Our connections with people, events, circumstances, and ideas give our lives their unique patterns and colorations. The more thoughtfully we connect, the more richly we live our lives. But our connections with other people aren’t just ancillary nice-to-haves. Abundant research suggests that belonging (the connections we share with others) and belongingness (our sense that we do, in fact, belong within this web) are critical to our sense of well-being.

This truth became clear to me a few years ago when I was writing a book about my brother Dan. Dan sustained a severe traumatic brain injury (TBI) at 18 years old, and while chronicling the sum and substance of his life, I noticed a clear correlation between the peaks and valleys of his life and the degree to which, in a given period, he was enmeshed in a web of relationships in which he was accepted and respected, or not. As I learned more about belonging and belongingness, the more I realized how fundamental they are to the perceptions we carry about ourselves and others, and to the character and tone of our experiences. Nothing, I believe, is more essential to a satisfactory life than belonging and our assurance that we possess it.

Understanding the criticality of belonging serves as a means of examining individual relationships, our psychological satisfactions and dissatisfactions, our complex identities, and our beliefs about ourselves and others. But belonging and belongingness don’t operate only on an individual level; they are also at work on sociocultural levels. Social norms/expectations and cultural values influence to whom, how much, and why belonging is typically extended or withheld, not only to individuals but also to those within particular (e.g., ethnic, socioeconomic, political, identity-based) groups.

The purpose of this blog is to explore the interconnections and effects of belonging and belongingness on multiple levels. Maybe by better understanding them, we can develop ways of resolving tensions within and among these levels, and prevent or redress some of the damage those tensions cause.

* Routledge suggested that, in my book, I change the names of everyone outside of our family to protect people’s privacy and to avoid any potential legal issues. Please note that when I write about my brother’s experiences on this blog, I use the same pseudonyms that I used in the book for continuity and clarity.