“We have become victims of our own art.

We touch people on the outsides of their bodies,

and they us, but we cannot get to their insides

and cannot reveal our insides to them.

This is one of the great tragedies of our interiority-it

is utterly personal and unrevealable.”

Ernest Becker

Solitary confinement is among the worst punishments human beings inflict on one another. Social isolation has profound negative effects on health, from reduced lifespan in the fruit fly, Drosophilamelanogaster, to decreased anti-inflammatory responses and survival rates in mice following induced stroke (Cacioppo & Hawkley, 2009). Feelings of loneliness might have evolved as a signal to human beings that their social connections are in need of repair (Cacioppo & Patrick, 2008). University students, particularly in their first year, are especially susceptible to feelings of loneliness (Cutrona, 1982

Loneliness is a complex and usually unpleasant emotional response to isolation or lack…