My parents were born and raised in Minnesota. As were their parents and grandparents. Mom and Dad moved to New Jersey in 1971. One time I was on a train in Washington D.C. and a man asked if I was from Minnesota. “My parents are, but I’m from New Jersey. That means I have a strong ethical core but I’m probably the most aggressive Vikings fan you’ll ever meet.”

In the fall of 1994, I attended classes for a few weeks at Raritan Valley Community College. A friend picked me up on the way to class. I took my Dad’s Board of Trustees parking pass and we parked in front of the main entrance, a far better spot than other students used.

My father flipped out. As angry as I had ever seen him. “What is wrong with you? What on Earth would make you ever think that was okay?”

I fell back on the cowardly familiar “I don’t know.”

“I don’t use it when I go there and I’m not on trustee business. You dishonor me. You dishonor yourself.” Silence. And then, “I can’t believe you did this. Why do you think you deserve special treatment? That’s a huge problem with this world. People thinking they deserve special treatment. And you are becoming one of them.” He walked away. And then he came back.“You never take a benefit from a public role that other people don’t get.”

It was a brutally powerful lecture. I just sat there. Absorbing the reverberations of his words for the next half hour. Over thirty years later, I feel a deep sense of shame when I think about it.

There were other piercing lectures. In eighth grade, I lifted a paragraph from a book and put it in a paper without citing it. My dad went ballistic. “You are taking credit for something you didn’t do. It’s stealing. It’s lying. It’s terrible behavior.”

My mother’s moral instruction was also very serious, but gentler and more proactive. From my earliest days, she would read to me and then ask me how I thought the character felt. We would watch a play or movie and she’d ask “Was that the right thing to do?” or “What would you do in that situation?”

They weren’t just teaching me their values or the family’s values, but Minnesota values. That is one reason why I’ve been irritated that the always-Trumpers have labeled Minneapolis “insane” and “radical.”

Minnesota: A quick and incomplete survey

Minnesota became a state in 1858. Less than three years later, they were the first to answer Lincoln’s call for troops. Minnesota is the 22nd largest state in raw population but maintains a National Guard that is disproportionately large. They have high rates of education and low rates of crime.

Hmong refugees came to Minnesota in the 1970s and Somali refugees came in the 1990s. Because of the wildly long cold winters, Minnesota might seem like an unlikely destination for people from Southeast Asia and Africa to settle. The Lutherans and Catholics in Minneapolis have long practiced tolerance and charity and were early sponsors and organizers of refugee resettlement.

General Mills, 3M, US Bank, Cargill and Best Buy are long-standing Minnesota companies that are multi-generation employers, stable and community-supporting. US Bank wasn’t a primary driver of the 2007-08 housing crisis that rocked the world financial markets and they repaid their TARP funds early.

Minnesota values include working hard, showing up on time, being kind to others, speaking respectfully, not taking credit for other people’s work, admitting mistakes, following rules and cleaning up your own mess.

Common Minnesota phrases that reflect these values are:

• Let’s just take a breath here
• No need to make it worse
• Let’s hear them out
• I could be wrong
• We all still have to live together
• Well…that’s something

Take a moment to think about your warmest elementary school teacher or your calmest coach or the sweetest person at church or the most helpful person at your first job. That’s the spirit of Minnesota.

It is because of that history of military service, civic participation, rule following, charity towards others, stable companies and rock-solid values that this moment of dissent in Minnesota should be read as a warning signal and not a sign of radicalism.

True Patriotic Moments

In 1770, British soldiers murdered five Bostonians who were heckling them. The rest of the almost-fledgling United States was appalled. Samuel Adams wrote “Innocent colonists murdered by the vicious British soldiers on our own American soil. Not only do they tax us without a vote, now they are murdering us in the streets of Boston.”

In 1970, Ohio National Guardsmen fired 67 shots at student protesters on the Kent State campus. Four students were killed and several more were injured. Most U.S. citizens were horrified, but there was a small minority who believed the protesters brought it on themselves. President Nixon appointed a commission to evaluate what happened and their report stated that “the indiscriminate firing of rifles into a crowd of students and the deaths that followed were unnecessary, unwarranted, and inexcusable.”

Many Americans today like to think that they would have participated in the Underground Railroad. And that they would have hidden Anne Frank. They like to think that they are like the most heroic Americans of the 1850s or Europeans of the 1940s.

And yet, a common refrain that is often uttered in 21st century America is “I can’t get involved, I’ve got bills to pay.” Not very brave or civic minded. And certainly not the Underground Railroad or hide Anne Frank type.

The Boston Massacre. Kent State. The Underground Railroad. Anne Frank. Dissent has often looked radical to the comfortable.

Comfort without Responsibility

The Great Gatsby was published in 1925 and set on Long Island and in New York City. Several of the main characters are vain, selfish, spiteful, untrustworthy and materialistic. Tom Buchanan is an arrogant, out-and-out racist and adulterer. Jordan Baker cheats at golf. Daisy kills a woman while driving and doesn’t stop.

Nick Carraway is the narrator and moral conscience of the story. He is from the Midwest, and is the stand-in for F. Scott Fitzgerald (who was, significantly, born and raised in Minnesota and educated in New Jersey).

The book opens with Nick sharing some advice from his father: “Whenever you feel like criticizing any one… just remember that all the people in this world haven’t had the advantages that you’ve had.”

A few years ago, Nick’s lines about Tom and Daisy Buchanan swirled around the internet as a commentary about a few particular American political figures: “They were careless people, Tom and Daisy — they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness.”

Universal Lessons

In school, American students learn about the tyranny of George III. We read about the revolutionary patriots who fought organized powers that invaded their streets and entered their houses without permission or warrants.

American students learn about Italian, German and Japanese fascism. About the violence, cruelty and lawlessness of those governments. We celebrate the noble allies who sacrificed so much to defeat them. Robert Gibson died on January 12, 2026 at the age of 102. He fought at Utah Beach and in the Battle of the Bulge. Whenever he talked about the war, he concluded his remarks with “we did this for you, so don’t screw it up.”

American students learn about the non-violent civil disobedience practiced by Gandhi, Dr. King, John Lewis, Lech Walesa and Nelson Mandela. How each one of them stood up to oppressive power, took blows without striking back and won over enough supporters until they fundamentally changed their countries.

Popular culture reinforced these lessons in The Lord of the Rings and Star Wars.

Lessons Applied

The people of Minneapolis have made their values clear. They

• don’t want parents ripped away from their children
• don’t believe people should be stopped and asked for papers
• don’t believe someone should be beaten or shot or killed for filming the actions of federal agents
• don’t believe the government can kick down your door without a warrant
• don’t believe people should be chemically sprayed in the face when they are already restrained
• don’t believe in masked government agents

I was born in 1976. The 1990s saw a high level of peace and prosperity. The footage of black people being attacked by dogs and Americans murdered in the streets were from historical films in black and white. The bad guys around the world had mostly been defeated. Things were seemingly getting better year by year. I’ve oversimplified it, but I think you get the point.

I tell my students today that society wasn’t like this when I was their age. People were friendlier, warmer, more social and less scared. Adults seemed to be responsible and calm. Since 9/11, Americans are more isolated, quicker to anger, less trusting but paradoxically more gullible, more selfish, more arrogant and utterly less responsible. We have seemed to forget those lessons from King George to The Great Gatsby to World War II to Dr. King to Star Wars. It is something that makes me quite sad.

And yet. This January, I have seen civic-minded, values-based, non-violent patriotism in action on the streets of Minneapolis. At this moment, the best of America is represented in Minnesota. But here’s the thing, there are people who are like that in every state.

From The Three Lessons from Minneapolis that was published in The Atlantic yesterday:

Again and again in American history, the places accused of disorder turn out to be the places insisting that the rules still matter. Minnesota belongs to that tradition.

My Minnesota. Our Minnesota. America’s Minnesota.

Sometimes you can learn a lot about someone from a single moment. Last summer, my mother and I were walking through the theater district in the afternoon and came upon a human traffic jam that was caused by many people getting into line for a show while others were trying to get past. The road was full of cars so the sidewalk was just packed. There was a frail, elderly woman standing alongside her husband, who was being pushed in a wheelchair by a theater staffer. They couldn’t move, because no one would make way for them. I stopped and tried to make a passage with my body. A number of people kept walking through. This irritated me. “Jesus Fucking Christ people, everyone stop!” I said in a commanding voice. The staffer nodded at me and the old woman touched my arm and said a very soft yet sincere “thank you.” It shouldn’t have taken all of that for them to get through.

From this, one can gleam that (a) I spend time with my mother; (b) we attend plays in Manhattan; (c) I try to be helpful to others whenever I can; and (d) I get irritated with people when they make things more difficult for others, particularly the elderly, those with disabilities or children.

One of my professional rules is that I don’t teach, speak or write about issues that I do not have an expertise in. I support immigration enforcement as a lawful function of the state. I also support police and military institutions governed by clear rules, identifiable authority and accountability. This essay explains why recent ICE practices in Minneapolis undermine those principles.

My Military and Law Enforcement Background

I joined the United State Army as a tanker in 1996. After training at Ft. Knox, I joined my unit in Port Murray, NJ that fall and was immediately placed with the S-2/S-3 of the battalion headquarters company (the S-2 is military intelligence, the S-3 is training and planning).

After 9/11, I was activated that fall to guard the Hudson River bridges and tunnels from NJ into Manhattan. Our tasks were to guard against any future attacks, but to also provide the public a sense of safety and security. We had to stop and search random cars before they crossed the George Washington Bridge or entered the Lincoln or Holland Tunnels; we were given very explicit instructions on greeting everyone, identifying ourselves, explaining the situation, not responding to irritation or anger with anything other than calmness and completing our searches efficiently so people could get on with their day.

Our M16s and 9mms were not loaded. We weren’t even given ammunition. I was 25 and thought it was stupid to have unloaded weapons. Master Sergeant Spadoni instructed me, “Look at Traffnic. Look at Mays. Do you want them walking around on US soil with a loaded weapon?”

“No.”

“Neither does the commander. Or anyone with any sense. Just our presence is a deterrence, and the police we are assisting have their weapons if need be.”

I served from 1996 to 2002. After that, I taught English in Tokyo, got a graduate degree in social work, taught English in Elizabeth, worked as a drug & alcohol counselor at a few treatment programs before landing at Rutgers and earned another graduate degree in public policy. Between those treatment programs and Rutgers, I ended up helping and treating a number of veterans. In 2014, I was directly commissioned into the Army as a Behavioral Health Officer. I rejoined because I wanted to help those that serve. I volunteered to deploy to Poland near the Russian border in 2019. I was the lone mental health provider for about 1200 NATO soldiers. I treated them mostly for family problems, substance misuse issues and PTSD from their experiences in Afghanistan and Iraq.

In 2016, I started work as the Consulting Therapist for the New York State Troopers Employee Assistance Program. Over the last 10 years, I’ve conducted trainings on substance misuse, relationships, grief, de-escalation, managing stress and generally surviving the job. I provide post-crisis counseling to sworn members who deal with child sex crimes, car accidents, witnessed suicides, homicides, dead babies, car fires where those inside burn to death and shootings. It’s very heavy.

The vast bulk of the people I treat are cops, military, veterans, fire fighters, teachers, doctors, nurses, social workers and therapists. I have a preference for people who try to help, who try to make things better for other people and who care for others. A majority of the cops and veterans I treat have differing domestic and/or international political views than me, but they get the same exact treatment that I give someone that shares my view on Ukraine or the importance of government lawyers.

ICE Agents in Minneapolis

If you support police and military professionalism, you should be concerned about the following:

Most ICE agents are wearing masks. Many don’t have information on them that identifies them as ICE. I have seen a lot of videos and pictures where they have POLICE written on their body armor, even though they are not trained, supervised or employed as police officers. Almost none of them have their name on their uniform. It is very easy to buy almost all of the weapons and equipment that ICE agents in Minneapolis are currently using; therefore, it is very easy for anyone to cosplay as an ICE agent. Anonymity is incompatible with law enforcement standards. In a democratic society (or a republic), it is essential that government actors are answerable for their actions. This greatly reduces misconduct and wrongdoing, encourages restraint, allows for accountability and helps with public trust. Masked and unidentifiable ICE agents violate all of that.

Military service members wear visible insignia, have rules of engagement, follow a clear command authority and have after action accountability. Domestic enforcement should not be less accountable than overseas operations.

Using kids as bait. It is a government’s duty to protect children. Using them as bait puts them in harm’s way and is a violation of that obligation.

This is a heinous, vile and appalling example of the failure of ICE in Minneapolis regarding child welfare laws. It is also a moral failure.

Removing an elderly man from his home in little clothing who had committed no crimes. ICE entered the home of a US citizen without a visible warrant and abducted him. He was not allowed to put on anything warmer despite near freezing weather. He was not allowed to verify his identity to the agents.

Chemically spraying a person who was already restrained. Once a person is restrained and no longer a threat, additional force must be strictly justified. Multiple lawyers have told me that the ICE agents in the below photo almost certainly violated use of force laws and that they would use Graham v Connor (1989) and the 4th Amendment to both criminally try and civilly sue those agents. To be clear, in these type of cases, courts often ask:

• Was the person already secured?
• Was there an active threat?
• Was the restraint preventive or punitive?
• Was there a less invasive alternative?

There have been many recorded incidents where ICE agents are escalating situations using an aggressive tone, loud voice and threatening language. There is not a law that requires government agents to use a calm tone or respectful language, but how they speak can be legally consequential. Shouting, demeaning language and threats may be viewed as provoking or escalating a situation. In fact, DHS has explicit policies on the importance of use of force and de-escalation. One could make a strong argument that several of the ICE agents in Minneapolis have violated their agency’s official policies.

If a state trooper, military police or corrections officer engaged in any of these behaviors, it would trigger an investigation. ICE should not be exempt from standards other agencies already meet.

Policy, Training and Character

Clearly, the United States needs to re-examine DHS and ICE policies. And to see if commanders are enforcing or ignoring those policies.

There has been speculation that a number of the new ICE agents that have been hired are military or law enforcement washouts, meaning that they wanted to join but were denied or didn’t make it through basic training/the academy or left under dubious circumstances. We do know that training for ICE agents in 2025 dropped from 16 weeks to about six to eight weeks. That’s a pretty short time to give someone a weapon and send them to deal with the American public. My training as an Army tanker lasted 16 weeks and then I was sent to my unit for further training. The New York State Police academy takes 26 weeks and then new officers are sent to work with a Field Training Officer for two months before they are allowed to operate on their own. To me, that is an incredibly stark and alarming contrast between the training of an ICE agent and a US Soldier or NY State Trooper.

Besides policies and trainings, I believe there is something else that is being overlooked. Character.

In 2018, I ran a group for the mothers of State Troopers who had died in the line of duty. I was deeply struck when one grieving mother uttered “We all had the same son.” Their boys were sarcastic and joked a lot. They could be difficult about getting their way. But they always showed up and tried to be helpful. They wanted to protect the weak. Whether they were on or off-duty, they shoveled peoples’ driveways and changed strangers’ tires. In short, they were good.

It is fair to ask what kind of background checks, screenings and interviews ICE is conducting. Because, I would argue, the kind of individual who would use a child as bait, invade the home of a mostly unclothed old man and take him out into the cold and chemically spray an already restrained individual is not good. As I stated at the start of this essay, you can sometimes learn a lot about a person from a single moment.

I believe it is a reasonable expectation that Americans know the name and organization of a government agent and can see their face. If we need to put it to a county, state or national vote, put it to a vote.

A quality government agent speaks calmy and respectfully. They are good at de-escalating. They help those that are weaker, particularly the elderly, kids, people with a disability and anyone in crisis. An ideal agent might have the added traits of being warm, kind and funny.

To make someone else angry is the lowest of all social skills. That’s why I have problems with so many people who make their living on the internet. Outrage engages. Outrage sells. But it is absolutely terrible for individual mental health and society as a whole.

In contrast, the ability to make someone feel safe, calm someone down and/or to laugh are among the very highest of social skills. Those are the kind of people we want in positions of authority.

Many of the ICE agents that are currently operating in Minneapolis appear to me to be weak, scared, callous and amoral. This looks less like modern U.S. law enforcement and more like practices we explicitly trained against. It is disheartening. It doesn’t have to be that way.

If you are a concerned citizen and are wondering what you can do in regards to how ICE is behaving in Minneapolis (or other places), here are a few things you can do:

• film them
• photograph them
• document what you saw, where you saw it and when you saw it

Don’t engage them in violence. It just escalates things. That written, if you are concerned about where things are heading and want to be completely prepared for the worst of scenarios, consider legally purchasing a fire arm and getting training with it. To be clear, if you purchase a fire arm, you should also purchase a safe. And I have a strong belief that if you own a fire arm, you might also want to purchase some body armor.

During these ICE rampages, I have often wondered where are the NRA folks who were worried about ” federal agents wearing Nazi bucket helmets and black storm trooper uniforms attacking law-abiding citizens.” Where are the people who bought guns because they were concerned about tyranny and masked government agents asking for their papers?

It’s important that reasonable Americans with strong, universal moral values own guns. Sigh. What a world we live in now.

I’ll close with how an Army Veteran who served for 35 years described the ICE agents in Minneapolis:

“weak, cowardly pussies”

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This piece from the New York Times was published this morning as I was working on this. It has a number of videos and goes into further detail about some of the incidents I cited.

I recommend checking out the work of Steve Vladeck. He is a lawyer who explains Supreme Court rulings.

I also recommend the work of Leighton Woodhouse, who has written about the erosion of Christian values in Trump’s America and the attack on uniform Civil Rights.

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As I was working on this, another US Citizen (a legal gun owner exercising his 2nd Amendment rights) was murdered by ICE agents in Minneapolis this morning. He was an ICU nurse with no history of any legal issues. He provided services for veterans.

In 2019, Andrew Walsh, a former graduate student of mine, researched and wrote Video Game Addiction 101 under my editorial guidance. I had become particularly interested in the topic after the World Health Organization created a new diagnosis in 2018 called Internet Gaming Disorder. Two of the points I made at the end of the book were that (1) I expected this problem to grow in depth and scale and (2) there was way more that we didn’t know than what we knew.

I supervised Ben Munck for 20 months when he was providing therapy to teenagers in Union County, NJ. During the course of our work, one of the most common presenting problems was excessive video gaming. I asked Ben to write an article about it. I edited and added to it, but the vast bulk of the work is his. He has done a nice job in expanding my knowledge about the problem and offering up some solutions.

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I frequently encounter adolescents who describe spending most evenings gaming online, with low engagement in school responsibilities, difficulty following through with appointments (medical visits, school meetings, therapy), and reduced interest in in-person peer interactions. Some report that their online gaming communities feel like their primary source of belonging, identity and social support; they may view professional gaming or streaming as a future plan, or even as an escape from anxiety, depression, loneliness or social stress.

This post is not intended to pathologize gaming. For many teens, gaming is a normal hobby, a way to connect socially, and a source of enjoyment. The clinical concern tends to arise when gaming becomes the primary coping tool and begins to displace key developmental tasks such as school engagement, sleep, healthy activity and in-person relationships.

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Two Examples (De-identified)

Julio was a high-school student who spent most evenings gaming online. He struggled to schedule or attend appointments (medical visits, school meetings, therapy) and described gaming as the only place he felt competent, calm and socially connected. Over time, his in-person social engagement became minimal. He began to view becoming a full-time gamer or streamer as his main plan for adulthood.

Mary described real-life social settings such as hallways, lunch periods, and group work as overwhelming. She reported past peer conflicts and difficulty trusting friendships. Gaming became her primary social world. She valued her online peers more than her in-person friendships and spoke frequently about “going pro,” competing and streaming as a path forward.

In both cases, the pattern looked similar: reduced school engagement, limited in-person social contact, and a growing belief that gaming success could solve deeper emotional and developmental challenges.

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Gaming Disorder

When clinicians talk about problematic gaming, the issue usually is not just lots of hours; it is functional impairment.

The World Health Organization includes Gaming Disorder in the ICD-11 under disorders due to addictive behaviors. The defining features include impaired control over gaming, increasing priority given to gaming over other activities, and continuation or escalation despite negative consequences. (who.int)

In other words, gaming becomes the central organizing force of daily life, even when it clearly harms functioning.

The American Psychiatric Association includes Internet Gaming Disorder (IGD) in DSM-5 Section III as a condition for further study. This is an important nuance; it remains a clinically useful framework when impairment is present. (psychiatry.org)

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How Realistic Is Going Pro?

It is not impossible. However, it is pretty unrealistic as a life plan, especially when it becomes a substitute for treating depression, anxiety, avoidance or social skill deficits.

A helpful analogy for teens and parents:

• Many people love basketball.
• Very few play professionally.
• Fewer still make stable long-term income from it.

The same is true for esports and streaming. A very small fraction of gamers earn consistent, sufficient income and the pathway typically requires:

• exceptional ability
• high-volume training
• competitive placement
• strong support and structure
• tolerance for instability, injury risk, burnout and shifting game popularity

This matters clinically because some teens do not just dream about gaming; they begin to use the dream to justify dropping school effort, avoiding social exposure and disengaging from real-world skill development.

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Mental Health, Burnout, and the Gaming as Escape Trap

Excessive gaming is associated in many studies with:

• depression
• anxiety
• lower life satisfaction
• social withdrawal
• sleep disruption
• difficulty managing daily responsibilities

A systematic review of the association between social media use/video gaming and mental health outcomes in youth noted that excessive gaming is associated with adverse mental health outcomes, while also emphasizing the complexity of directionality and contributing factors. (pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov)

This aligns with what clinicians regularly see: gaming becomes less about entertainment and more about avoidance and emotion regulation, especially when a teen lacks other coping strategies.

A central clinical question becomes:

Is gaming one part of life, or is it replacing life?

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Physical Health: Sedentary Lifestyle, Pain, and Sleep

Many heavy gamers (not only professionals) experience:

• disrupted sleep cycles
• reduced exercise and sunlight exposure
• poor posture and pain complaints
• fatigue and academic decline

Even without dramatic injury, chronic high-volume sitting plus late-night gaming can steadily reduce mood stability, motivation, and resilience.

Physical injuries are a real issue in esports. As orthopedic hand surgeon Dr. Levi Harrison explains, repetitive motion injuries often include wrist and hand problems: “Repetitive motion injuries come in many forms. There’s carpal tunnel syndrome, which compresses the median nerve in the wrist, causing pain and numbness.” (vice.com)

One professional player described how quickly pain can show up with high-volume play: “If I play for too long, I’ll get pain at the end of the day,” noting that too long meant eight hours. (cbsnews.com)

A related risk is that gaming culture can reward pushing through pain rather than responding early. As another pro player put it, “Of course, if we’re in the middle of something important, I’ll suck it up and keep going.” (vice.com)

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What Adults Should Watch For

These are the signs that gaming may be shifting from hobby to impairment:

• Grades falling or school avoidance increasing
• Increasing irritability when gaming is limited
• Sleep reversal or chronic sleep deprivation
• Loss of interest in prior hobbies or relationships
• Frequent missed appointments or poor follow-through
• Social withdrawal from in-person peers
• Escalation of time spent gaming despite consequences
• Gaming becomes primary method of calming down, coping or feeling okay

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When to Seek Professional Help

It is time to consider professional support when gaming-related impairment persists or worsens despite reasonable limits and support at home. Warning signs include:

• School failure, chronic academic decline or school refusal
• Severe sleep disruption or sleep reversal (staying up most of the night gaming)
• Significant mood symptoms such as depression, panic, persistent anxiety or increasing irritability
• Aggression, intimidation or unsafe behavior when gaming is restricted
• Withdrawal from nearly all in-person activity, relationships or family interaction
• Lying, stealing or other escalating behavior related to gaming access
• Increasing substance use, including stimulants or heavy caffeine intake
• Any self-harm behavior or suicidal thoughts

If a teen expresses suicidal ideation, threats of self-harm, or statements such as wanting to die, do not treat this as attention-seeking. Seek immediate assessment through emergency services, a crisis line, or a local emergency department.

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Practical Strategies for Parents and Professionals

1) Don’t argue about gaming; argue for balance and functioning

A common mistake is focusing on gaming as bad. That creates a power struggle and misses the clinical point. The focus should be:

• sleep
• school engagement
• physical health
• responsibilities
• relationships
• emotional coping capacity

2) Use a Family Media Plan

The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends individualized boundaries rather than one universal safe hours rule. It emphasizes structured limits and screen-free times such as meals, bedtime, and time with friends. (aap.org)

3) Screen for mental health and comorbidity

If impairment is present, don’t treat gaming in isolation. Consider screening for:

• depression
• anxiety disorders
• ADHD and executive functioning issues
• social anxiety
• trauma exposure
• substance use patterns

4) Therapy: treat the function, not just the behavior

CBT approaches can be useful, especially if you target:

• avoidance cycles
• emotion regulation deficits
• cognitive distortions (gaming is the only thing I’m good at)
• identity foreclosure (I’m a gamer, that’s all)
• behavioral activation and social exposure

5) Replace, not just restrict

Limiting gaming without adding structure often fails. A better plan is:

• limit plus replacement activity
• predictable schedule
• graduated exposure to real-life competence (workouts, clubs, volunteering, group activities)

6) Physical activity as a mental health intervention

This is not a nice extra. For many teens, consistent physical activity improves:

• sleep
• mood
• confidence
• social exposure
• stress tolerance

7) Build a dual-path future plan

A practical approach for teens who want esports:

• keep gaming as a hobby or structured goal
• continue school and career skill development
• treat “going pro” as an aspiration, not the only plan

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Final Thoughts

Gaming can be healthy recreation and real social connection. However, excessive gaming with functional impairment is associated with meaningful risks: emotional, behavioral, social, and physical.

Julio and Mary reflected a pattern commonly seen in adolescent work: gaming became an organizing identity and a coping strategy, while school engagement, sleep and in-person relationships eroded. The “going pro” fantasy can intensify this pattern when it becomes a justification for disengagement rather than a structured, balanced pursuit.

The healthier pathway is not demonizing gaming; it is restoring balance through structured limits, therapy when indicated, sleep stabilization, real-world activity and a realistic future plan that does not depend on an extremely rare outcome.

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Ben Munck was born and raised in NJ. He earned his MSW from Rutgers and has been providing therapy to teenagers for the last three years. When he isn’t working, he enjoys rock climbing, concerts and international travel.

It’s been just over six years since I wrote my last article on suicide. The first suicide piece discussed my family’s experience with suicide and the horrible question that so many survivors ask. The second entry described how someone’s suicide feels like a nuclear bomb went off in your life and the suicide domino theory. The third post went over how almost every survivor asks “why did they do it?” and how there is never a satisfactory answer. It also dives into another terrible yet common survivor’s thought, “how come I didn’t see it?”

So many new things happened in those six years: I returned from my Army deployment; COVID impacted everyone in the world; my play was published, I created a bi-weekly Veterans group and a bi-monthly therapist group; my father died in my arms in Belize; I hiked every 4000 foot mountain in the Northeast; I’ve watched in horror on the assault of American laws; I spent a fortune on a series of massive home repairs; my Uncle died; I experienced two loving romantic relationships; and the Dodgers won three World Series.

Throughout those positive and negative events, I continued to give speeches and conduct trainings on suicide for the US Army, the New York State Police, several dozen labor unions, a variety of treatment programs and over 20 conferences.

I often counsel and speak on grief. It’s a tough subject for almost everyone. People don’t know what to say, so they often say nothing. Planet pretend. Which is awful. The best thing one can do when someone dies is to write about them.

Some grief is a bit more complex, as there can be some regret, guilt, anger, confusion or unresolved issues sprinkled in. Suicide often causes brutal complex grief in the survivors. When my close friend took his life, I experienced a deep sadness, occasional fits of anger towards him, misplaced guilt and confusion about why he did it. The best way to deal with complex grief after suicide is a combination of individual therapy, writing, group therapy and getting out in the world.

When I rejoined the Army in 2014, I was told by a few Colonels that the Army was highly motivated to reduce the high suicide rates of soldiers and Veterans. I told them that the Army would have to address its culture around alcohol, reduce the stigma of seeing a counselor and increase the number of Army counselors tenfold. The Colonels were incredulous and I told them they we should change their wording from highly motivated to slightly motivated.

Over the years, families, the media, public officials, schools, universities and therapists have all asked about or offered plans on how to prevent suicide. There was a pretty good article in the New York Times this past November that discussed the problems that therapists face:

Suicide rates continue to rise; it is now the third leading cause of death worldwide among those 15 to 29. But despite decades of research into suicide prevention, it is still very difficult to know whether someone will try to die by suicide. The most common method of assessing suicidal risk involves asking patients directly if they plan to harm themselves. While this is an essential question, some clinicians, including Dr. Galynker, say it is inadequate for predicting imminent suicidal behavior. A better solution, they say, is to identify and treat the symptoms that lead to a suicidal state of mind: a condition they call suicide crisis syndrome, or S.C.S.

Dr. Galynker, the director of the Suicide Prevention Research Lab at Mount Sinai in New York City, has said that relying on mentally ill people to disclose suicidal intent is “absurd.” Some patients may not be cognizant of their own mental state, he said, while others are determined to die and don’t want to tell anyone.

Schools of social work, counseling and psychology seem to love pushing the Columbia Suicide Severity Rating Scale. I believe it can be helpful in determining the depth of someone’s despair and their immediate and intermediate risk of attempt. However, I do not think it is a good way to assess if someone is having thoughts of suicide.

In 2010, I did a bit of a dive into Victor Frankl and I’ve been asking my clients about their purpose and community ever since. I found those that lack one or the other to be much more likely to be anxious or depressed or to engage in process disorders (alcohol, drugs, gambling, sex, food, shopping, video games, social media). Those lacking both were more likely to have some passing thoughts of suicide.

And yet, plenty of people without purpose or community are not suicidal. A vast majority of them, in fact. They aren’t happy and are operating at a sub-optimal level but they aren’t thinking about killing themselves. They unexcitedly drudge on through life, often to the exasperation of those that love them. A good therapist (or athletic coach or mentor or religious figure or teacher or wise older relative) might nudge them towards purpose or suggest a few communities.

Back to the suicidal people. A history of trauma is a risk factor. I have trained my students, interns and supervisees to use the Adult Trauma Checklist and the Stressful Life Events Screening Questionnaire to help explore a client’s background [To be clear, I do not want nervous mothers or concerned friends or frightened lovers to be using these psychological screening tools on those they are worried about. If you fit into any of those categories in the previous sentence, get that person to a therapist who understands trauma. And if you are a therapist, get them to see someone who isn’t you].

So, if someone lacks purpose and community and has a history of trauma, that’s a red flag. One side effect of trauma though, is that it can negatively effect one’s sense of self and therefore, their purpose and community. It’s a real chicken and the egg conundrum.

Everything I’ve written so far has been prelude to this: I ask three questions that can help address suicidality a little more [Again, to be clear, while I am writing this for everyone, I don’t want lay people asking these questions and then washing their hands of the situation].

Who do you care about in this world?

The more people named, the better. The more intense the level of care, the better. Pets are great. I treated a guy back in 2005, who, when he was arrested, thought about killing himself but didn’t because he didn’t know who would take care of his dog.

What kind of things do you like to do?

Sports. Books. Movies. TV. Video games. Travel. Eating. Museums. Plays. Parties. Painting. Swimming. Hiking. Puzzles. Comics. Shakespeare. Civil War Battlefields. Yoga. Biking. Pottery. Croquet. Gardening. Fixing cars. The more activities they like, the better. The higher the intensity, the better. The more expertise, the better. If they do these things with other people, the better.

What would you like to do in the future?

Do they want to watch their team win a Super Bowl one day? Do they want to travel to the South Pacific? Do they want to see their kid graduate from high school? Are they waiting for the next Radiohead tour? The more stuff they are looking forward to, the better. If they have stuff they want to do that’s a ways off in the future, the better.

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When someone can’t name anyone they care about, don’t have any activities that they enjoy and have no future plans, that is an alarming situation. I’m not going to hospitalize them or ship them off to rehab just on those answers, but it helps me get a much better grasp on the situation.

These questions aren’t foolproof. My friend who took his life in 2018 had lots of people he cared about (and cared about him), had loads of things he enjoyed and had a bunch of future plans. And he took his life anyway, to everyone’s surprise. Was it unresolved trauma that bubbled up to the surface one morning and overwhelmed him? Was he determined to die for a few weeks and was cagey about it? We’ll never know. That’s the horror of suicide. We can improve our screenings and treatments, but we will never get to zero suicides. We can try though. And we should.