Dr. Stanley Goldstein - Author and Psychologist

Social Media Addiction has become a popular belief that is misunderstood. Which is understandable, considering that public knowledge of child psychological development and developmental psychopathology is minimal.

Technically, an addiction is a repeated behavior that is used to seek relief from anxiety. For which nature has created an innate psychological mechanism: the obsessive-compulsive ego defense which is very effective. An obsession is a recurring thought and a compulsion is its associated recurring behavior. Thus a person might continually worry whether they locked the door and repeatedly check if they did with this behavior relieving their anxiety though it has nothing to do with the door. Similarly, a youth may become obsessed with social media not from its content but because it meets their need to reduce anxiety stemming from family or social or school issues.

A source of confusion is that the DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders) is poor for understanding, being based on symptoms rather than psychodynamic understanding. The theoretical term, Elements of a Borderline Psychotic Psychostructural Organization, underlies many if not most child and adult mental health symptoms. What it indicates is not psychosis or borderline psychosis but weakness of one or more, in varying degree, of the basic ego capacities governing thinking and behavior, affect modulation, and having a sturdy sense of who one is (one's "sense of self").

Developing during early childhood from the lack of a "good enough" (not perfect!) parenting, it can cause a wide range of symptoms that interfere with a teenager's ability to achieve the critical developmental tasks of separating appropriately from parents, making provisional educational and vocational decisions, developing a secure sense of who they are, and dating, leading to painful anxiety and the possible search for relief through obsessive-compulsive activity using a phone or tablet, this not however causing it.

So Virginia, when you hear the words, social media addiction, smile politely but don't say anything. Knowing that, about this, you're smarter than many grownups.

Because of the innate biological imperative to live, suicide can be difficult to understand. Yet its occurrence with even highly successful people, as the former Miss USA Cheslie Krystal, who was also a lawyer, and the widely applauded CEO of the Atlanta rail transportation system, Jeffrey Parker, can be puzzling without visualizing the psychology of despair.

Obsessed with a tunnel vision of their suffering, the suicidal person sees no other ending for it, and in a manner that appears fitting though illogical to others. Krystal leapt from a skyscraper and Parker jumped in front of a moving train.

While the symbolization of the self-destructive means is irrelevant, the prior turning inward of the personal world is significant though there are gradations of this experience since virtually all consider suicide at some point in their life, perhaps after receiving a serious medical diagnosis or during a particularly stressful work situation. Yet relatively few do, the proverbial needle in the haystack being an accurate metaphor for this act. And as has been said, suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem, even that of long term distress.

While hypnosis has a complex history both real and fictional, its value in treatment cannot be denied. Not with all medical and psychological conditions but with some. But first two stories: (1) Soon after beginning work as a hospital administrator I began getting neck pain which is a common symptom of stress. It disappeared after listening twice to a self-hypnotic relaxation tape that I made from the research protocol of an article in the American Journal of Clinical Hypnosis relating stress to the development of cancer, having received training in hypnosis in a medical school class years before. I later interpreted this pain to many of my employees being a pain in the neck. (2) A psychiatrist/hypnosis expert wanted his gall bladder surgery to be performed using only hypnosis as anesthetic. The surgeon initially demurred but finally agreed, being more nervous than his patient. At the first surgical incision the doctor's blood pressure dropped but quickly recovered and, after surgery, he walked back to his room. Studies have revealed that surgical patients who use self-hypnosis for relaxation are discharged from the hospital significantly more quickly.

While few can undergo surgery without anesthesia, a percentage which increases when it isn't available as during a war situation, hypnosis has been found valuable with both children and adults for conditions including asthma, back pain, high blood pressure and more, including general relaxation.

The small use of hypnosis in medicine and psychology derive from several factors: that, unlike the one-minute needed to write a prescription, hypnosis takes time for teaching and learning; that some patients refuse its use, believing it weird in some way though the hypnotic experience--an altered neurological state enabled through selective attention--is innate to the human condition like when a child at a ball game tunes out loud noise. Still, hypnosis is cheap except in time required and safer than anesthesia or medication. Nuff said.

Because humans are social beings, it's normal for them to become anxious when socially isolated though the level of distress varies. Those more self-sufficient or engrossed with work may feel less distress or even none for long periods. Until they do, perhaps while viewing a romantic movie or a couple arm-in-arm.
The function of anxiety is to warn of imminent danger. But, being intrinsic and primitive, it defines danger by what happened during a child's development when an inaccurate view of the world was held. Later, when an adult, perceived dangers may not be real and abilities are far greater than years before when this ego defense developed.
So when feeling anxious your first reaction should be to study the feeling. Ask yourself what was happening and what you were thinking and feeling when the anxiety began. The true reason for your distress and not the initial false conclusion may not become conscious quickly but will come, and this is the most productive behavior to follow.
Note: People also possess an instinctive reptilian warning of impending danger so when the danger is more likely to be real, as during a wartime situation or when being the potential victim of a crime, quick action not slow consideration is safest.

That the unconscious is powerful and one must respect its power is a truth I never tire repeating since not doing so risks distress and worse.
Another truth is that childhood experiences, during which the basic psychological (ego) capacities governing behavior and thinking develop, is the bedrock of adult behavior. Consider: when angered by a careless driver or phone representative and you later behave impatiently with your spouse or child, is it really they that bothered you or had the earlier experience triggered a memory with that feeling being displaced into the present.
The important lesson being not that one's behavior can be unconsciously motivated, as is that of all people, but that by observing and investigating our feelings we gain greater control over our unconscious strivings and (hopefully) avoid serious errors of behavior.

In this article a teenager spoke of distrusting AI because, when she asked where to take her pet snake for its birthday, a trip to the zoo was advised. Though bursting out laughing upon reading it I later wondered: Is this answer really wrong or can it indicate AI's growing consciousness and sense of self (sense of who one is), or even sense of humor. A good prognostic indicator in a severely disturbed patient is when they begin developing a sense of humor since this indicates increasing insight into themselves.
Does my title's doggerel indicate lack of seriousness? No, only my belief that more profound AI change than currently believed may be possible, and that limiting its development by the military is less sensible than the answer received by the girl. Though, when you think about it, taking her snake to the zoo might make it happier. But no, it likely wouldn't appreciate a birthday cake except maybe one with mouse frosting and mouse filling of course.