Making solitudes bearable
Based on an investigation conducted in a Mutual Aid Group — an institution designed to counter the isolation of “psychically ill” people, this article examines the relationship between the “practitioners” of solitude for whom this practice is a problem and inclines them to fight it on the one hand, and the “space of public and parapublic struggles against isolation” on the other hand. The study of this relationship is intended to shed light on the integrating and socializing forces of the institutions of this space. To do this, the investigation first examines the biographical motives behind the isolation of these “isolated” people and what their lives have done with them before entering the Mutual Aid Group. Then, the observation and listening of these “isolated” people shows how individual and collective struggles against solitudes can interact. Failing to (re)socialize individuals in such a way that their practices in the social world definitively cease to lead them towards despicable solitudes, these interactions offer “isolated” people forms of social integration that are inaccessible to them elsewhere. Revealing the unequal powers of institutions to shape and transform individuals, these struggles are less the generators of new social resources allowing a “normal life” than the guarantors of keeping a life disposition awake, even if this existence is out of step with dominant norms.