Alienation – how does it manifest itself and how to prevent it?

Dorota Myko graduated from Warsaw University, Paris-Nord University XIII and Warsaw School of Economics (SGH). Since 2005 she has been working at Warsaw University of Technology at the Faculty of Electronics and Information Technologies in the Department of Promotion and Information.

We would like to invite all the participants of the symposium to join the presentation on the theme of alienation. Alienation and isolation express a similar state or feeling of loneliness. A person feels isolated from others for various reasons, such as bad relationships, loss of love, impairment and so on. Criminals are isolated from the society and detained in prison for punishment. Isolation is also a method of treatment and a preventive measure to limit the person’s negative influence on others.

The word alienation comes from the Latin word alienus - alien, which is the opposite of the word native. The concept of alienation was first used by the German philosopher Georg Hegel (at the turn of the 19th century) and then widely described by Karl Marx in his writings on work and the worker. However, the phenomenon of alienation itself was noticed even by Plato and has since found a significant place in culture and literature.

There are different types of alienation: social, cultural, emotional, parental, religious, economic, and technological… Alienation is also the subject of research by neurobiologists in the context of the areas in the brain responsible for the so-called "social brain". In the brain, we have neural networks that serve to establish social contacts, and hormones, oxytocin and vasopressin, facilitate this process. The proper or improper functioning of this whole system may determine whether a child will or will not develop autism.

A sense of alienation can be very depressing and frustrating when an individual feels unaccepted and lacks the sense of belonging to the place or society in which they live. In many countries a number of communities or minorities feel alienated due to repression or government policies. It has been observed that participation in various social movements may be a way of combating the alienation of discriminated groups or a way for individuals to gain solidarity within the group. When we intend to deal with a sense of alienation, we often oscillate between self-confidence in achieving of goals and conformism in decisions making.

American sociologist, David Riesman, in the 1950s, spoke extensively about alienation in his most famous work, The Lonely Crowd. In his book he describes the passage of the American society from an internal-control personality type to an external-control type and a special role of a tradition-driven society. However, the problem from a psychological point of view was taken up by Dr Elaine Aron in the book: Highly Sensitive. A highly sensitive person, will absorb moods from people around them and thus risk feeling distanced, uncomprehended and finally alienated from the environment. Researchers have special tests to see if we are affected by this problem or not.

How can we deal with alienation and still be in harmony with ourselves? Should the solution be to take the courage to become a person disliked by part of people, that means be authentic and controversial, to conduct self-therapy and to focus on spiritual development? Or maybe it would be enough to develop a healing and creative personality and follow in the footsteps of Howard S. Friedman or Josif Brodski? Or maybe we should read the essays by philosopher, sociologist, psychologist and psychoanalyst Erich Fromm? And what if it finally turns out that we can gain power from a diet, trees or mysterious oriental herbs and potions of St. Hildegard from Bingen?… The speaker will try to answer these and other questions in her speech.