Tech Addiction & Digital Health in Children, Adolescents & Young Adults: Level 1 Certification for Clinicians & Educators

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Nicholas Kardaras, PhD, LCSW-R Related seminars and products

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Nicholas Kardaras, PhD, LCSW-R, is an Ivy League educated psychologist, best-selling author, internationally renowned speaker and an expert on mental health, addiction, and the impacts of our digital age. He has developed clinical treatment programs all over the country and is the founder and chief clinical officer of Maui Recovery in Hawaii, Omega Recovery in Austin, and the Launch House in New York.

Dr. Kardaras is a former clinical professor at Stony Brook Medicine where he specialized in teaching the neurophysiology and treatment of addiction. He has also taught neuropsychology at the doctoral-level and has worked closely in developing clinical protocols with Dr. Howard Shaffer, associate professor at Harvard Medical School and the director of their Division of Addiction.

Dr. Kardaras is the best-selling author of Glow Kids (St. Martin’s Press, 2016), has written for TIME magazine, Scientific American, Psychology Today, Salon, the NY Daily News, and Fox News, and has appeared on ABC’s 20/20, Good Morning America, the CBS Evening News, Fox & Friends, NPR, Good Day New York and in New York magazine and Vanity Fair. He was featured on the 2019 A&E TV Series Digital Addiction and his 2016 NY Post Op Ed “Digital Heroin” went viral with over six million views and shares.

 

Speaker Disclosures:
Financial: Dr. Nicholas Kardaras is the CEO and Chief Clinical Officer of Omega Healthcare Group, and he is the founder of The National Institute for Digital Health and Wellness and the Austin Serenity Recovery Homes. He has an employment relationship with Stony Brook School of Social Welfare and maintains a private practice. Dr. Kardaras receives royalties as a published author. He receives a speaking honorarium and recording royalties from PESI, Inc. He has no relevant financial relationships with ineligible organizations.
Non-financial: Dr. Nicholas Kardaras has no relevant non-financial relationships.

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Objectives

1. Formulate the neurological, dopaminergic, and hormonal/adrenal impact of screen time on children, adolescents and young adults.
2. Distinguish how tech addiction can impact pre-existing mental health disorders and vice versa.
3. Assess for the various types of tech addiction and determine problem screen usage, stressors and triggers and help client/student develop healthy regulation skills.
4. Create and implement “Digital Detox” protocols to repair client/student self-destructive behavioral patterns, negative limiting beliefs and affect dysregulation.
5. Argue the pedagogical impacts of “Education Technology” and use of screens in the classroom.
6. Develop interventions for parents/caregivers to work with problem screen usage within the home including boundaries, discipline and communication.
7. Create an individualized digital “re-entry” plan to help client/student reintegrate back into healthy tech usage.
8. Integrate interventions rooted in mindfulness, narrative and archetype work, experiential therapy and immersive nature therapy to help client/student create a new and empowering real-life identity.

Outline

• The origins of “Indoor Children”
• Difference between passive TV viewing and immersive/interactive modern screen experiences

• The role of dopamine in addiction
• The dopaminergic effects of screens on the brain
• A view of screens as “digital drugs”
• Brain imaging research and the effects on the frontal cortex
• Hormonal impacts of tech overuse

• Depression and social media
• ADHD and screen-time
• Anxiety and screen-time
• Thought disorders and video games as well as “sensory overload”
• Increased aggression and video games

• Current tech addiction assessment tools
• The difference between “overuse” and “addiction”
• A comparison with substance addiction assessment

• Not all tech addiction is the same
• Specific digital usage problem, stressors, triggers
• Underlying and co-morbid issues
• Residential vs. outpatient treatment: Pros and cons
• How to implement a “Digital Detox”
• Dr. K’s “Dopamine Replacement Therapy”
• Importance of nature, meditation and exercise

• Research on educational outcomes of classroom technology
• Phones in the classroom and standardized test scores
• Screens in the classroom and impact on reading and comprehension
• Comparisons of “Low Tech” schools and one-to-one screen schools
• Ed Tech: a $60 billion annual industry
• The Los Angeles “iPad Fiasco” and the Amplify initiative by Rupert Murdoch

• Validate that the issues harming families are indeed real
• Address dysfunction contributing to the problem
• Family psychoeducation
• ”Family Intervention Plan”: The solution needs to be a collective one

• Individualized digital “re-entry” plan: Hands-on activity
• Help the child to identify healthier “Digital Vegetables” vs. “Digital Candy”
• Measure progress and what to do if there is a setback

• Learn interventions and strategies to handle:
  • Mood-dysregulated 13 year old male, DX Intermittent Explosive Disorder (IED)
  • Violent adolescent male, DX ADHD and conduct disorder, video gamer, school refusal, assaults parents
  • Suicidal adolescent female, DX depression, disordered eating and self-injurious behavior, social media platforms 8-10 hrs a day
  • Twenty-five-year-old graduate student, very politically-interested, stays up all night “hyper-link” surfing, hears voices, paranoid
  • Social-media obsessed mom, neglects young children, marriage is suffering, children acting out

Target Audience

• Counselors
• Social Workers
• Psychologists
• Marriage and Family Therapists
• Addiction Professionals
• Case Managers
• Occupational Therapists
• Occupational Therapy Assistants
• Speech-Language Pathologists
• Teachers
• School Counselors
• School Psychologists
• School Social Workers
• Educational Paraprofessionals
• School Administrators
• Other Helping Professionals who Work with Children

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