August Updates from Vered
Fall Season
New schedule will be dropping soon!
You can check out August’s classes here.
Is it a dystopia yet?
Compulsive Behavior isn’t a Diagnosis
(I reference my own patient population of teenagers, but this article applies to all ages.)
“Is Social Media Addictive?”
I have been getting this question a lot. My answer in my opinion (imo) is always the same:
I don’t know if “addiction” is the right clinical term, but YES, the harm that it refers to is absolutely real. (imo)
A recent study on “Social Media Addiction”"1 describes the wording issue:
…the present authors do not discriminate between the label addiction, compulsion, problematic SNS use, or other similar labels used because these terms are being used interchangeably by authors in the field.
Researchers are using the word “addiction” as a catch-all term for “problematic social media use.
“Addiction” is not being used as a clinical term, but a social one.
“Social Media Addiction” isn’t meant to be a clinical term.
We shouldn’t flatten our patients’ experiences into a phrase that isn’t meant to be used that way.
Teenagers don’t deserve to be lumped all together, especially under a shame-heavy label. 3
The distress is real. The compulsive behavior is real. Big tech’s complicity is real. imo, 2
But none of these problems are diagnoses.
Teenagers deserve appropriate treatment for their individual issues.
I see misdiagnoses of OCD so frequently that I created an entire continuing education course and offer it multiple times a year for free.
I see misdiagnoses (and late-in-life diagnoses) of ADHD all the time.
Kids with undiagnosed issues will absolutely suffer in silence if they aren’t directly asked, especially if they’ve been shamed for that behavior.
The phrase “Social Media Addiction” seems like a perfect storm of assumptions and shame.
Problematic social media use might have been caused by the skinner-box-of-media that these platforms have created. imo
Or, these platforms might have simply exploited existing vulnerabilities to create compulsive use of their products. imo
There’s no option three. imo
As clinicians, the task of assessment and diagnosis often falls to us.
We need to make sure we’re doing adequate initial assessments, but we also need to keep an eye out for new issues surfacing over the course of therapy.
Therapist Volunteer Project
Help families released from detention
Spanish Speakers Needed!
The (creatively named) Therapist Volunteer Project has launched!
We’re matching therapists with clients of legal aid organizations, who have recently been released from ICE detention facilities.
We’re hearing from our partner organizations that there’s an increased need for therapists who speak Spanish.
If you or someone you know is interested in volunteering, read more about the program and sign up here:
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Monthly Hater’s Corner
Sources Regarding My Ire
a.k.a. please don’t sue me
1 Social Networking Sites and Addiction: Ten Lessons Learned https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5369147/
2 Based on my limited understanding of social media, I think platforms look like a Skinner box. They remind me (straightforwardly) of operant conditioning. Swap out humans for pigeons and endocrinological cascades for the crumbs.
3 I’ve seen a lot of shaming involved in conversations about problematic social media usage.
Until next time,
Vered