When young people choose to scroll, text, post, and socialize on social media sites rather than interact in real life, how do we therapists enter that world with them while encouraging somatic, emotional, cognitive and interactive experiencing?

This workshop will explore how to invite the online presence and experience into the therapeutic relationship from the beginning of treatment to the end using tools such as the Social Media Assessment Form, and the Seven Stages of Smart Phone Attachment, as well as identifying developmental and ego states being practiced and mastered both online and off. By inviting internet realities into the therapy room, a therapist can more fully understand the young client’s life, whether traumatic or positive. Competing online hypnotic phenomena and its parallels to therapeutic trance will be explored. Just as healthy and balanced use of social media use has been found to strengthen resiliency, excessive use has been found to increase depression, anxiety, isolation and compulsive behaviors. Discernment techniques will be enlisted to determine where a young person is on this continuum, as well as the steps to move toward balance.

I will present interventions for increasing healthy boundaries, down-regulation, and ego states, in addition to the “Inner Selfie Technique”, short hypnotic trance construction and experiential exercises.

This workshop will be experiential, interactive, and include case examples and videos.