Want To Help Stop Youth Cyberbullying? Let Your Kids Raid More.
The above title is misleading. In fact it is as misleading as the term cyberbullying, which is an umbrella term used from experiences which range drastically. ”Cyberbullying” has been used to...
View ArticleYou’re The Reason Building Your Business Is So Hard
Recently I was asked by a student to take some time and talk with her about her career options. She was trying to plan for her career post-graduate school, and struggling some with the vicissitudes of...
View ArticleEmpathy (Re)Training
Last night I was mining Gold Omber in the asteroid belt near Erindur VI, and I can’t begin to tell you what an accomplishment that was. (This post is not just about spaceships, but about pacifists,...
View Article10 Nonviolent Video Games
Sometimes mental health providers, parents and educators get so caught up in the debate about video games and violence that we imagine all video games have violent content. They don’t. So when I am...
View ArticleBad Object Rising: How We Learn to Hate Our Educated Selves
Recently I had the opportunity to work with a great set of educators in a daylong seminar. One of the things I do with teachers when I present is have them play Minecraft. In this case I started off...
View ArticleSaving Ideas
Sometime, over 40,000 years ago, someone decided to put images of human hands on the cave pictured above. It turned out to be a good idea. This painting has given scientists information on life in...
View ArticleAutomation
Recently I was washing my hands in a public restroom. The paper towel dispenser was one of those that automatically dispense. There was a towel ready to be pulled off; you took it, and the dispenser...
View ArticleGuild Wars: The Conservative Attack on Online Therapy
“European commerce during the Dark Ages was limited and stifled by the existence of a multitude of small kingdoms that were independently regulated and who suppressed the movement of goods across their...
View ArticleBreaking Eggs and Holding Your Fire: Some Thoughts on Skills Acquisition
Not too long ago, I was learning how to fire a sniper rifle in Call of Duty. It wasn’t going very well. I kept firing (which you do by holding down the right-hand trigger) and missing. Or I would use...
View ArticleDopey About Dopamine: Video Games, Drugs, & Addiction
GamerTherapist blog is on vacation and will return with new posts after Labor Day. In the meantime, here is a reader favorite: Last week I was speaking to a colleague whose partner is a gamer. She was...
View ArticleInnovation is Dangerous & Gaming Causes Asperger’s
GamerTherapist blog is on vacation and will return with new posts after Labor Day. In the meantime, here is a reader favorite: At its heart, diagnosis is about exerting control. Clinicians want to...
View ArticleThe Internet Is Not A Meritocracy, That’s Why You Hate It
Recently, I had a discussion with a student about social media, and the fact that I usually start off a comment on a blog with “great post!” She noted two things: First, that it rang false to her...
View ArticleMental Health: Yes, There’s an App for That..
Nobody wants to be irrelevant, and many mental health practitioners want to try out new technologies like Apps, but how to choose? Currently the App Store in iTunes makes available 835,440 different...
View ArticleEvocation and Mindfulness: Or, How to Think Better
Like other art forms, video games can be both a mirror and a candle held up to our culture, at times reflecting it and at times revealing things about it. Normally I direct my posts primarily at...
View ArticleThe Changing Landscape of Social Work
Recently I had the great opportunity to be a scholar-in-residence at The University at Buffalo’s School of Social Work. For three days I met with students, faculty and staff to speak about emerging...
View ArticleSelfie Esteem
“Photographs do not explain, they acknowledge.” –Susan Sontag Last month, the Oxford Dictionary made the word “selfie” not only an official word, but their word of the year for 2013. Defining selfie...
View ArticleObama, Selfies, Projections & Death
In this video Mike Langlois, LICSW gives an analysis of what the furor around President Obama’s selfie at Mandela’s funeral could say, not about him, but us. Like this post? I can speak in person...
View ArticleReality Testing & The 7 Billion Rule
In this video, I discuss the ego function of reality testing, how it affects us, and ways to cope with distortions in it. This is also another example of how I use technology, in particular YouTube as...
View ArticleNo Matter How You Feel, You Still Failed
Psychotherapists are often people who prefer to deal with feelings in their workings with people. Feelings are important, and being empathically attuned to how patients are feeling is equally...
View ArticleWorks, Life and Marshmallows: Iterative Design
They say the journey of a thousand miles begins with a single marshmallow. Ok, I say that, and more specifically I am talking about your life, job or relationship rather than a journey. I am coming...
View Article