wisdom (at one point he casually writes "In the end, one has to make sense of one's own life, however influential guidance from mentors may have been"). The reader might have to overlook occasionally portentous language (e.g. "I could not forbear to quote it"!), but this nevertheless remains a brilliant and original read.

Making sense of solitude
If you are looking at and considering this book to help you make sense of the situations of solitude that you find yourself in, please read it. It has helped me to be objective about my childhood and the effect it has had on me, to see how childhood bereavement has affected later behaviour and to look at my current situation (one of partial solitude due to a painful condition) more creatively. Whereas I used to blame myself for previous behaviours/mistakes, Dr Storr's book has helped me to see that maybe some of it was inevitable. Dr Storr calls on a lifetime of learning in this book, but it is easy to read.

A message of hope
As society increasingly places emphasis on the values of relationships, and often judges people on what seems to be their inability to have one, the importance of a book that encourages people to be at peace with their solitude cannot be underestimated. Storr draws from the experiences of people like Gibbon, Kafka, and Wittgenstein to show that there is nothing wrong with living your life alone, but he is at his most illuminating when outlining how normal people can, through experiences in their childhood, acquire the self-reliance necessary to be emotionally independent and self-sufficient. The chapter on how a young child learns to be "alone in the presence of the mother" will doubtless strike a chord with many readers, and probably help them understand some of their own experiences.