The International Round Table on the topic: “Emotional Dysregulation and Stress in game addictions: Gambling Disorder (GD) and Internet Gaming Disorder (IGD)” will be held on the IASGA platform on October 31, 2020 at 15.00 Central European Time (+2 hours GMT)
Many people, including children, teenagers, and adults, begin to get involved in gambling or Internet video games to relax, disconnect from problems, or from hard work and thus to improve their emotional state. As they say to themselves: “to remove stress, to relax”. Of course, they do not go away from the problems into the game, but they switch their attention from thoughts about problems. These mental assessments and conclusions about life circumstances result in negativ emotions which they try to escape. All their problems are made largely by the work of the mind, nothing else. But instead of looking for solutions, changing themselves, changing the situation, as we say, growing up, developing, taking responsibility, making efforts, a person is immerses himself in virtual reality or the world of gambling. From one illusion with negative images, thoughts, and emotions created in one’s own mind, a person goes to another, created by information technology. The primary psychotropic effect of this switch, causing detachment from negative thoughts, disappears quite quickly. The game itself is an emotional stress. Participation in the game is accompanied by strong excitement, like the action of stimulants, contrasting emotions that resemble swings or swings of a pendulum: from extreme euphoria to all sorts of negative emotions. A constant game at the level of problematic and pathologic is a distress that is caused not only by events in the games, but also by their negative psychosocial consequences. The arousal phase is followed by an exhaustion phase with asthenic emotions, depression, lack of desire and strength to do anything, and cognitive dysfunction. All this we observe in patients with IGD and GD. Indicators of experienced distress are functional and structural changes in the brain, vegetative shifts, changes in the secretion of hormones of the hypatoadrenal system and neurotransmitters: cortisol, norepinephrine, and epinephrine.
The following issues will be considered during the round table:
- General overview of the problem of game dependencies in modern society:
– prevalence among different population groups;
– the main risk factors for the development of game dependencies (GD and IGD).
– negative psychosocial consequences;
– peculiarities of the clinical course;
– the most common types of comorbid psychopathology in game addiction:
- Stress and emotional disorders as a risk factor for GD and IGD development.
- Development and strengthening of emotional distress and emotional dysregulation in the process of constant participation in gambling and Internet video games in problem and addicted players. Analysis of mechanisms at clinical, neurobiological and social levels.
4. Emotional dysregulation and chronic distress as prerequisites for the development of depression, anxiety disorders and social phobias.
5. How negative emotional states contribute to a constant return to the game. The role of altered states of consciousness: the game trance or so-called “dark flow”.
6. Suggestions for effective preventive measures of game dependencies (GD and IGD). Practical implementation steps.
Specialists and researchers who somehow or other face the problem of gaming addiction in their professional activity are invited to participate in the round table: psychiatrists, psychotherapists, psychologists, neurobiologists, sociologists, lawyers, teachers, etc..
You may apply for participation with a report on a topic based on the results of your research or clinical observations, lasting no longer than 15 minutes.
To do this, you can send a letter to the e-mail of the Association, indicating in the line: topic: Report to the round table. Please specify in the letter:
1) Name and surname
2) Country
3) Professional specialization and academic title (if any)
4) Topic of the report
Dear colleagues, we invite you to participate in a constructive dialogue on one of the global problems of our time, to which, unfortunately, society has not formed a serious critical attitude.
We look forward to your participation and experience exchange.
E-mail: contact@iasga.info
tatjanazinchenko@gmail.com
Zoom Connection Link: https://zoom.us/j/8843182447