The Loneliness of the Psychotherapist
CPD Credits
3
Event Type
Recorded Event
Location
Your TR Together account
Standard
£60.00
Trainee/NHS
£51.00
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The Loneliness of the Psychotherapist

The Loneliness of the Psychotherapist

Developmental Roots and Professional Realities

With Aleksandar Dimitrijevic

Loneliness is increasingly recognised as one of the most significant mental health risks of our time, with profound psychological and physiological consequences. For those in the helping professions, particularly psychotherapists, loneliness can carry unique complexities. Therapists spend much of their professional lives in deep emotional engagement with others, yet within the one-directional boundaries of the therapeutic frame. The very skills and attitudes that enable empathy, containment, and professional detachment can, paradoxically, create emotional isolation.

This workshop explored how loneliness can manifest in the lives of therapists; what drives it, how it affects professional functioning and personal wellbeing, and what can be done to address it. Drawing on research findings, clinical examples, and participants’ own experiences and reflections, the speakers examined how the personality traits often associated with the psychotherapeutic vocation may predispose practitioners to chronic loneliness. The speakers also considered the risks of unacknowledged isolation, such as burnout, dependency on patients, and diminished personal vitality.

Programme

Introductions
Loneliness and its Consequences

In these times when much of social life and therapeutic work has moved to the internet, the consequent loneliness must be recognised as a significant mental health risk factor. In its chronic form loneliness can lead to higher incidence of cardiovascular diseases, type 2 diabetes, and various mental disorders. It is also what motivates many people to look for psychotherapy.

Internal Factors in Therapists’ Loneliness

When early caregivers fail to provide a reliably attuned holding environment, the infant’s spontaneous gestures go unrecognised, prompting a retreat of the true self and compliance with external demands. This early relational rupture leads to an enduring sense of internal aloneness, even in the presence of others. For psychotherapists whose work requires deep attunement and emotional presence such early experiences may shape both their choice of vocation and their clinical presence. This presentation explores how unresolved developmental loneliness informs therapists’ relational patterns, emotional burdens, and the therapeutic use of self.

Discussion
Break
External Factors in Therapists’ Loneliness

Therapists’ work environments often unintentionally foster loneliness. Long hours in private practice, one-directional therapeutic relationships, heavy caseloads, and administrative pressures limit opportunities for social connection and professional support. Professional expectations for neutrality and emotional resilience can discourage seeking help. This session examines how external pressures interact with therapists’ relational needs and possible early experiences, contributing to both professional burnout and private-life social withdrawal. Participants will explore strategies to mitigate isolation, develop networks, and create sustainable work-life balance that supports connection and emotional vitality inside and outside the clinical room.

Discussion
Breakout Groups & Shared Reflection: Prevention and Remedies

This session focuses on how therapists can personally recognise, prevent, and respond to their loneliness. Through small-group discussion followed by shared reflection, we will consider ways to support ourselves as we work.

Final Discussion: Bringing ideas together
End

Aleksandar Dimitrijević

Aleksandar Dimitrijević, PhD, is a clinical psychologist and psychoanalyst. He works as a lecturer at the International Psychoanalytic University and in private practice in Berlin. He has given lectures, seminars, university courses, and conference presentations throughout Europe and the US. He is the author of many conceptual and empirical papers about attachment theory and research, psychoanalytic education, psychoanalysis and the arts, some of which were translated into German, Hungarian, Italian, Slovenian, Spanish, and Turkish. He has also edited or co-edited fourteen books or special journal issues. His next project is the multi-volume Hearing Silencing (co-edited with Michael B. Buchholz; Karnac Books). 

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