During the height of the pandemic, many of us were cut off from our usual contact with friends and family, missing out on celebrations at our homes or maybe just meeting at the corner coffee shop to catch up.. Overnight, we went from warm hugs to distant waves to a 2D image on a screen. This isolation led many of us to experience new levels of loneliness. Unfortunately, as we move past the pandemic, we are still seeing increased feelings of loneliness worldwide.

“Let’s get comfortable being uncomfortable. One of the things that makes it worse when you are feeling lonely is you don’t know what to do, you don’t know how to reach out, and you don’t know what to say. So, I think that the key is just do it: jump into the deep end.” Dr. Bita Rivas

Join us on this episode of Coming Back Better, as Marjorie Morrison and Paul Deger dive a little deeper into what loneliness is and how our community can be the key to helping us leave isolation behind.

Meet the Experts:

Amy Pearlman is a licensed independent clinical social worker in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, with a Master of Social Work from Smith College. Her areas of expertise are in community and mobile crisis intervention for individuals and families. She supports an integrated vision of healthcare throughout all community facets. To read more, click here.

Dr. Bita Rivas is a faculty member in the Counselor Education program at California State University Sacramento, specializing in marriage, couple, and family counseling; clinical mental health counseling, and addiction counseling. To read more, click here.

⁠Coming Back Better is brought to you by Psych Hub and HCA Healthcare in collaboration with Columbia University’s Department of Psychiatry. Coming Back Better is a Psych Hub Podcast and is for educational purposes only. Visit https://psychhub.com to dig deeper and access the world’s most comprehensive platform for behavioral health education.

If you enjoy this podcast, be sure to follow or subscribe wherever you are listening, and share the show with your colleagues and friends. You can also subscribe to our YouTube Channel here, https://www.youtube.com/c/PsychHub. 

Follow us on Social Media and wherever you get your podcasts:

Instagram

Our Podcasts

Google

Stitcher

Spotify

iHeartRadio

Amazon Music

Apple