Discussion of Internet Addiction as Mental Illness Resurfaces 279
Lone Writer writes "The editorial section of the American Journal of Psychiatry for March offers the opinion that Internet addiction is a 'compulsive-impulsive' disorder, and should be added to the official guidebook of disorders. The editorial characterizes net addiction as including 'excessive gaming, [online] sexual pre-occupations and e-mail/text messaging'. From the article: 'Like other addicts, users experience cravings, urges, withdrawal and tolerance, requiring more and better equipment and software, or more and more hours online, according to Dr. Jerald Block, a psychiatrist at the Oregon Health and Science University in Portland. Dr. Block says people can lose all track of time or neglect "basic drives," like eating or sleeping. Relapse rates are high, he writes, and some people may need psychoactive medications or hospitalization."
Re:What if your job requires it? (Score:4, Informative)
The DSM is usually reluctant to pathologize something unless it's really bothering the person themselves, or makes it impossible for them to live a normal life.
You have a tendency to check twice if the door to your house is locked after leaving? That's not really going to cause you major problems, and odds are you're not freaking out about it. Not OCD.
Have frequent compulsions to drive back home and check if your door is locked, occuring throughout the day, making you get fired from your job, ruining your social life and making you feel like crap? That might be more likely to get you that diagnosis.
You doing lots of e-mail for work is not likely to interfere with your ability to work.
Heroin junkies might not mind their heroin(though some do), but if it screws up their lives then it's something the DSM will look at.
Bloody psychiatrists are ruining medicine! (Score:4, Informative)
"Behavioral addictions" are mental in nature. True addiction is physiological.
Secondly, it should be trivially obvious that ALL of these so-called behavioral addictions are SYMPTOMS of some other root cause, often some manifestation of OCD. You can treat heroin addiction by removing the substance and healing the body (i.e. go through withdrawal and detox--nasty business, but fairly effective). You don't treat internet addiction by taking away the internet, you find what is driving the person towards addict-like behaviour, and solve that. Voila--internet addiction is a symptom.
I don't know why the psychiatry field is so determined to label all symptomatic behaviours as diseases, but they're not doing themselves any good.
Re:So how much is too much? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Maybe (Score:3, Informative)
Nope, we've got enough generalized "addiction" categories already. And we treat them the same. Drugs and counseling - same old saw.
But what you describe doesn't really fall into the "addiction" category if it's not materially interfering with the rest of your life. So what does that mean? Good question. In dealing with the spectrum of human mental illness you have to realize that it is spectrum. We all have personality "traits" and sometimes these traits can lead to problems. If they lead to serious and persistent problems, then it's a personality "disorder" and a problem. The dividing line can be pretty arbitrary. Just remember that some of the most influential people in history clearly meet current DSM criteria for one or another mental illness. As do nearly all of the people in an emergency room at 2:00 AM.
Re:What kind of drugs do they give out for this? (Score:3, Informative)
And yes, I do place some blame on the "hustled"... just from a "fool me once, shame on you - fool me twice, shame on me" standpoint. Their unrealistic, strong desire for magical instant solutions to deep and significant personal problems (which are often self-inflicted) is a big part of this; whether you or I enjoy hearing that is irrelevant.
Its not the drugs, its the money I worry about (Score:2, Informative)
This is about creating another dependent class. About opening the doors to new lawsuits because if someone is addicted then their has to be someone causing it and if they have deep pockets the blame shifts from the one addicted to the one with the money (see cigarette suits - sorry, but we've known that truth since like, when, the 70s, yet people still act as if they were fooled - worse we let them vote?).
Some times with all these declarations of what is an addiction or what is a mental illness I begin to think Tom Cruise isn't such a bad guy
Re:Who defines "excessive?" (Score:3, Informative)
No. You can have a habit for something that does no objective harm to you. But when YOU yourself realize that something is bad for you (like, apparently, you noticed that smoking is bad for you) and yet you STILL choose to continue the practice -- then you're addicted.
It's not a "new word" -- this effect has always been called "chemical dependence". I don't know what vocabulary the unwashed masses use, but in all the years of my medscape subscription (15 now? wow.) I've never heard chemical dependence referred to as "physical addiction".
Of course every slashdotter knows that joe sixpack tends to mis-use jargon. Quite horribly, in fact. And when you correct him, he'll insist that "it was always called that way".