The path to deeper connections, even amidst a pandemic A new book from Penn’s Edward Brodkin and psychology doctoral candidate Ashley Pallathra focuses on the science and practice of attunement, the process by which people can most effectively connect to themselves and others.
For the past year, staying physically apart from others was crucial to keeping everyone safe in the face of a brand new, deadly virus. Though necessary, the social distancing also amplified an already troubling fact: Rates of loneliness have been rising for the past several decades in the United States.
“Even before the pandemic, the increase in loneliness has been striking,” says Edward Brodkin, a psychiatrist in Penn’s Perelman School of Medicine. “And then along comes the pandemic, which of course separated us even more.”