Table 1 STICA Treatment phases and strategies
Treatment phase | Key interventions |
|---|---|
Early phase | Patient education on mechanisms and effects of IA/CA (for example learning theories, development and consequences of IA/CA, vicious cycles of addiction, and so on) |
Promotion of social communication and bonding in the group and individual setting | |
Middle phase | Identification of the triggers of dysfunctional internet use (for example emotional states, maladaptive cognitions, daily hassles, and so on) by keeping diaries |
Functional analysis of the addictive behavior | |
Enabling functional internet use by appropriate problem-solving strategies | |
Assisting the establishment of a social network in real life | |
Building alternative activities | |
Self-monitoring to reduce procrastination tendencies | |
Promotion of social communication | |
Exposition training (confronting and deleting access to critical applications, for example the self-created avatar) | |
Skill training (for example coping with stress and problems, social skills, building alternative activities, and so on) | |
Promotion of functional computer and internet use | |
Termination and relapse prevention | Review of transfer of treatment tools to daily life |
Functional computer/internet use | |
Elaboration of tools preventing a relapse |