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Works, Life and Marshmallows: Iterative Design

February 13, 2014 by 2 Comments

marshmallow

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 back to my practice from a brief sabbatical, and have been noticing that while many things are going to stay the same, a few are changing as well.  I’ll get back to the marshmallow in a minute.

One thing I learned on my sabbatical is that I definitely want to continue my therapy practice.  As I said to some friends on Facebook this week, “You know, I’m kind of grateful that I get to challenge the self-hatred of others for a living.”  As a clinical social worker and psychotherapist I get paid to do that.  One thing I also decided on my leave was to withdraw from the last managed care insurance panel I was on.  It made no sense to continue to decrease the time I could be seeing people due to paperwork and bureaucratic hassles, and it made no financial sense to have a waiting list of people who are willing to pay my full fee and also deserve treatment just so I could work at half my rate.  I have always built pro bono or sliding scale slots into my practice because I have a commitment to serving a diverse population, so why was I doing that and letting an insurance company slide the remaining hours of my week?

Part of the answer to this and most “why-have-I-been-doing-this-this-way-when-it-doesn’t-work-in-my-favor?” questions is fear. Most of us are afraid of change.  Whether we are staying in an abusive relationship, having difficulty getting sober, flunking out of college or missing days at work, most of us have moments when we see what we are doing to ourselves and ask the above question.  And then we often resume whatever the pattern is, leaving an interesting question unanswered and instead turning it into self-recrimination, which is really just evasion.  Another part of the answer is that we often act is if we only get one shot at answering the question of life satisfaction.  Here comes the marshmallow.

Invented by Peter Skillman of Palm, Inc. and popularized by Tom Wujec of Autodesk, the Marshmallow Challenge may be familiar to some of you:  “It involves the task of constructing the highest possible free-standing structure with a marshmallow on top. The structure must be completed within 18-minutes using only 20 sticks of spaghetti, one yard of tape, and one yard of string.” (per Wikipedia)  You can call it an exercise, or play, but in either event the creators of the challenge have observed something very interesting about how different groups tend to approach it.  Children tend to make a first structure, stick the marshmallow on top, and then repeat the process over and over, refining it as they go.  Adults tend to engage in group discussions, arguments, power plays and plans to produce one structure built once to which the marshmallow is added.  In other words they tend to approach it derivatively rather than iteratively.

Iterative design is a method of creating a thing or addressing a problem by making a prototype (first attempt,) testing it, analyzing the prototype, and then refining it.  Rinse and repeat.  Iterative design isn’t good for everything: As parents know, often there is not time in the world for everything to get done in 18 minutes or before the school bus gets here.  But a life built on derivative design alone is destined for stagnation and rigidity.

Derivative design, as the name suggests, takes something from a pre-existing something-else, whether it be a rule, materials, social construction or interpretation of the something-else.  When you psychoanalyze a patient’s dream and interpret it as a manifestation of their Oedipus Complex, you are deriving your interpretation and their dream from the something-else of Freud, who in turn derived his Oedipal Conflict theory from the something-else of Greek mythology.  Derivative design can save time and effort in many important ways, by collapsing cultural memes and thinking and transmitting them forward through time from Sophocles to your office.  But as feminist thinkers and cultural critics have shown us, we might have arrived at a different “complex” if Audre Lord et al had been in on the prototyping of it.

Derivative thinking left unchecked can get you in a rut.  One of my most recent examples of this comes from The Little Prince, where he encounters the drunkard:
“- Why are you drinking? – the little prince asked.
– In order to forget – replied the drunkard.
– To forget what? – enquired the little prince, who was already feeling sorry for him.
– To forget that I am ashamed – the drunkard confessed, hanging his head.
– Ashamed of what? – asked the little prince who wanted to help him.
– Ashamed of drinking! – concluded the drunkard, withdrawing into total silence.
And the little prince went away, puzzled.
‘Grown-ups really are very, very odd’, he said to himself as he continued his journey.”

Everything derives from the previous thing, but in the end it sometimes gets us nowhere.

We all get in these difficult spirals.  A good therapist or supervisor can point them out to us and then encourage us to become iterative in our design:

  1. So what are you going to do this time?
  2. How did that work out?
  3. So what are you going to do differently?

Therapists starting their private practices also come to see me, often stuck in derivative thinking:

-I need my NPI number.
-Ok, why?
-To get on Medicare.
-Ok, because?
-So I can get on insurance panels.
-Ok, why?
-So I can get patients who will pay me so I can rent an office so I can have an address to register for my NPI.

If you are one of my consultees reading this rest assured I am NOT talking about you in particular:  I have had this conversation a hundred times with people.  We get indoctrinated into the world of managed care and get, well, managed.  In this case, I usually recommend the consultee start by imagining what kind of office space they want.  Answers have varied and included: Sunny, exposed beams, plants, yellow paint, toys, music system, waiting room with receptionist, friendly colleagues in suite, accessible to public transportation, elevator, warm colors, cool colors, and all sorts of other iterations.

Once you have a mental prototype you can either build or design your office, or find and rent it.  Again I tell folks to walk around the areas they want to work in, find buildings that look interesting to them, then walk inside and ask to speak with someone about seeing a unit.  Testing involves going to see several spaces.  Then they can analyze the results: Does the space look like it would become what they imagine it to be furnished? Are there things about their ideal that need to be discarded? Do they now realize that they could be even more wild in their expectations?

This is just one example of the ways that iterative design can open up possibilities.  But be warned, iterative design can be daunting for many of us raised in our current education system.  We have been trained to create one product presented in final form with the expectation that we will be graded on that product alone. Everything becomes about that one paper or exam, which is often more about regurgitation rather than innovation.

I have colleagues who take my breath away with the number of projects and ideas they are consistently throwing out there to see what happens:  It takes guts to do that.  I myself often am afraid that the Project Police are going to pop out and say, “What happened to your idea of a Minecraft group?  Shame on you for proposing it and not completing that project!  You are not allowed any more ideas until you show us you can carry that one out.”

Sound ridiculous? Of course it is, but does it sound familiar to you as well?  If it does, go out and buy yourself some spaghetti, tape and marshmallows:  The quality of your job, relationship and life may depend on it.

Interested in setting up a consult for your practice?  I have some openings come March.  Like this post? I can speak in person too, check out the Press Kit for Public Speaking info. And, for only $4.99 you can buy my book. You can also Subscribe to the Epic Newsletter!

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No Matter How You Feel, You Still Failed

January 14, 2014 by 4 Comments

Game_Over

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 important.  We are taught to explore the patient’s feelings, imagine ourselves into their lived experience, and validate that experience.

This is often where we become disconnected from other professionals we collaborate with, such as educators.  Be it Pre-K or graduate school, educators are charged with working with students to learn and grow as a whole person.  It’s not that they aren’t concerned with feelings, they just can’t get hung up on them to the exclusion of everything else.

To be fair, psychotherapy has a long history of taking a broader view on the individual as well.  A famous psychoanalyst, Winnicott, once responded to a patient of his who was expressing feelings of hopelessness by saying something to the effect of “sometimes when I am sitting with you I feel hopeless too, but I’m not going to let that get in the way of continuing to work with you.”

But often in the past decade or two, feelings have held sway over everything.  Students don’t complete their assignments because they felt overwhelmed and still expect to pass the course.  Adults feel emotionally exhausted and miss work or are late to it.  Children feel angry at the injustice of chores and don’t do them but still want their allowance.

A criticism I often hear toward video games is that they encourage people to believe that they can always just reset, do over and have another shot.  But implicit in this criticism is the fact of something I feel video games actually do better than many of us sometimes:  They acknowledge the reality of failure.

When we play video games, we are failing 80% of the time.  Failing in the sense of Merriam Webster’s definitions including:

  • to not succeed : to end without success
  • to not do (something that you should do or are expected to do)
  • to fall short <failed in his duty>
  • to be or become absent or inadequate
  • to be unsuccessful

In video games the reality of this is driven home to us by a screenshot:

minecraft71

 

 

warcraft

 

 

pac man

 

You can feel any way you’d like about it, angry, sad, annoyed, blase, frustrated with a touch of determination.  But no matter how you feel you still failed.

In life outside games, many of us have a hard time accepting the reality principle when it comes to failing at something.  We think we can talk, think, or feel our way out of failing to meet expectations.  My own predilection is that of a thinker, which is probably why I became a psychodynamic psychotherapist and educator.  I often waste a lot of time trying to think (or argue) myself into a new reality, which just boils down to not accepting the reality principle.  I notice the same with patients, colleagues and students, who miss deadlines, avoid work, come late to class and then try their best to think or feel their way out of it.

The first class each semester I tell my students, who are studying to be social workers and psychotherapists, that the most frequent complaint I get as an instructor is “I feel put on the spot by him.”  I assure them that this is a valid feeling and actually reflects the reality that I will put each and every one of them on the spot.  I will ask them tough questions, I will point out that they are coming late to class, I will disagree with ideas that seem erroneous to me.  Because if they think it is ok to be late or avoid thinking through a problem or confrontation in class, how in the world will they ever be a decent psychotherapist or social worker?  If the single mother you are working with wants to know how to apply for WIC, and you say you feel put on the spot by her question, that is a valid feeling AND you are useless to her.  If your therapist was 15 minutes late every week I hope you’d fire him.  And when you are conducting a family session and someone discloses abuse it is unprofessional to say “I’m feeling overwhelmed and sad right now, can you ask somebody else to go next?”

These sort of disconnects doesn’t happen overnight.  It comes from years of being enabled by well-intentioned parents and yes, mental health providers who focus on feelings to the exclusion of cognition and behavior, and worse, try to ensure that their children grow to adulthood feeling a constant sense of success.  When I hear self psychology-oriented folks talk it is almost always about mirroring and idealizing, and never about optimal frustration.  And I suspect that this is because we have become so focused on feelings and success that we are preventing people from experiencing optimal frustration at all.

The novelist John Hersey has said “Learning starts with failure; the first failure is the beginning of education.”  We commence to learn because reality has shown us that we lack knowledge or understanding.  That’s the good news.  We’ve woken up!  In this light I regard video games as one of the most consistent learning tools available to us.  When that fail happens and that screen goes up you can try to persuade it to cut you some slack, flatter or bully it, weep pleadingly for it to change to a win, but no matter how you feel, you still failed.  And because that reality is so starkly there, and because the XBox or PS3/4 doesn’t get engaged in your drama, that feeling will eventually dissipate and you will either try again, or give up.

Because that is in a lot of ways the conflict we’re trying to avoid isn’t it?  We want to avoid looking reality square in the face and taking responsibility for what comes next.  We want to keep the feelings flowing, the drama going, and we are willing to take entire groups of people and systems with us.  If we are lucky they put their feet down, but more often then not they want to avoid conflict too, and the problem just continues.

So here’s a confession:  I have failed at things.  I have ended a task without success.  I have not done things I was expected to do.  I have fallen short, been inadequate and been unsuccessful at stuff.  And nobody took away my birthday.  I’m still around doing other things, often iterations of the previous failures, quite successfully.

If you are a parent or educator please take a lesson from video games.  Start saying “Game Over” to those in your care sometimes.  If they can try again great.  If they want to read up on some strategy guides or videos to learn how to do it better, awesome.  But please stop capitulating to their desire to escape reality on the illusory lifeboats of emotional expression, rationalization or verbal arguments.  As Mrs. Smeal says in “Benny and Joon,” “when a boat runs ashore, the sea has spoken.”  Reality testing is probably the most important ego function you can help someone develop, please don’t avoid opportunities to do so.

Nobody likes to experience failure, I know it feels awful.  But to move through it to new realizations can be very liberating, and in time become more easily bearable.  And I truly believe that success without past failures feels pretty hollow.  When I play through a video game from start to finish without a fail I don’t feel like a winner.  I feel cheated.

 

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Reality Testing & The 7 Billion Rule

December 20, 2013 by 3 Comments

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 a transitional object for patients, allowing them to continue to remember our work together without compromising any of their personal health information.

This will be the last post for 2013, have a good end of the year and I’ll see you sometime in late January!

 

Like this post? I can speak in person too, check out the Press Kit for Public Speaking info. And, for only $4.99 you can buy my book. You can also Subscribe to the Epic Newsletter!

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Obama, Selfies, Projections & Death

December 11, 2013 by 1 Comment

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 too, check out the Press Kit for Public Speaking info. And, for only $4.99 you can buy my book. You can also Subscribe to the Epic Newsletter!

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Selfie Esteem

December 2, 2013 by 6 Comments
Nancy J. Smyth, PhD, Dean & Professor, University at Buffalo

Nancy J. Smyth, PhD, Dean & Professor, University at Buffalo

 

“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 as “a photograph that one has taken of oneself, typically one taken with a smartphone or webcam and uploaded to a social media website” the OD made explicit what has implicitly grown to be the norm of our world; a world of smartphones, self pics and social media.

Many psychotherapists and social workers have and will continue to decry this as another sign the the “narcissism” of our age.  Selfies have become synonymous with the millenials, the dumbing down of the populace by the internet, and sometimes even stretching to how Google is making us stupid.  My chosen profession has historically played fast and loose with calling people and cultures narcissistic.  Karen Horney coined the term “the neurotic personality of our time” in the 1930s, initially in part as a critique to the Freudian critique of Victorian modesty.  Kohut’s groundbreaking work on “tragic man,” and the healthy strands of narcissism in human life was co-opted within years by Lasch (1979) to describe the then-current “culture of narcissism.”  In short, even though narcissism has been a part of human being at least since Narcissus gazed into the water in Greco-Roman times, we continue to see it as perennially on the uprise.

 

Joanna Pappas, Epic MSW Student

Joanna Pappas, Epic MSW Student

 

This dovetails with each generation’s lament that the subsequent one has become more self-absorbed.  And yet, as Sontag points out, by making photography everyday, “everybody is a celebrity.”  Yep, that’s what we hate about the millennials, right?  They think everything is an accomplishment, their every act destined for greatness.  But as Sontag goes on to say, making everybody a celebrity is also making another interesting affirmation: “no person is more interesting than any other person.”

 

Jonathan Singer, Assistant Professor, Temple University

Jonathan Singer, Assistant Professor, Temple University

 

Why do many of us (therapists in particular) have a problem then with selfies?  Why do we see them as a “symptom” of the narcissism of the age?  Our job is to find the interesting in anyone, after all. We understand boredom as a countertransference response in many cases, our attempt to defend against some projection of the patient’s.  So why the hating on selfies?

I think Lewis Aron hits on the answer, or at least part of it, in his paper “The Patient’s Experience of the Analyst’s Subjectivity.”  In it he states the following:

 

I believe that people who are drawn to analysis as a profession have particularly strong conflicts regarding their desire to be known by another; that is, they have conflicts concerning intimacy.  In more traditional terms, these are narcissistic conflicts over voyeurism and exhibitionism.  Why else would anyone choose a profession in which one spends one’s life listening and looking into the lives of others while one remains relatively silent and hidden?

(Aron, A Meeting of Minds, 1996, p. 88)

 

In other words, I believe that many of my colleagues have such disdain for selfies because they secretly yearn to take and post them.  If you shuddered with revulsion just now, check yourself.  I certainly resemble that remark at times:  I struggled long with whether to post my own selfie here.  What might my analytically-minded colleagues think?  My patients, students, supervisees?  I concluded that the answers will vary, but in general the truth that I’m a human being is already out there.

 

Mike Langlois, PvZ Afficianado

Mike Langlois, PvZ Afficianado

 

Therapists like to give themselves airs, including an air of privacy in many instances.  We get hung up on issues of self-disclosure, when what the patient is often really looking for is a revelation that we have a subjectivity rather than disclosure of personal facts.  And as Aron points out, our patients often pick up on our feelings of resistance or discomfort, and tow the line.  One big problem with this though is that we don’t know what they aren’t telling us about because they didn’t tell us.  In the 60s and 70s there were very few LGBT issues voiced in therapy, and the naive conclusion was that this was because LGBT people and experiences were a minority, in society in general and one’s practice in specific.  Of course, nobody was asking patient’s if they were LGBT, and by not asking communicating their discomfort.

What has this got to do with selfies?  Well for one thing, I think that therapists are often similarly dismissive of technology, and convey this by not asking about it in general.  Over and over I hear the same thing when I present on video games–“none of my patients talk about them.”  When I suggest that they begin asking about them, many therapists have come back to me describing something akin to a dam bursting in the conversation of therapy.  But since we can’t prove a null hypothesis, let me offer another approach to selfies.

All photographs, selfie or otherwise, do not explain anything.  For example:

 

looting

 

People who take a selfie are not explaining themselves, they are acknowledging that they are worth being visible.  Unless you have never experienced any form of oppression this should be self-evident, but in case you grew up absolutely mirrored by a world who thought you were the right size, shape, color, gender, orientation and class I’ll explain:  Many of our patients have at least a sneaking suspicion that they are not people.  They look around the world and see others with the power and prestige and they compare that to the sense of emptiness and invisibility they feel.  Other people can go to parties, get married, work in the sciences, have children, buy houses, etc.  But they don’t see people like themselves prevailing in these areas.  As far as they knew, they were the only biracial kid in elementary school, adoptee in middle school, bisexual in high school, trans person in college, rape survivor at their workplace.

So if they feel that they’re worth a selfie, I join with them in celebrating themselves.

As their therapist I’d even have some questions:

  • What were you thinking and feeling that day you took this?
  • What do you hope this says about you?
  • What do you hope this hides about you?
  • Who have you shared this with?
  • What was their response?
  • What might this selfie tell us about who you are?
  • What might this selfie tell us about who you wish to be?
  • Where does that spark of belief that you are worth seeing reside?

In addition to exploring, patients may find it a useful intervention to keep links to certain selfies which evoke certain self-concept and affect states.  That way, if they need a shift in perspective or affect regulation they can access immediately a powerful visual reminder which says “This is possible for you.”

Human beings choose to represent themselves in a variety of ways, consciously and unconsciously.  They can be whimsical, professional, casual, friendly, provocative, erotic, aggressive, acerbic, delightful.  Are they projections of our idealized self?  Absolutely.  Are they revelatory of our actual self? Probably.  They explain nothing, acknowledge the person who takes them, and celebrate a great deal.  If there is a way you can communicate a willingness see your patient’s selfies you might be surprised at what opens up in the therapy for you both.

 

Melanie Sage, Assistant Professor, University of North Dakota

Melanie Sage, Assistant Professor, University of North Dakota

 

In other posts I have written about Huizinga’s concept of play.  Rather than as seeing selfies as the latest sign that we are going to hell in a narcissistic handbasket, what if we looked at the selfie as a form of play? Selfies invite us in to the play element in the other’s life, they are not “real” life but free and unbounded.  They allow each of us to transcend the ordinary for a moment in time, to celebrate the self, and share with a larger community as a form of infinite game.

It may beyond any of us to live up to the ideal that no one is less interesting than anyone else in our everyday, but seen in this light the selfie is a renunciation of the cynicism I sometimes see by the mental health professionals I meet.  We sometimes seem to privilege despair as somehow more meaningful and true than joy and celebration, but aren’t both essential parts of the human condition?  So if you are a psychotherapist or psychoeducator, heed my words:  The Depth Police aren’t going to come and take your license away, so go out and snap a selfie while everyone is looking.

Like this post? I can speak in person too, check out the Press Kit for Public Speaking info. And, for only $4.99 you can buy my book. You can also Subscribe to the Epic Newsletter!

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The Changing Landscape of Social Work

November 17, 2013 by Leave a Comment

TrekWorld_Nicholas-Roerich_Kanchendzonga-1944

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 technologies ranging from Twitter to video games.  During one morning, Dean Nancy Smyth and I sat down for a series of informal discussions around various topics, and the University was kind enough to let me share these videos with you.  If you want to learn more about how I can come to your institution to do the same thing, please contact me.

How to Use Social Media and Technology to Develop a Personal Learning Network:

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zb74jYN0k5Y&feature=share&list=UUQG8usDJjq8OjMgtNDQC6fg

 

If I Don’t Use Social Media and Technology in Social Work Practice What Am I Missing?

 

 

Social Work is Changing:  Integrating Social Media and Technology Into Social Work Practice

 

http://youtu.be/FQWUMTxXVus

 

 

Like this post? I can speak in person too, check out the Press Kit for Public Speaking info. And, for only $4.99 you can buy my book. You can also Subscribe to the Epic Newsletter!

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First Thoughts on Snapchat

November 9, 2013 by 2 Comments

snapchat

Because my vision for my work is to help integrate emerging technologies with clinical social work and psychotherapy, I don’t have the luxury of relying on moral panic for my information when a new social media arrives. Actually, I’m a bit late to the game with Snapchat, which has been around since September 2011. But I take comfort that I am in the fastest growing user demographic for it, namely people in their 40s.

I am fortunate to have a cohort of clinicians, educators and early adopters in my personal learning network.  Folks such as Nancy Smyth and Jonathan Singer, who are also committed to approaching technology with an NCPTI (No Contempt Prior To Investigation) attitude.  So this week I invited them to partake in a foray into Snapchat with a few other friends and clinicians.

For those of you who aren’t familiar with Snapchat (and for those of you who say, “isn’t that about teen sexting?” you aren’t familiar with Snapchat,) Snapchat is a photo messaging application that allows you to take photos and share them with members of your Snapchat social network.  The photos are temporary; once a person views them for 1-10 seconds they disappear forever.  There is an option to keep them on a feed called your “Story” for 24 hours, but after that they too are gone forever.  Viewing them on your smartphone requires keeping your thumb touching a spot on the screen, and when you lift it the photo is gone, forever if the seconds run out before you touch again.

In reality the photos may be stored on the servers for up to a month if they are not viewed, but the initial viewing starts a countdown to deletion and impermanence.  Technically there are possible workarounds, such as taking a screenshot on your iPhone, which I managed to do at least once successfully with only 5 secs and some thumb dexterity.

Snapchat has become synonymous with teen sexting in the popular media, there is not a lot of research specifically on it.  My preliminary look showed that one study mentioning photo images, which tended to conflate teen sexting with grooming for pedophilia.  Pew Information that predates Snapchat by 2 years shows that a minority of teens 12-17 were sending (4%) or receiving (15%) “sexual” photos, and that 1:3 ratio itself is worthy of wondering about.  The number goes up at 17 with 8% sending and 30% receiving them. That said, another study by Mitchell et al (2012) found a lower number of students reported receiving sexual images at 2.5%  Even more significant was how that percentage dropped to 1% when the definition of images was reduced to sexually explicit as defined by showing naked body parts.  The 1:3 receive/send ratio remained the same, but once the research drilled down to specifics about the images, a clear minority of teens emerged.

Every teenager is important, but 1-4% of a population is not an epidemic.  In terms of how many kids may be using snapchat, it is hard to tell.  Anecdotally the media tells stories of kids who believe “90% of my class uses it,” and yet the data I’ve seen on comparable products such as Twitter or Instagram is much lower than that, with 26% of youth in 2012 using Twitter and 11% using Instagram, per Pew.

Back to Snapchat.  So far the my impressions have been these:

1. Snapchat may actually encourage privacy relative to other platforms.  The fact that adolescents are using Snapchat, with its fleeting images and transient nature may indicate their growing interest in digital privacy.  Future surveys need to specifically ask the question “Do you take screenshots when you get a Snap so you can keep it?” to see if teens are doing just that.  An equally important question is “Do you know you can do that?”  Here’s why:

2. Teens may mistakenly think that the images are more permanent than they actually are.  We often assume youth are more sophisticated in technology use than adults, but even if that is true, it means that we have limited ability to ask them the specific questions to understand their understanding of it.  If we discover that a majority of children understand they can work around the temporary nature of Snapchat, yet don’t do that, does that indicate a heightened interest in personal privacy and respect for the privacy of others?  Does it indicate a lack of premeditation when viewing a picture? Does it indicate something else?

3. Snapchat makes adults anxious.  I base this on the number of folks I chatted with trying to enroll in my experiment who joked about whether we would engage in sexting or not.  Answer: No, we won’t.

4. Snapchat has potential to change the way we converse.  As I exchanged photos I realized that the real fun was in snapping the photo to “reply” to the friend’s photo.  If I just snapped pictures and sent them the conversation tended to peter out.  Captions allowed me to frame the picture with humor and engage.  Or you can refrain from captioning and see how strong the image is in its ability to convey meaning.  My favorite to date was when Nancy Smyth sent me a Snap of her latest Starbucks Refresher, and I replied with mine as if to say “This is all your fault.”  I’ll be curious to see if that is how she interpreted to image.

5. Snapchat seems to encourage whimsy and humor amongst my cohort.  Perhaps it is because we are not in the throes of adolescence, but the images we have sent are more latency age from a psychodynamic point of view.  They have included:

  • A leaf
  • A book by Julian Barnes
  • A Do Not Enter Sign (in response to the book by Julian Barnes)
  • Several beverages
  • A glowing ghost
  • Someone sporting a V for Vendetta masque
  • A screenshot of Call of Duty: Ghosts
  • Flowers
  • One child, presumably an offspring.
  • 2 Cat pictures with veterinary injuries circled and labeled

What has been emerging is a playful portrait of everyday lives, curated surely, but informative and engaging nonetheless.  Are these trivial images? Maybe, but I prefer to think that human engagement that is playful is meaningful regardless of how trivial it may seem, and I’d encourage skeptics to try Snapchat out a bit rather than adhere to the CPTI model.

6. Snapchat could have potential for social work.  I’m thinking about how it could be used to contract for surveillance with runaways and their caregivers.  I’m thinking of how it could raise awareness on homelessness if we had people create “Stories” to be viewed temporarily what homelessness looks like.  I’m thinking how teen groups could use it to send each other encouragement between groups in the form of pictures of resilience, warmth or whimsy.  Remember, the title of today’s post is “First Thoughts” not “Best Practices.”  Now is the time for innovation and reflection, and I’m sure there are a number of ways we could utilize this platform to supplement the work we do with children if a few of us mental health types think for a few minutes beyond the “It’s about sexting!” line of thought.

Technology amplifies thoughts and feelings, and so it will be unsurprising to me if it amplifies sexual expression and flirtation in adolescents.  Our real problem with adolescents has always been that they have a sexuality to begin with, and a life that is diverging from the adults in their world.  Snapchat isn’t really the problem here.  Our larger problems are as always the proprietary sense of control we exert on adolescents, our anxiety about their sexuality, and our tendency to want to avoid those two emotional conflicts by finding a way to control the adolescents who trigger us.

But it may just be the case that our youth are starting to request and require more privacy from their technology, and if so that is a great thing.  The main danger I see is that they have been raised by a generation that often yearns to find a privacy setting to “park” their children on, rather than educate them about critical thinking and digital citizenship.  If teens don’t know the whole story about the settings on Snapchat and other platforms that’s a problem.  If they don’t learn how to be good digital citizens that’s a problem.  But if they don’t know because all we ever taught them was how to “park” their privacy settings or turn the App off, then we have failed them.  And that’s our problem.

By the way, if you are a parent and want to understand more about Snapchat and your child’s  safe use of it, Snapchat actually has a Guide for Parents

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Filed Under: Gamer Therapy

Extra Life

November 1, 2013 by Leave a Comment

zmikeboo

Earlier this year, my co-therapist Boo had to have an emergency surgery at Mass Vet Referral Hospital.  She came through it with flying colors, but I was reminded of how important hospitals are every day, even though I may not use one every day.  And then on Marathon Monday, Boston citizens and the world received an painful reminder that hospitals are called on to do extraordinary things every day, often with not enough resources to do them.

This year, as in year’s past, Team Boo will be participating in Extra Life.  What is it?

“On an Autumn Saturday each year since 2008, tens of thousands of gamers have joined together to save the lives of local kids in a celebration of gaming culture that we call Extra Life.  From console games to tabletop RPG’s to even lawn sports, Extra Life gives people that love to play a chance to do what they love to save lives and make a difference.  To participate you need only sign up (free) and gather the support of your friends and family through tax-deductible donations to your local CMN Hospital.  Then on Saturday, November 2nd (or any day that works for you!) play any game(s) you want on any platform(s) that you want with anyone you want for as long as you want.”

(http://www.extra-life.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=donorDrive.event&eventID=512)

 

As always, Team Boo will be gaming close to home, for Boston Children’s Hospital.  Each year, BCH has approximately 25,000 inpatient admissions each year and their outpatient clinics schedule 557,000 visits annually. Last year the hospital performed more than 26,500 surgical procedures and 158,700 radiological examinations.  That’s a lot of kids!

If you read this blog with any regularity you know that I believe that anyone can have a good idea and change the world.  Few people would argue that hospitals and a public infrastructure for health care are not good ideas.  But we live in a world where ideas alone won’t always save us, and Extra Life gives you and I an opportunity to raise awareness and money for that.

So please consider joining Team Boo as we game on tomorrow to raise money for Children’s Hospital in Boston, or the Children’s Health Network nationwide.  If you want to donate you can do that here.  And even if you can’t do either, please pass this post along to amplify the idea.  Because you never know when you or someone you love will need a hospital, but we do know that every day many kids do.
extralife2012_300x250

Like this post? I can speak in person too, check out the Press Kit for Public Speaking info. And, for only $4.99 you can buy my book. You can also Subscribe to the Epic Newsletter!

Filed Under: Gamer Therapy

Intervening With Student Facebook Use On A School-Wide Level

October 29, 2013 by 3 Comments

Gossip-Girl-Verizon

Many social workers, psychotherapists and counselors work as consultants to school districts, either as school employees or visiting experts.  That said, 21st century mental health providers are often lax in providing strong consultation about improving digital literacy and digital citizenship.  A few mental health “experts” provide consultation in the form of hysteric responses.  “PROTECT THE CHILDREN,” “PROTECT YOURSELVES” their workshop ads proclaim.  But when you drill down into these expert opinions, it usually consists of very little proactive, just things to scare you and even the exhortation to lock down kids’ internet usage by telling them to stay off of Facebook.

School personnel, when faced with the fear-mongering and suggestion of lockdowns, have few other options to choose from. Some districts adopt a combination of lockdown and denial:  They set up a firewall that allows a small fraction of the internet in, and then act as if the rest of it is none of their business.  This might have worked (or seemed to) when 91% of Americans weren’t on the internet and 78% of adolescents didn’t own cell phones, but gone are the days when schools can turn a blind eye to internet usage.

I think it is the responsibility of Twenty-First Century educators and clinicians to help kids learn how to be good digital citizens, and to help their parents help them do that.  So I wanted to share an idea and a freebie with you so you can work with your own local school to increase awareness of Facebook and privacy settings.

You see, 25% of people don’t bother with their Facebook privacy settings, according to AllTwitter, and according to research from the Pew Group it is even higher in the adolescent population, 40% of whom report keeping their Facebook all or mostly Public.  Is this a factor in identity theft and online harassment? Yes.  But is fear-mongering the solution? Absolutely not.

So I took an half hour today to draft a letter schools can send home to help them hold a “School-Wide Settings Day,” an awareness-raising event that can educate parents and kids by showing them how to preview their Facebook page as if anyone in the public world could see it.  I threw in a couple of reflective questions about the imagined viewers, and links to how to set your privacy settings.  So now I am posting it on my blog for educators and school administrators to access for free.  I designed it for high school students, but encourage you to edit it a little and use for middle-schoolers as well.

Here you go: School-Wide Settings Day Example Letter.

Why am I doing this?  Several reasons.

1. Digital Citizenship and Youth Digital Literacy are important causes to me.  I believe that my colleagues and I have an ethical responsibility to educate the next generation in areas of digital citizenship and literacy whether we like it or not, feel busy enough, or just don’t wanna.  I’m tired of colleagues wailing about media-hyped concepts like “Cyberbullying” and “Sexting” and confusing their emoting with learning more about what research says about teen internet use.  To that end I am also including a free Prezi for you on the topic, which you can probably view in 10 minutes or less.

2. I’m tired of people confusing worry and discussion with effort.  In the time some administrators or educators take lamenting about kids these days on the Internet, I created a project and a mailing that you are free to use, modify and reproduce to effect change in your school.  As a former school employee I know how limited time and personnel is, so the letter is designed to be a minimal amount of both.  It requires someone to hand out the letter and a homeroom teacher to collect them.  I’ve also modeled what I think is an attainable school goal: %100 privacy setting awareness on Facebook.

3.  I want you to hire me.  Yes, I said it.  These freebies are a loss leader for my business.  I do nationwide presentations, teaching and consultation on issues involving mental health and emerging technologies.  And I am painfully aware that many schools and administrators find consultants of little use because they don’t offer tangible solutions and innovations.  So, here, have a tangible solution and innovation on me, then think about hiring me for much more.  🙂

4. I want to see what happens next.  Will school administrators embrace this challenge?  Will colleagues and parents download the letter and approach their school districts to hold a School-Wide Settings Day?  I don’t know.  But if I can take 30 minutes to try to change the world American adolescents live in and raise their digital literacy, can’t you?

 

Like this post? I can speak in person too, check out the Press Kit for Public Speaking info. And, for only $4.99 you can buy my book. You can also Subscribe to the Epic Newsletter!

 

 

Filed Under: Gamer Therapy

Evocation and Mindfulness: Or, How to Think Better

October 16, 2013 by 2 Comments

evocation

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 people: therapists, gamers, educators, parents.  But today I want to include the company that produces World of Warcraft as well.  We have a crisis regarding thinking, and although I don’t think WoW created it at all, it has reflected it in a recent game mechanic change.

I am referring to a change mages that happened recently, where the spell Evocation was replaced by Rune of Power.  For people not familiar with the game, here’s a simple explanation.  Mages cast spells, but spells require an energy called mana, which gets used up gradually as you cast spells.  How much mana you start with depends on your character’s intellect, and once you have used up your mana, you can’t cast any more spells until it is replenished.  To replenish it you can either wait and it will gradually return (not the greatest idea in combat,) or eat and drink (not possible while you are in combat.)  Or you could in the older days cast Evocation, which meant you stood in place as the spell was going, gain 15% of your total mana instantly and another 45% of your total mana over 6 sec.  Move or get attacked, and the spell broke.

This recently was replaced with Rune of Power, which places a rune on the ground, which lasts for 1 min. While standing within 5 yds of it, your mana regeneration is increased by 75% and your spell damage is increased by 15%.  You have to keep remembering to replace it every minute, but that’s not the problem.  It may even be an easier game mechanic, but that’s not the problem either.  My problem with it is how it reflects our dysfunctional attitude about thinking, and specifically our tendency to think of thinking as separate from doing something.

We live in a culture where people frequently worry about things, and in fact have ruminations that are intrusive.  Many people report feeling hijacked by their minds with worrying or intrusive thoughts.  And yet at the same time, few of us seem to mark our time and set it aside specifically for thinking.  We schedule appointments to do things, but thinking isn’t one of them.  We treat thinking, which is intangible, as if it can occur in the same space as doing other activities that are more observable and tangible.  And then we are surprised when our minds rebel and hijack our thinking with thoughts and feelings that come unbidden, when all along we have been failing to cultivate the practice of intentional, mindful thinking about things.

This is where I think Blizzard and Wow initially had it right with Evocation.  It was acknowledging an important truth, that Thinking IS doing something, and when done intentionally it occupies time and has benefits.  Sure you weren’t able to do other things while casting Evocation, but isn’t that the point?  In the real world, when you want to think deeply and seriously about something, you really do need to be intentional about it, and make a space in your day to do it.  Rune of power definitely embraces the multitasking model, which encourages you to set up a rune and then go about your other business while keeping half an eye on it to know when to refresh.  Multitasking is not inherently a bad thing, but there are times and places that intentional thinking may be more appropriate and less anxiety-provoking.

Part of helping patients learn to manage worrying is often to help them set up a specific time for worrying about things.  This “worry time” can be a placeholder in the day or week which the patient uses when an intrusive worry enters into their thinking: They can dismiss it by deciding to put that on the agenda for the scheduled worry time.  This is a way of training your mind to be intentional about what you choose to think about and when.  But implicit in this is the idea that training your mind to think about things intentionally is a learned skill.

You can apply this to many different aspects of your life and work.  If you are growing your private practice, when was the last time you set aside an hour to think deeply about your business plan or clinical focus.  I’m not talking about daydreaming here, I’m talking about sustained intentional thought.  Clinically, do you set aside supervision time to think deeply about patients?  As students do you take 15 minutes after each article to think specifically about the reading?  As parents, when was the last time you said to your co-parent, let’s make a time to think together about how our child is doing in life at home and school.  Classroom teachers, when was the last time you asked students to take 5 minutes and think quietly about the classroom topic?

Another challenge here is the confusion of tongues around the concept of thinking.  Self-help gurus often exhort us to stop thinking about things and JUST DO IT.  But I don’t think they are talking about intentional thinking, I think they are talking about reactive or intrusive thinking.  Procrastination is reactive thinking, worrying can be intrusive thinking.  Those are often roadblocks to success, but the form of thinking I have been referring to is perhaps better described as a form of concentration meditation.  Concentration meditation has come to be seen by many of us as concentrating on an image, or a candle, or chanting, or a revered object, but that is not necessarily the case, and in fact it is limiting.

What if your idea is the revered object?  What if your thought process about your work, child, patient, class is worthy of your undivided attention?  What if you were to schedule a specific time to think about a certain project?

If you are one of those detractors who say, “I just don’t have time to think,” I don’t buy it.  Thinking time is not a luxury item, although it may be a learned discipline to set aside a few minutes at a time to do it.  So please take a second and schedule a time on your calendar to think about an idea that is important to you.  Schedule a time to hold your random worries and thoughts and show up at that appointed time to seriously consider them.  I suspect this will free up more mental space and time than you may imagine.

And please Blizzard, bring back Evocation.  I miss it, and the important life lesson in mindfulness it has to teach us.

 

Like this post? I can speak in person too, check out the Press Kit for Public Speaking info. And, for only $4.99 you can buy my book. You can also Subscribe to the Epic Newsletter!

 

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