The purpose of this investigation was to explore how loneliness is described in literature and research. The study employed a hermeneutic approach rooted in the ideology of humanistic science in a caritative nursing tradition. Data sampling for the study was completed over two different periods of time (1998 and 2004). The main findings are that loneliness is understood as a complex dimension in our lives and it can be experienced at many levels. Through the survey of the theoretical material, loneliness may be understood as a structural dimension of existence and not as an illness. The deep dimension of loneliness, however, can entail suffering that is possibly so intolerable that it may turn towards becoming an illness. Loneliness is assumed as something we are, an ontological structure in our existence. Loneliness can therefore be turned into suffering as well as into health. It is perhaps in the silent reflective loneliness that we paradoxically develop a greater understanding of the benefits of togetherness. Our conclusion is therefore, that the phenomenon of loneliness is not a psychological dysfunction.

The prime purpose of this article is to present the results of a study of the significance of loneliness in patients with serious psychiatric disease, who live alone at home. This empirical study lasted about 1 year. Participatory observation, talks with the researcher and conversational qualitative interviews were employed. There were eight informants with serious psychiatric illnesses who lived alone in a large city. Throughout the year, a gradual and deeper understanding of the informants' loneliness was sought through the interpretation process. Want as a common fate become visible as an ideographical invariance through summative discussions about the right to life. The results have implications for caring and nursing practice.

Scand J Caring Sci; 2015; 29; 548-554 An envisioning about the caring in listeningThe purpose of this article is to make visible further dimensions and uncover an envisioning about the caring in listening in the field of caring science, which may improve the care for the suffering human being, the patient. Eriksson's caritative theory of caring constitutes the starting point for this search for knowledge, while the research method is realised by a hermeneutic reading based on the philosopher of hermeneutics, Gadamer's thought. The research is realised by a reading of Fyodor Dostoyevsky's literary works. The literary characters Sonia in Crime and Punishment and Alyosha in The Brothers Karamazov, uncovers patterns of meaning-bearing units towards the caring and the interpretation of a more profound envisioning about the caring in listening. The uncovering and interpretation show that patients in their suffering long to meet a caregiver who listens without the least condemnation in their eyes and demeanour.Patients need a listening caregiver who shows compassion and who has the courage to remain in the struggle of suffering and to carry the patients through insupportable pain, guilt and shame. Through listening, it is possible to reawaken a numb heart, to take individuals who have gone through a good deal of suffering, from darkness, degradation, unendurable pain to the light and to awaken their zest for life and joy to live. Listening renews, delivers and transforms human beings so that they can begin to find a new direction in life and start living a life in accordance with their own fundamental order, purpose, essential decision and individuality. Listening takes patients out of their loneliness and unbearable suffering into communion and a life worth living.