This paper is set within the context of my academic journey through my Master of Education
program. I became interested in the subjects of alienation, loneliness, and meaninglessness
during my final year of undergraduate school. I have worked with classmates from Canada, the
United States, and Switzerland. The study of alienation, loneliness, and meaninglessness is
important since a lack of inclusion, belonging, and meaningful learning in the lives of students
leads to increased incidences of estrangement, isolation, and purposelessness. Supporting
learners through their personal quests for meaning is therefore an essential aspect of holistic
education. Feeling-function centered pedagogy is cultivated through attentive, creative,
imaginative, and friendly classroom instruction. The presence of warm and friendly studentteacher relationships is essential to learner inclusion, belonging, and meaningful learning. I argue
that student-centered curriculum and friendly student-teacher relationships are central to the care
of post-secondary students. Jung (1933, 1989), de Troyes and Cline (1985), and Frankl’s (1986,
2006) psychoanalytic, mythological, and existential perspectives reveal how it is the wounding
of a student’s feeling-function which exacerbates their feelings of loneliness, alienation, and
meaninglessness. As my graduate program became imbued with feelings of relatedness, I healed
from my own experiences of loneliness and meaninglessness. If educators desire to decrease
academic loneliness, alienation, and meaninglessness, they will practice student-centered
curriculum and friendly student-teacher relationships with their students.
