Aim House
Boulder, CO

Elizabeth Olson, PsyD. LCSW, CGP, Clinical Director for AIM House Women's Program, is facilitating a Gaming Addictions Group for participants who struggle with computer use addiction. The group is for facilitated by Dr. Olson weekly. The group provides a safe environment for participants who struggle with internet and gaming addiction to practice relationship building skills with others and to learn alternate coping strategies for social anxiety. The group also provides a safe place to talk about the struggle of resisting the urge to get pulled back into the comfortable fantasy world of online games and to help participants recognize the feelings that lie underneath these urges.

Dr. Olson states that "the online gaming environment is a seductive escape for an individual who struggles with isolation, social anxiety or family problems." Gaming often begins as a fun activity for kids in their early teens and is often seen as acceptable behavior by parents who are also frequently immersed online. It can be difficult to recognize the issue at an early stage because so many kids today are online interacting with friends through social media forums, emailing and texting. Online gaming just becomes another forum to interact with friends.

Many individuals are able to balance online gaming activity with a healthy social life offline with school, sports and other social activities; so it doesn't develop into an addiction. The real impact of addictive online gaming often doesn't show up until the teen comes of age and is unable to function in the world. They have slowly shut themselves off and are now completely isolated and immersed in the online world. Now as a young adult they are unable to hold a job or go to school. All of their friends are online and they now spend hours and hours escaping into the gaming world. At the extreme, gaming addicts can isolate to a point where they are not sleeping, not eating, not even going to the bathroom because they are so immersed and drawn in to the online world. The amount of time that gaming can consume is enormous and can take over one's life.

Dr. Olson encourages parents to "take their concern for their child's online behaviors seriously. If parents feel that there is a problem, then most likely there is." Some behaviors she says to look for are how many hours of the day the adolescent or young adult is online; whether they are eating or sleeping; whether they are ignoring their hygiene or beginning to come up with excuses for skipping school; and whether they have friends outside of the gaming world. These are all signs that they may be developing an addiction to internet gaming. Dr. Olson indicates that the target audience for this addiction is "adolescents and young adults that are inclined towards isolation due to social anxiety and/or social phobias." This has been an under-diagnosed population for many years until more recently.

Dr. Olson is pleased with the progress that is being made by the participants attending her Gaming Addictions Group. She works specifically with the participants to help them learn alternate coping strategies and encourages any activity that promotes functioning in the world from getting a job to making friends to being in a romantic relationship. She also helps participants acknowledge and accept that they have a problem that is impacting their lives. Finally, she works with the group to help them explore and talk about the feelings underneath the addiction in order to slowly learn how to tolerate a wider range of feelings. As this tolerance increases, there is often less of a need or urge to be comforted, distracted or soothed through isolation into the gaming environment that they have "lived" in.