“THAT’S sad”, the daughter said to her mother. The mother was surprised and later asked her friends if they thought her daughter was right. We didn’t think what our friend described was sad at all. What exactly did my friend’s daughter think was sad? My friend had gone down to the foreshore in the seaside town where she lives and had sat alone, quietly, looking out to sea. The sight and sound of the waves were both soothing and calming. Balm for the soul.

We all have a healthy need to have private moments, especially in this 24-hour world, where everything is switched on all the time. Privacy and time for reflection can be hard to find.

W.D. Davies summed up this need in his poem, Leisure. "What is this life, if full of care, we have no time to stand and stare?" I thought about children and their inability to fully appreciate a period of silence. I recalled my younger days and wondered whether I sought peaceful moments and I don’t think I did. The radio and record player provided ever-present noise. It was only as I got older and busier, did a moment to switch off become much sought after and appreciated.

Too little quiet time and privacy is as undesirable as is too much. We need to find a balance. Too little and we can become stressed both physically and mentally. But there are thousands of people who are experiencing too much time on their own and are depressed and lonely.

As a younger women I did not understand why elderly people had the television on all the time, until I started living on my own for the first time in my mid-40s. I hated the quietness and the radio or TV was switched on constantly. I learnt the value of silence later.

The seaside also reminds me of therapeutic visualisation exercises. Clients would make their own choice of surroundings, in case I chose something with negative memories. In a seaside exercise, people visualised drawing words and pictures in the sand of something they might like to ‘let go’ . Seeing it wash away in the waves, leaving clean, clear sand was healing.

Rita Leaman is a psychotherapist and writes as Alison R Russell (chasingrainbows.org.uk /alisonrussell275.blogspot.co.uk)