Dr Matthew Shorrock's story

As a teenager, and especially as a young man, when the internet truly began to pervade every quarter of our domestic and professional lives, I began to notice an obsession developing. I would find myself spending countless hours ‘surfing the net’, and quite literally losing some sleep in the process. I considered myself high functioning, emotionally intelligent, and professional, yet I felt the internet, or “God in a box”, was somehow able to entrance me for inordinate periods of time. Its properties were potent, and powerful enough to seduce me away from spending time with my loved ones, a past-time I had previously cherished. Although the internet was undoubtedly a helpful resource to me most of the time, there were the untold hours where I was left feeling utterly depleted and ill-nourished.

At the time, I was already an experienced counsellor, and had decided to train as a psychotherapist. Several years of intensive therapy happened to be a mandatory component of the robust training I was to receive as a transactional analyst psychotherapist. I achieved many great things throughout this therapy, and the successful depletion of my own addictive process was just one.