Unplug to Connect

Session Description: This presentation explores how increased reliance on technology, particularly gaming and gambling, can shape communication patterns and interfere with real-world connection. Using an attachment-style model, presenters will examine how problematic gaming and gambling behaviors may function to reduce vulnerability and manage distress, while also limiting opportunities to develop and maintain healthy relational bonds.

Participants will learn practical, attachment-informed clinical strategies to assess how attachment needs and relational patterns show up in treatment for gaming and gambling concerns. The session will introduce adaptable tools and interventions that support movement toward secure connection, such as structured assessment questions to identify attachment-related triggers, techniques for strengthening emotional regulation and tolerance of closeness, and conversation frameworks that support healthy boundary-setting and reconnection with supportive others.

A brief case example will illustrate how attachment patterns can maintain technology-driven avoidance and how targeted interventions can increase confidence in building real-world relationships. Attendees will leave prepared to integrate attachment-informed approaches into treatment planning and to identify practical indicators of progress toward stronger connection.