Silva said:
Well, "traumatising" is part of the process of breaking an addiction.
When people get into an addiction, it becomes "homely" to them. What really ever gets someone uncomfortable in a place of safety, a place which keeps their survival instinct relaxed and/or well practised like gaming does? You give them a shock. There isn't another way to do it.
The only way to create discontent with a pleasant equilibrium is to force a new equilibrium that isn't pleasant (at least at first), then, allowing the person to experience what they have been missing out on in their blessed reverie.
People in addictions can't be reasoned with, can't be bought, can't be charmed, and certainly can't be forced within the old equilibrium. It takes a revolution of the personal life to conquer addictions because they are intrinsic problems that usually sneak up on us or at least grow slowly over a long period, making us put them off until they (in such cases) become very serious problems.
First we need to prove that gaming addictions are a genuine psychological phenomenon. The research I've seen on so called gaming addictions has been beyond dismal, often self-report studies with gamers asked questions similar to "Would you feel uncomfortable without games?".
We need to genuinely show that gaming addiction follows Griffiths' (2002) components of addiction:
Salience - The addiction becomes more dominant over other behaviours when deprived for more than 24 hours (i.e. after long cessation periods it's all they can think about and all their behaviour is geared towards sustaining the addiction)
Mood Modification - The addict behaves significantly differently when carrying out the addictive behaviour (note, this doesn't mean 'is a bit happier', this means their behaviour is significantly out of character as one might behave on a cocaine high)
Tolerance - More and more of the addictive behaviour is required as a tolerance forms for the initial dose (i.e. one would eventually do nothing
but the addictive behaviour once maximum tolerance forms, like crack fiends)
Withdrawal Symptoms - Negative physical and behavioural traits formed when deprived of the addictive behaviour for sustained periods of time (e.g. shaking, vomiting, irritability; all of the withdrawal symptoms must be
significantly out of character)
Conflict - The addictive behaviour causes conflicts with other peoples and behaviours, with the addictive behaviour trumping all other behaviours and interests (i.e. being willing to risk everything else in one's life to get the addictive behaviour, again think of crack fiends)
Relapse - The addictive behaviour's cessation period is inevitably interrupted by a return to the addictive behaviour which
almost instantly returns to its initial intensity due to tolerance (i.e. a gamer not playing games for three years after playing 12 hours a day every day will relapse and build back up to 12 hours a day within days of starting gaming again)
In the few genuine empirical studies I've seen on the matter they either failed to find all signs of addiction in 'addicted' gamers, or found that gaming was being used a coping mechanism (as the good doctor points out) due to some other stressor. I've also seen awful, trumped up studies for which the 'scientists' should be shot where they've desperately tried to shoehorn gaming into these categories whilst completely failing to understand the severity of the categories in genuine addicts ("Oh, he wants to play games instead of doing nothing, must be an addiction!"; a genuine addict would gladly kill you to get his fix, it's not a mere case of wanting the fix, it's a willingness to
behave irrationally to get the fix).
Far too many things are classified as addictions these days by people looking to cash in on the scaremongering or the juicy clinician contracts to deal with the false problem.
Since we don't have the case history of the young man in question, and since the case is reported from the extremely biased subjective viewpoint of a close relative, we can't really comment properly on the case other than to make vague guesses at the causes. My advice would be to try and get the child to open up to academia only if that's what he wants to pursue. Far too often I see parents who've decided that
they want their child to be an Ivy League trendsetter and view any deviance of the child from this desire as a problem with the child; if your kid isn't interested in
your goals for your kid then that likely just means that maybe
you shouldn't be setting
his life goals for him.
My advice to the parents would be to start an open dialogue with the child. Ask him what his interests are and why those are his interests. Ask him what things he doesn't like and why he doesn't like those things. Use this information to help (not nag, help) him to find a life path that he'd actually like to follow. Maybe he'd like to work in games design?
Dastardly said:
You can't solve this, and that's the hard truth. But by knowing the cause, you can figure out how best to support him in solving this. My feelings? That "support" will likely take the form of withdrawing some of that support. People don't learn the lessons they're taught. They learn the lessons they're forced to experience.
Once he's 18, you don't have to kick him out the door... but consider charging him rent. Consider having him share household expenses and responsibilities. Do it a step at a time, to avoid overwhelming him and causing him to shut down. Tie freedom to responsibility, and build his sense of agency (the idea that the things that happen to him are a result of his choices, not some outside "force").
Again, these strategies are fine strategies of coercion, but why coerce? Just because
you, the parent, think something is right for your child doesn't mean that thing is actually right for your child.
In my experience it's far better for a parent to lend support than force it. If a child isn't ready or willing to do what you think is best for him it may simply be that what you think is best for him isn't what's actually best for him.
Would you rather your child be successful or happy?
