Well, it’s good to be back in DC again, a town I’ve grown fonder and fonder of as I grow older and spend more time here. Clean, cheap (but dark) subways. Plenty of places to eat and get a hotel room (although they do tend toward the more expensive side).

And this year’s Psychotherapy Networker Symposium’s theme couldn’t be better and more timely — Stepping into the Moment: Psychotherapy in a Culture of Distraction. Because that’s what we’ve become — a culture of distraction.

Life today seems not so much about living in the moment as it feels like we all want to be living in the next moment. We’re not so much enjoying our time but rather trying to figure out what we’re missing. If ADHD is overdiagnosed in today’s society, it’s more likely than not our own doing because our society seems to increasingly reinforce distraction, constant movement, leaving little time for reflection and thought.

Distraction is an enemy of psychotherapy. Good psychotherapy requires focus, effort, patience. If we become easily distracted in the healing process, we’ll never move from one step to the next on the road to recovery. A person needs to slow down in order to get the most from psychotherapy.

A person needs to slow down in order get the most from life, too.

* * *

My presentation is entitled, “Using the Internet as a Clinical Resource” and it’s a talk I’ve been giving for over a decade now. But like the Internet, it keeps changing; the talk I give on Saturday will have little resemblence to what I was saying 10 years ago. The key is to understand that, like a textbook or life experience, the Internet can be leveraged as a valuable clinical tool in a professional’s practice. It doesn’t just have to be meandering across the virtual spaces that connect us with little goal or meaning. Time spent online can very much be directed and have purpose. It’s just that few of us spend time organizing our thoughts in any kind of manner before going online.

Dr. John Grohol is the CEO and founder of Psych Central. He is an author, researcher and expert in mental health online, and has been writing about online behavior, mental health and psychology issues -- as well as the intersection of technology and human behavior -- since 1992. Dr. Grohol sits on the editorial board of the journal Cyberpsychology, Behavior and Social Networking and is a founding board member and treasurer of the Society for Participatory Medicine.

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    Last reviewed: By John M. Grohol, Psy.D. on 15 Mar 2007
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