Abstract:

The aim of this study was to examine whether the only existing, to date. model for the explanation of children's understanding and experience of loneliness - a model proposed by Hymel, Tarulli, Hayden Thomson, and Terrell-Deutsch (1999), and documented in Greece by Besevegis and Galanaki (2003) and Galanaki (2004a. 2004b) - is supported through the use of the retrospective method and, more specifically, through memories of childhood loneliness. The participants were 203 students from the University of Athens (Greece), who were asked to write down a memory of childhood loneliness (6-12 years). Results showed that the above model fits, with some differentiations, the loneliness memories. The individual differences In the experience of childhood loneliness, the stability of loneliness across time and situations, the relevant attributions, and the issue of beneficial aloneness are also discussed.

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