Are you Addicted to Your Phone? Pt. 1

How the Creative Arts Therapies could support you in building a new relationship with your phone.

Have ever been mid-scroll and realized that even though you wanted to put the phone down, there it was in your hand again? First of all, noticing is the first step, keep going, you’ve got this. You had just needed to (insert the thing you first opened the phone for) and then 5, 20, 45 minutes, 2 hours later there you are transitioning back to consciousness from deep within [insert internet media].

You might want to read a book or learn an instrument, paint a picture, sew a mitten, [ insert the thing you would do if the internet didn’t exist ] but can’t find the time. You might have found yourself surprised by your phone’s usage update.

How could Drama Therapy help me change my relationship to my phone?

Using objects in Drama and Play-based therapies can introduce alternative ‘access points’ to communicating needs and finding new ways to express what’s troubling you through experimentation.

Playing or reacting to a role or character with particular similarities to a personal experience provides a landing place to project unresolved experiences and interactions. Seeing the tableau of an issue from an outside perspective can help to locate a larger picture or pattern to bring focus to. Having space to discuss the experience with a therapist or in a group setting facilitates a feeling of integration of the embodied portion of an activity. So how does this relate to your (addictive) relationship to your phone?

Does it feel like your phone is taking up all of your time?

Using a Drama Therapy technique, let’s ‘call’ your phone and leave it a message to let it know about it’s effect on your life right now. Let’s try a monologue (assuming the character of ‘phone’) where the phone speaks about it’s relationship to you. If this object could speak, what would it say? Let’s imagine what the difference would be if instead of a phone, your phone was a [ insert the object that you are having an intense relationship with here ]. Let’s imagine what an intentional relationship with your [ object ] might look like and then explore how your life might be different if that was the norm for you.

Drama Therapy and Postionality

Drama Therapy is a social justice oriented model of therapeutic intervention and uses positionality as a method of understanding our roles and the positions we take in relationships. These relationships can be with other people and also our relationship to objects or ideas in our lives.

Pt. 2… coming soon… how Dopamine complicates these relationships…

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Disclaimer: Blog posts such as this one are not a replacement for therapy and should not be considered advice for a medical or mental health condition that needs monitoring. The opinions expressed are those of the writer and do not speak to anyone else’s individual situation.