Mindful and Compassionate Solutions to Internet Gaming Addiction: A Guide for Parents and Therapists (And Gamers, If You Dare!)

By Dr. Bruce Killen

This concise, research-based, and tool-filled book gives you the information and skills you need as a parent, therapist, or gamer to overcome Internet gaming addiction.

Dr. Bruce Killen draws on his decades of experience as a psychotherapist helping individuals overcome Internet gaming addiction to explain why people game and common problems associated with gaming.

He also shares specific tools addicted individuals can use to conquer negative behaviors. Find out how to:

• overcome challenges like depression, social anxiety, and family problems for yourself, loved ones, and/or clients;
• recognize how an addiction to gaming affects individuals and their loved ones;
• summon the courage to help a family member or client recognize a gaming addiction.

Helping individuals addicted to gaming accept what is going on with gentleness and compassion is no easy task, but it can improve every area of someone’s life.

Whether you are a therapist, family member, or someone addicted to Internet gaming, this book will provide you with tools to mindfully overcome addiction.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Balboa Press
• Release date: Jan 8, 2020
• ISBN: 9781982240875

Dr. Bruce Killen

Dr. Bruce Killen has been a bilingual (Spanish and English) marriage and family therapist since the early 1990s. He has a private therapy practice specializing in helping people with their relationships – especially couples. He also focuses on Internet gaming problems, anxiety, and sleep issues. He has raised two grown children and lives in Northern California with his life love, Maria.

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Copyright © 2020 .

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

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Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

The author of this book does not dispense medical advice or prescribe the use of any technique as a form of treatment for physical, emotional, or medical problems without the advice of a physician, either directly or indirectly. The intent of the author is only to offer information of a general nature to help you in your quest for emotional and spiritual well-being. In the event you use any of the information in this book for yourself, which is your constitutional right, the author and the publisher assume no responsibility for your actions.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

ISBN: 978-1-9822-4086-8 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-9822-4088-2 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-9822-4087-5 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2020900339

Balboa Press rev. date: 01/08/2020

This first book is for

my amazing, ninety-plus-year-old parents, Chuck and Pat, who recently celebrated seventy years of marriage. You are an inspiration to so many, and I am so grateful to you for a great life. I love you.

Mental Health and

Confidentiality Disclaimer

T his book is based on many years of psychotherapy practice, as well as research on Internet gaming but is in no way intended to substitute for direct, in-person mental health support from a licensed mental health professional. The ideas, concepts, tools, and information herein should help the majority of people affected by problematic online gaming, but you should seek professional mental health support if ever in doubt, or if you find yourself or a loved one struggling to behave safely or function in any important way. There are suggested mental health resources in Appendix A.

To protect my clients’ privacy and confidentiality, I have changed their names and details about their lives so that they cannot be identified. Some of the case examples in this book are composites based on years of practice, which the reader should find helpful. Any representation that seems to identify an actual person or persons is purely coincidental.

Contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction

1. The Foundations

Mindfulness

Using Mindful Focus on the Breath

A Simple but Effective Breathing Tool

Interoceptive Self-Awareness—An Essential Part of Mindfulness

A Quick Aside about Experiencing Difficult Emotions

Self-Compassion

2. For Parents and Other Caretakers

IGD Criteria (Proposed by the American Psychiatric Association in 2013)

Applying Mindfulness and (Self-) Compassion with Your Gamer

3. Why People Game—Motivational Principles, Risk Factors, and Comorbidities

Motivational Principles (Big Picture Why)

Risk Factors and Associated Problems (Comorbidities)

Teen and Young Adult Males

ADHD, Impulse Control, and Attention Problems

Depression

Anxiety and Stress

Family Issues

Social Challenges—Social Anxiety, Shyness, Loneliness

Challenges with Thinking

Obsessive Compulsion

Self-Esteem and Identity Issues

Substance Abuse

Dissociation

Occupational, Academic, and Other Problems

General Antisocial Behavior, Aggression, and Hostility

Early Childhood Problems and Trauma

MMORPGs

Time Spent Online

Asian Culture

4. The Neurobiology of Internet and Internet Gaming Addiction

5. Therapies Used to Date

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)

Family Therapy

Medication

6. Addressing Gaming Challenges in Your Family

ACT—Determine Your Values, Trust Your True Self, and Change Your Relationship to Your Thoughts

Determine Your Values

Use Your True Self to Guide You

Change Your Thoughts and Your Relationship to Them

IFS—Get to Know Your Parts, Accept Them, and Work with Them

NVC—Communicate Compassionately and Clearly

Family Therapy

Yoga and Meditation

Exercise

Get Outside and into Nature

7. Five Real Gamers—Problems and Solutions

Jose and Elena

Zachary

Andres and Sabrina

Adrian

Ricardo and Maria

Conclusion

Endnotes

Acknowledgments

I am so grateful to so many for this book, my first. My loving parents, Pat and Chuck, supported rich educational experiences and a love of learning, and my (now adult) children, Jordan and Amara, were enthusiastic throughout and offered helpful editing suggestions. My life love, Maria Mandolini, often reminded me to set time aside for the book, and she was amazingly loving and supportive in so many ways. Many friends—too many to name; you know who you are!—were very encouraging, and my dissertation advisor, Rachael Cresci, and dissertation editor, Penny Orloff, were extremely positive about my research, which would eventually lead to this book. Zoe Badger, Nolan Estes, and Hannah Martineau at Balboa Press were my frequent mindfulness bells, patiently and periodically contacting me to keep me on track. Thanks to all of you!

Introduction

W hen my doctoral dissertation was approved in June 2017, it would be another year, June 2018, until Internet gaming disorder (IGD) received official recognition by the World Health Organization (WHO). The WHO got it right. I know because I looked at 325 studies, overwhelmingly concluding that IGD is a real challenge deserving official recognition as a behavioral addiction afflicting millions of people. (The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, or DSM, the sort of bible for mental health clinicians in much of the world, has still not included it as an officially recognized mental disorder, recommending that it be considered for further study when the fifth and latest version came out in May 2013. I am sure it will be official in the next version of the DSM, which most likely won’t be out for a few years.)

Because IGD is real and we now know much more about it, this book can help you overcome Internet gaming challenges—your child’s, your teen’s, or your own. It is also a simple guidebook for overcoming other Internet addictions (because there is a lot of overlap in Internet addictions based on the research done so far) and for improving your own life in virtually all areas. What you will find here is based on my nearly thirty years’ experience as a psychotherapist working with many people with gaming (and myriad other life) challenges, and from information gleaned from my dissertation. The studies I examined looked at everything, from the legitimate benefits people derive from the Internet generally and Internet gaming specifically to the neurobiology, comorbidity (associated problems), and treatment of several problematic Internet addictions (including gaming), as well as the few therapies previously attempted.

(Note: Because much of the research on Internet addiction does not specify exactly which Internet applications were studied in a particular study [i.e., Internet addiction generally vs. gaming vs. cybersex (porn) vs. shopping vs. social media], at times I mention the research on Internet Addiction (IA) in addition to studies specifically related to gaming.)

In this guidebook, I seek to be concise and make it as easy as possible for you to benefit as much and as quickly as possible, through treatment strategies and tools that are effective and that you can use immediately. I am excited to share them with you.

They include some of the most effective tools in modern psychotherapy (and life), and thus they borrow from many outstanding, evidence-based approaches. I metaphorically stand on the shoulders of giants—that is, many creative and successful psychotherapists going back decades (and millennia in some cases)—in applying what they, science, and my experiences have shown can help people with the disorder, usually with good results. Again, you will find that those tools are not only excellent for helping with gaming issues but can also benefit other areas of your life.

CHAPTER 1

The Foundations

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A s the title of this book indicates, the twin pillars of this guidebook—and in my humble opinion, two of the most basic tools of successful psychotherapy and a more satisfying life—are mindfulness and self-compassion. When we take the time and summon the courage to become aware of what is going on in the present moment, especially our own subjective, internal experiences moment to moment, and when we magnify the nonjudgmental aspect of mindfulness to cultivate self-compassion, almost everything in our lives eventually improves, often a great deal. This does not mean it is easy; all the religious traditions and psychological models I am familiar with accept that at least periodic suffering is a part of life.

These two pillars are also fundamental in helping yourself and others suffering from Internet gaming challenges because as you will see, using mindfulness to know and accept yourself and your gamer with compassion is essential to helping them. You will see