Psychotherapists, many of them, very good friends and colleagues, are noticing that their patients are using wireless networked digital devices during sessions and family activities. The prevalent hypothesis heard in workshops, emergent articles, psychotherapists’ list-serve discussions, and the clever keynote at professional conferences suggests that something needs to be done. Families need to connect, the story goes, but these digital technologies are threatening how members connect. Family therapists then discuss potential solutions: no I-Phones during the session or have everyone disconnect their devices at dinnertime. Like our predecessors who thought that television would make our brains and lives succumb, we are now witnessing a plethora of experts letting professionals and families know that they need to slow down, disconnect their devices, and establish rules for engaging in controlled ways with these technologies. Otherwise, therapists suggests, we risk disconnecting; we are in danger of loosing the face-to-face connection. Brains are being rewired some exclaim and the psychopathology related discussion go on forever. A few cases of managerial dads (often dads, hum), who are unable to let their blackberries rest, emerge as examples of how bad things are. Everyone nods in agreement, others suggests that there are some good things in these new technologies but beware the advice goes. In no time, research probing the deleterious nature of these instant communication digital technologies can be expected. Probably, a few doctoral dissertations and NIH grant proposals are in the making.
These set of ideas starts from the assumption that families intentionally and/or naturally connect when there are no distractions. It takes for granted the idea that these emergent technologies are an intrusive other. Digital immigrants, most professionals who dominate the subject in discussion, speak about the technologies while they are still struggling with keeping their inbox at bay while a bit anxious about the speed at which new technologies emerge.
The concerned psychotherapist assumes some nostalgic upper middle class ideal of the family ritual in which adults and children communicate directly at specific times in isolation from the world. It assumes that families are complete around the table when dining a nurturing meal. These assumptions are often part of the reality or normalcy that professionals profess or construe as natural. In their minds, therefore, emergent technologies that digital natives adopt at fast rates are a threat; an inconvenient guest that suggests disconnection. Similarly, families in a psychotherapeutic session to fully “experience” the power of the therapeutic work should be uninterrupted by these devices. Otherwise, the connection between family members and the family with the enlightened professional is deeply threatened. A bit of narcissistic therapeutic ego here suggests that families are only preoccupied with their therapists questions when the digital devices don’t interrupt the “smooth flow” of conversation.
What is wrong with this picture?
Despite, family therapists attention to context, it seems that a catastrophic assessment of the impact of emergent technologies on families and the resulting need to intervene to control, misses most of families harsh realities and the opportunity that digital connectivity offers to both therapists and families. Like our predecessors who were afraid electricity would kill intimacy as a result of the ability to read at night, the fear of wireless digital technologies, overemphasizes the negative aspects for a few privileged families while it hides how families could strengthen their connections and identity because of the same technologies. Are blackberries the new TVs our grandparents were afraid of?
With 4 out of 10 kids in the Boston Public School system being of Latino descent, with the majority of the kids in the city having a family in which English is not the primary language, let us think about these technologies anew. My family therapy teamwork with a Guatemalan family may serve as an example of how these emergent technologies are a source of connection rather than disconnection. Jose and her three children attend a first session to address the usual school referral concerns. Because both parent are working full time, with schedules that allow them to take care of their children, it will be impossible for them to attend sessions all together.
At the first session we connect with mother via her cell phone connected to an earpiece. While she continues to work, she is able to participate from most of the session. She obviously does not have a cell phone to have therapeutic sessions but to connect with her husband throughout the day. The second session, after we find out that two of the kids were raised most of their early preschool years by their grandmother and aunt still in Guatemala, we use our computer to connect with them via Skype, not only they can hear their relatives but also see them. As the session progress, a cousin drops by and exchanges some words with one of the kids in the session.
At the third session, the teenage daughter shares with me some intergenerational information with the use of my own genogram software but moreover; she also shows me the photos of her relatives through her Facebook account. I discover through this conversation that a stepbrother is still in their country of origin and that the two older children miss them terribly. We invite him to session fourth. During the fifth session, we introduce the use of a flip video camera and the ability for them to take home a DVD disk with the session recording, the session in which we design a new ritual and ways of addressing some of the problematic issues. Watching the session later, they decide that they will create a brief conversation that addresses the school interdisciplinary team. By the 7th session, the family and the therapist have not only used technology but have made it part of their work, not an intrusion but an intrinsic part of the conversation. As an aside, we heard during one of the sessions that the ability to text makes everyone feel safe in a neighborhood in which violence is a continuous presence. When this family has the devices available at dinner, they are often part of having discussions about school related subjects but also about incorporating bicultural themes into their lives and so on.
My Guatemalans, Indonesian, and Rwandan immigrant extended families are geographically distant and in the past would have communicated to deliver some good and bad news on an abrupt and “disconnected” way, today, they are able to maintain relationships despite the national boundaries and geographical distance. Relationships have the emotional and experiential weight of face-to-face interactions. The photo that shows the kid receiving a diploma is shared immediately with a large network of family members and communities. When in therapy, I can connect with the grandmother about how to organize the newborn baptism; it is not the planning but the connection that gets strengthen. These sort of connections are also true for the White family whose father has to commute long hours to work and thus the devices allow him to connect with the kids while they are going to bed. What disconnecting process is that?
Sure, wealthy and upper-middle class who read the Style section of the New York Times may need to establish rules that restrict the use of these devices at their leisurely dinner on Thursdays. However, these same parents may be missing an opportunity to connect with what their children actually connect with through these emerging technologies.
Digital connections are something that allows millions these days to connect for the purpose of sharing and exchanging events, memories, wealth, products, and information. They are the source of connection. They are not a threat but a superb opportunity to maintain legacies, create new memories, and reestablish sanity in the context of geographic distance. Let’s stop dialoguing within the constraints of a nostalgic trap of believing that most families like we, the more privileged, live in.
We shouldn’t fear the emerging wireless digital technologies but to embrace them appreciatively and curiously. Adopt a digital native and ask those circular and curious questions and stop trying to generate rules of normalcy that do not apply to most families. Bring forth the best of our relational and contextual minds and expand your understanding of how these technologies are shaping and can be shaped to empower families.
Filed under: Research, family family therapy
