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Therapists are Human: The Experience of Guilt from a Therapist's Viewpoint Jonathan Lasson
Internet Addiction
“I’ve had enough! I can’t take it anymore! You love that stupid computer more than you love me!” Jonathan’s wife is heartbroken. It is the umpteenth time she has seen him spending time his time online, reading the news online, playing online games, and catching up on all the latest on ESPN. In between his copious amounts of cyber activity, Jonathan manages to hold down a job that he never found fulfill-
ing. Unfortunately, he "never had the time" to find a job that actually suited his abilities. How does he even manage to hold down a job with all the time that he spends glued to his phone and computer screen? Well the first things to go were all the activities that John liked to do in his free time – playing guitar and sports hanging out with friends and going to Synagogue. The next thing to go was his sleep. After that, his relationship with his wife and kids deteriorated – they were just distractions from his internet life anyway. Jonathan didn’t start out as a cruel and thoughtless person who didn’t care about his wife and kids, but the more time he spent online, the more he craved it. He began to fantasize about chatting online, even when he was spending time with his kids. He couldn’t stop it even when he tried. He felt guilty and ashamed and he vowed that he would stop! And he did – for a week. But then he figured he would go online for a just a few minutes to check on his fantasy football team. The minutes turned into hours and somehow the football turned into chatrooms. This
happened time and again. No matter what Jonathan tried he could not stop. Jonathan is the quintessential prototype of an internet addict.
Internet Addiction is present and prevalent and perhaps the biggest problem of the 21st century. Along with all the convenience and benefits that the age of technology has ushered in, a whole new realm of psychopathology has been created as well. Know anyone who was a compulsive shopper before the internet? How are they faring now? What about someone who frequented adult stores? Or perhaps somebody with social anxiety? The ease of access that the internet provides, as well as the safety of anonymity, has created an uncontrollable compulsion for those who are susceptible to its allure. Why suffer through the social anxiety of going to a party when you can hide away in your room and go to a virtual party via chatroom? Why go through the effort of picking up the phone and calling friends to see if they want to hang out, when you can just binge watch Netflix? The internet provides an easier, safer, and sometimes more exciting alternative to the daily grind of real life.
The fact that Internet Addiction has not yet been included in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) is more of a referendum on the reluctance of psychologists to ‘evolve’ rather than the lack of evidence that pathological internet use is a severe problem. Research highlighting the extent of the havoc that the internet wreaks in people’s lives continues to mount rapidly. South Korea considers internet addiction to be its number one greatest health threat to its adolescent/young adult population with at least 10% of that population being addicted to the internet and possibly as much as 50%! According to the Pew Research Center, in the year 2015, 73% of Americans went online daily, 42% went online several times a day and a whopping 21% went online almost constantly. College students are hit the hardest by internet addiction, with anywhere between 13 and 18.4 % classifying as internet addicts. In the general population, the number of people who would be considered internet addicts ranges from 6 to 15 %. Additionally, it goes without saying that there are many more peo-
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ple who abuse the internet but don’t classify as addicts. In regards to the internet problem in the orthodox community Rabbi Dr. Abraham J. Twersky says “I doubt that at any time in our history has there been as grave a threat to the morality of our people and to the stability of the Jewish family as the plague of addiction to (the) internet. It has ruined more marriages than anything. It has ruined families. It’s been terribly destructive.”
In short, the internet has taken a hold of our lives in ways we never could have imagined. We are just beginning to see the devastating effects that the internet has wrought on people’s lives, but the problem is bound to get worse before it gets better. Hopefully, we can take the first step towards combating this issue by becoming aware that a problem does really exist and perhaps we can then take action towards a collective societal recovery.
Akiva Goldschein is a Ph.D. candidate at Adelphi University. He can be reached at akivagoldschein@ gmail.com
Therapists are Human: The Experience of Guilt from a Therapist’s Viewpoint
By Jonathan Lasson
The phone call came from a rabbi friend of mine.
“Joe is dead, and they believe it was a suicide.”
My reaction was typical for my personality. I asked the rabbi some basic questions, expressed my sympathies without becoming overly emotional, and then I obsessed.
Joe had been a client of mine for close to a year. It all began with some testing required by Joe’s school because he was having difficulty, both academically and socially. The testing revealed that Joe possessed superior intelligence, but he also had a strong tendency to misread social cues. This led to social alienation and feelings of inferiority. Joe was becoming more and more reserved, which concerned his parents to the point of referring him for therapy. His interests had become narrower, and he seemed to take very little pleasure in activities that he once enjoyed. His siblings and friends had also noticed the change, but were too afraid or ambivalent to get involved.
It appeared that Joe was improving with process-oriented therapy. In fact, the last time I saw him he looked better than ever. He had a spring in his step, dressed more fashionably and seemed surprisingly calm, which was a stark contrast to the overly anxious Joe whom I had been treating for the past year. I should have taken that as a warning sign, but I made the cardinal mistake that many colleagues in the field make when assessing suicide risk. I interpreted his calm as a sign that he had made a miraculous recovery. In reality, the calm was most probably due to the fact that he had made up his mind to end his life and was now comfortable with his decision.
As a therapist, and I can only speak for myself, I felt woefully unprepared for the guilt feelings that would consume me. I felt I should have done something different, a feeling therapists must confront after something drastic happens like the suicide of a patient. In my case this was certainly true. In hindsight, I second-guessed myself and said all the common things that therapists think about after a suicide. Why did I not recognize the signs earlier on? I should have increased the number of sessions per week. I should have put together an anti-suicide contract. The guilt factor certainly plays a role in a therapist’s life. It can lead a therapist to question his abilities and, in some cases, leave the profession altogether.
Informal conversations with my colleagues have led me to believe that post-suicide guilt is one of the most significant if not the major area of guilt that we experience as mental health providers.
This sense of toxic therapist guilt might be the direct result of unresolved guilt feelings that have permeated the minds of therapists and counselors throughout time. Therapists are humans. We make mistakes. We feel guilty. Giving the wrong advice is almost never an intentional act. However, we tend to second-guess ourselves when things do not work out well for our clients, and we breathe a sigh of relief when our clients improve based on our skillful therapeutic techniques.
Take, for example, Dr. Tim Smith, a clinical psychologist with over ten years of experience. All throughout his practice, Dr. Smith felt very confident about his abilities, and received many compliments and positive feedback from his clients. Then one day he received a call from the distraught mother of a 17-yearold girl who was hospitalized after she overdosed on barbiturates. She later died after not waking from her comatose state. A suicide note was left in her bedroom. The mother was calling to inform Dr. Smith of her daughter’s passing, and she wanted to reassure him that there was nothing he could have done to prevent her daughter’s suicide. She just wanted to thank him for trying. It does not always work out that a parent will call to assuage the guilt of the therapist. However, most therapists will experience a guilt that is similar to PTSD with flashbacks to previous sessions and the compensatory actions that follow the obsessive thoughts that are often self-destructive in nature.
In short, therapists have emotions just like any feeling person. We experience guilt. We experience sadness. We experience loneliness. When I first entered the mental health field, I was told a “truism” that psychology is a lonely profession. Years later I can attest to that truth. Therapy can help even for the most seasoned therapists.
Dr. Jonathan Lasson is a professor of psychology and a psychology associate in Baltimore, Md. He is looking forward to the publication of his first book “The Guilt Trap and Other Tales of Psychotherapy.”
