Most contemporary usage reflects the standard
dictionary meanings:a feeling of strangeness or separation from others; a sense
of a lack of warm relations with others. Existentialists, however, have made the
term a central construct in their psychology and appended a subtle but important
meaning to the term. Rather than concentrate solely upon alienation of one human
from others, they also stress the alienation of a person from him-or herself.
This separation of the individual from the presumed "real" or "deeper" self is
assumed to result from preoccupation with conformity, the wishes of others, and
the
pressures from social institutions.
