Mental Health Professionals Internet Addiction Essay - 906 words

Net addiction is no joke, say mental health professionals. BELMONT, Mass. -- It started when he broke the bank while bidding at online auctions. Then it escalated as the hypnotic black hole of cyberspace sucked him in deeper. Online games, cybersex, and suicidal thoughts haunted him. Eventually he became so obsessed with the Internet that life had little meaning beyond it. Despite therapy and warnings, this anonymous Internet addict still hasn't been able to shake an addiction that has ruined his life.


And experts say that he is not alone. The Internet has wrecked marriages, lost jobs, and trapped the vulnerable in cyber cocoons, says psychologist Maressa Hecht Orzack, founder of the Computer Addiction Service at McLean Hospital here. "I had one family that had to literally drag their kid away from the computer, " she says. Another client of Orzack's became so obsessed with the Net that he gave up on a graduate degree, his wife, and offline friends. According to Orzack and a growing cadre of mental health professionals, computers and the Net present a problem as real as alcoholism, with all the attendant symptoms of addiction -- withdrawal, loss of control, and compulsive behavior. Orzack believes one in ten regular Internet users become dependent on the Net -- roughly equal to the population's predilection for compulsive gambling and alcoholism. Although Internet addiction is not considered a recognizable disorder, Orzack says, the problem could eventually be placed in a similar category to kleptomania, compulsive shopping, or gambling. "It is what we call an impulse control disorder, " says Orzack, who has been counseling chronic Net overseas for three years.


The idea you could become hooked on PCs has been floating around since, well, PCs were invented. But it wasn't until an influx of Internet users came onto the scene that a flood of self-help groups, studies, books, departments in addiction clinics, and specialized therapists began popping up. In one case, a professor at the University of Pittsburgh-Bradford, Kimberly Young, even counsels addicts -- where else but online? Of course, talk of addiction raises skepticism in some, who feel the concept is simply another mutation of the blame-the-Internet game. They maintain that people with addictive personalities would probably get addicted to water if it was the first thing put in front of them. One such cynic is Ivan Goldberg, a noted New York psychiatrist.


He was one of the first to write about Internet addiction in a joke column three years ago. He gained notoriety when people thought he was serious and began asking for help. Computers and the Net are not addictive, Goldberg says, they " re simply escapist distractions. "Call it what you will, this is a real problem, " c ...................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

...................You are reading a preview................... Visit our Blog and Unlock Full Access to this essay

Continue READING the FULL Essay by clicking HERE

Essay Tags: three years, internet users, addiction, mental health professionals, internet addiction

This is an Essay sample / Research paper, you can use it for your research of: Mental Health Professionals Internet Addiction