For Her Final, Poignant Book, Iconic Sex Therapist Dr. Ruth Took on the Loneliness Epidemic

Pierre Lehu worked with Dr. Ruth for 40 years. The iconic sex therapist and talk show host dubbed him her “minister of communications” and he says she was the easiest person to market, whether she was promoting one of her many books or hitting the road on a speaking tour. “We’d call the Tonight Show — ‘yeah, we want Dr. Ruth,’” remembers Lehu, who wrote 25 books with Dr. Ruth but had never, until now, been interviewed about one of them. “Who would want to talk to me when they could talk to Dr. Ruth?” he tells SheKnows.

The world mourned when Dr. Ruth K. Westheimer passed away in July 2024, leaving behind a legacy of confronting stigma and helping people become more attuned to their bodies, partners, and sexuality. But it turns out the beloved educator and speaker, who spent so many years counseling Americans about their sex problems on the radio and then on TV, had one last gift for us — well, make that 100 last gifts — in the form of her last book, The Joy of Connections: 100 Ways to Beat Loneliness and Live a Happier and More Meaningful Life.

Written by Dr. Ruth, Lehu, and journalist Allison Gilbert, the book is both exactly what it sounds like and not quite what you’d expect. Yes, it’s a collection of wisdom and advice on overcoming loneliness, but Dr. Ruth doesn’t waste pages picking apart the reasons why readers might be lonely or indulging their desires to skip plans and stay in.

After all, the Internet is filled with memes and posts about the joys of cancelling plans, staying in and vegging out, succumbing to bed rot in front of the TV. And while some solitude is necessary and relaxing, Dr. Ruth makes it clear that if you’re trying to overcome loneliness, you’re going to have to get out there and be with others, as difficult as that may sound. It’s about “coming to terms with the seriousness of your situation in relation to loneliness,” she writes, “paying attention to the times you usually opt to be alone and gradually replacing them with opportunities for social connection. This reckoning must be your motivation for getting out of the house.”

As Lehu puts it, “It doesn’t matter why you’re lonely, and you don’t have to feel guilty about it. Her advice is going to help you.”

The promised 100 pieces of advice are all simple, actionable steps you can take today to alleviate loneliness. While some are more reflective — “Look in the Mirror” and “Make Peace With Yourself” involve are all about your ability to make connections and learning to love yourself — others are small, straightforward, and perhaps surprising.

For example, Dr. Ruth recommends using “props” to encourage people to talk to you, like school-affiliated clothing or stickers from your favorite organizations. She proposes using emojis when texting, highlighting “the importance of nonverbal cues in protecting and enhancing connections.” She wants you to wear brightly colored clothing to lighten your mood and make you more likely to be friendly towards others. She wants you to sit at the bar so you can easily strike up conversations with strangers.

Readers are meant to flip through the book, picking and choosing tips. “They’re little pieces of advice that anybody can use,” Lehu explains. “You can go piecemeal… just pick things and say, ‘Well, I like this piece of advice. Let me try it.’”

If some of the tips seem too small to make a difference, well, that’s the point. “I’m urging you to take very small steps in your battle against loneliness,” Dr. Ruth writes. “Small steps are important because they’re more doable and sustainable than larger ones. Over time, they’ll add up and you’ll be happier and have more connections!”

Why Dr. Ruth Took On Loneliness

Of course, the question is why a celebrated sex therapist, in her 90s, who’d more than earned the right to relax and enjoy the fruits of her labors, decided to start a whole new job. Because that’s exactly what Dr. Ruth did when she petitioned the governor of New York to appoint her Ambassador to Loneliness, a brand new position for the state and the first of its kind in the country.

That was when Dr. Ruth crossed paths with Allison Gilbert, who was reporting on her quest to take on the position. Gilbert tells SheKnows that it was a “slightly unorthodox” journey for the sex therapist, “because normally people don’t tend to lobby for positions like that. You tend to be picked,” she says. “But that’s not very Dr. Ruth. She wanted the role. She knew she could be of value during this loneliness epidemic.”

Dr. Ruth had an intimate relationship with loneliness. A Holocaust survivor, she was separated from her family at age 10 and later became a refugee. She found her height (4’7″) “profoundly isolating.” She was divorced twice and was a widow for over two decades.

And, beyond her personal experience, Dr. Ruth believed that her background as a sex therapist translated well to the fight against loneliness. Both sexual dysfunction and loneliness, she wrote, came with massive shame and stigma. She knew that speaking openly about them was the only solution.

Plus, it just wasn’t like Dr. Ruth to embrace a quiet retirement. “She needed to have something to do,” Lehu recalls. “She wasn’t someone who sat at home and watched TV and vegged out. That was not her.” And she wasn’t about to let others suffer through loneliness when she thought she could help.

“I think that’s actually the key to the Dr. Ruth. secret sauce of longevity,” Gilbert says. “Passion coupled with purpose.”

The book combines Dr. Ruth’s expertise as a sex therapist with her own personal experience of loneliness in a way that Gilbert describes simply as wisdom. “This is like the maternal advice, maybe the grandmotherly advice, that’s grounded in real gravitas that you can take to heart and learn from,” she explains.

With loneliness on the rise, especially among young people, The Joy of Connections couldn’t come at a better time. As Gilbert says, “The only thing that could be better, of course, is if she was still with us.”

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This article was originally published on sheknows.com.