Game Over for mafias. Promoting legality and preventing addiction in high schools.

Game Over for mafias. Promoting legality and
preventing addiction in high schools.
6th International Conference on
Pathological Gambling and
Behavioural Addictions
WARSAW
19-20 Nov
2018
dr. Claudio Dalpiaz - Psychologist, Psychotherapist – Psy+ President – ProgettoOrthosArea South Coordinator – www.psyplus.org

Syndrome Model of Addictive Behaviours

ALEA (National Board and Bulletin Editorial Board)
Association for the study of gambling and risky behaviours
Progetto Orthos (Siena >430 subjects GD)
Study and Treatment of Behavioural Addictions
Centro Diurno Stella Polare (+Addictions, +diagnosis)
Addictions & Psychopathology Semi-Residential Unit
Psy+ Onlus (Gaming, Gambling, Internet, Sex)
Best Practices in Psychology, Psychotherapy and Cooperation
WARSAW
19-20 Nov
2018

WARSAW
19-20 Nov
2018
Lazio regional Observatory on security and legality
IPAB – Asilo Savoia
Public Aid and
Charity Institute
“GAME OVER”

WARSAW
19-20 Nov
2018
January 2018:
A slot / VLT room is confiscated
and closed. Owners of the venue
are arrested on charges of mafia
criminal association, usury,
money laundering.

WARSAW
19-20 Nov
2018
Ostia
Coastal area in the
Municipality of
Rome, 30 km from
the centre
100k inhabitants
Most economic
activities related to
bathing facilities

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19-20 Nov
2018
1930

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19-20 Nov
2018
2012

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19-20 Nov
2018
2018

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19-20 Nov
2018
Population density:
Rome = 2230 per sq. km
Ostia = 8100 per sq. km
100k inhabitants and only 1 library
only 36% of those entitled have
contributed to the 2016 elections
Despite an acceptable Social Disease Index (probably
balanced by quite high number of services for elders,
availability of pre-school facilities and large green area per
person) Ostia is still weighted by an over average
presence of criminality, a sensible lack of cultural offers
and paucity of quality jobs.

WARSAW
19-20 Nov
2018
Crime is
spreading
Assets confiscated
and assigned to
social purposes
In this area, several
organized clans extort
entrepreneurs, run illegal
activities and launder money
in legal business, attracting
young affiliated to whom
they grant their “welfare”

WARSAW
19-20 Nov
2018
Online Crime
to date, more
than 7k illegal
gambling sites
have been
obscured by
italian police in
recent years
Last week (14 nov):
• over 200 Soldiers involved
in seizure of:
• 23 foreign companies
• 15 italian companies
• 24 buildings
• 7 vehicles
• 33 national & international
gambling web sites

Debts management, crime, legal support
Gamblers are often involved in crimes
- Financial Bankruptcy
- Illegal Loans
- Robberies, thefts, frauds, ….
and always in desperate need for money
- Different debts scattered everywhere
- Upcoming deadlines of payment
- Divorces, children living separately, …
WARSAW
19-20 Nov
2018

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19-20 Nov
2018
Unemployment, undeclared work, and the
ubiquitous presence of clans determine a general
feeling of learned helplessness; a perfect humus
for the growth of addictions and for the
recruitment of new “crime soldiers”.
in this area

WARSAW
19-20 Nov
2018
IPAB – Asilo Savoia
Public Aid and
Charity Institute
decided to take over the
confiscated venue and
to convert its activity
for social purposes
Priority
to prevent addictions and to promote legality
among high school students in this area

WARSAW
19-20 Nov
2018
Istituto Comprensivo "Alessandro Magno"
Istituto Comprensivo Marco Ulpio Traiano
Istituto Comprensivo "W. A. Mozart"
IC Mario Calderini - Giuseppe Tuccimei
Istituto Comprensivo Giovanni Paolo II
Istituto Comprensivo Aristide Leonori
Istituto Comprensorio Alessandro Magno
IC Amendola Guttuso - succursale
Istituto Comprensivo “Via Mar Rosso”
Istituto d'Istruzione Superiore C. Urbani
Liceo Scientifico Statale Democrito
Liceo Scientifico Statale A. Labriola
High Schools target of Game Over prevention program

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19-20 Nov
2018
High Schools Target
Game Over

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19-20 Nov
2018
LIFETIME LAST YEAR

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19-20 Nov
2018

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2018
PERCEPTION OF ABILITY

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19-20 Nov
2018
Game Over: aims to become a living laboratory where
students may practice different types of games and and see
directly, accompanied by experts, the diversities of
experiences produced by games of
• Agon
• Mimicry
• Ilinx
• Alea

WARSAW
19-20 Nov
2018
STEP BY STEP:
1) Setup and Staff Training
2) MOU with High Schools and local stakeholders (Public Addiction Unit, Anti-Usury
Associations, Legality Promotion Organizations, …)
3) Introductory Meeting with High School Teachers and Directors
4) 1° meeting with students. Overview on Gambling & Crime, t0 assessment, creative play
5) 2° meeting: 4 different games + gambling “survivor” witnesses + feedback brainstorm &
survey (this meeting will take place in the slot / vlt room)
6) 3° meeting: debriefing + engagement in creative workshop that will be implemented in
following months (after school time) in the gambling venue
7) 4° meeting: after one year, a follow up will take place: consistency of awareness and
protective factors will be evaluated
The gambling venue will remain available to local associations and to informal
groups of teens who are wiling to share afterschool time in creative play

WARSAW
19-20 Nov
2018
a) how different games activate different emotional, cognitive
and behavioural responses;
b) awareness about fun, involvement, feeling of personal
ability, impulsivity, distress & eustress, … in different games
c) changes in mood and cognitions after games
Survey will be inspired by previous similar interventions implemented in Ravenna (Italy)
by Gianni Savron – ALEA National Board Member – and will be structured in order to
compare / cumulate data, especially about:
Assessment, monitoring and follow up

WARSAW
19-20 Nov
2018
1) Overview on Gambling & Crime + t0 assessment and a creative
(mimicry) play session
2) 3 different games + gambling “survivor” witnesses + feedback
& survey (this meeting will take place in the slot / vlt room)
3) debriefing + engagement in creative workshop that will be
implemented in following months (after school time) in the
gambling venue + satisfaction questionnaire
4) after one year, a follow up will take place: consistency of
awareness and protective factors will be evaluated
Meeting with students

WARSAW
19-20 Nov
2018
After a brief introductory description of the project students will
be assessed with sosg-ra + info about social context and personal
hobbies. Under evaluation the possibility to use Gambling Behavior Scale for
Adolescents (new ita tool, DSM5 related)
Overview on Gambling & Crime will be open to Q&A exploration
A session of creative play (MIMICRY style) will end the 1st meeting
1. Meeting with students (at school)

WARSAW
19-20 Nov
2018
3 different groups will turn on 3 different games
• ALEA (craps / slot guided experience)
• AGON (games with words / escape room)
• ILINX (VR experiences / “alcohol glasses” tasks)
Gambling abuse and addiction stories will be narrated
live by witnesses or by mean of docu-films
Feedback exchanges within the groups will then be followed by
data collection about mood and cognitions after games
2. Meeting with students (slot room)

WARSAW
19-20 Nov
2018
debriefing of previous experiences (after 2 weeks)
and
Engagement in creative workshops that will be implemented
during following months (after school time)
a “satisfaction questionnaire” will be collected in this session
• Comics
• Photography
• Journalism
• Musical Production

Creative Play
 no money involved
 competence, and possibly no alea
 strong idea of socialization / cooperation
 ancient traditions of games
 games that facilitate auto-observation in context
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19-20 Nov
2018

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19-20 Nov
2018
After 1 year the groups of students involved will be invited to
participate in a 2 hours meeting to share experiences and verify
if Game Over intervention has been consistent in promoting
awareness about gambling and crime and in strengthening
protective factors.

WARSAW
19-20 Nov
2018
Focus on psycho-social aspects
linked to protective factors
EGO – SUSTAINABILITY
LEARNED HELPLESSNESS
LOC & CAUSAL ATTRIBUTION

RICERCA – FOLLOW UP
Bio-Psycho-Social dimensions of vulnerability
"All happy families are
alike; each unhappy
family is unhappy in its
own way."
Lev Nikolaevic Tolstoj
Anna Karenina

RICERCA – FOLLOW UP
LEARNED HELPLESSNESS
Emotional, cognitive and motivational deficit

ALEXITHYMIA
Emotional analphabetism ?
“Yet to express such emotions, simple as they
were, the least word cost him a terrible effort.”
“Oh Doctor” he would exclaim, “how I’d like to
learn to express myself !” A. Camus,The Plague

Impulsivity
Alexithymia
Dissociation
Significantly correlates in first 140 subject
sample (Progetto Orthos) showing affective
dysregulation as the development ground for
dissociative states that help people mediate
unmanageable affective states
WARSAW
19-20 Nov
2018

Existential state in which, for a specific subject,
bio-psycho-social conditions are “good enough”,
“fairly balanced”, and consent to live
a-symptomatically, or at least non-pathologically
WARSAW
19-20 Nov
2018
where “EGO” (poetical licence) =
“contextualized living organism”

SYMPTOM= BIO-PSYCHO-SOCIAL unsustainability
• Biological vulnerability (acquired or primary)
• Psychological suffering
• Social “disadvantages”
people become symptomatic at the crossroad of
unbearable bio-psycho-social conditions
WARSAW
19-20 Nov
2018

A kind of (though problematic) balance
can be regained through a regression that
often is accompanied by symptomatic
expressions, quite commonly including
addiction
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19-20 Nov
2018

maladaptive strategy/ dysfunctional coping >>>
could end in a pathological addiction
When our bio-psycho-social resources are inadequate compared
to our or to environmental expectations and we take the road to
“doping-coping” …
addiction is close, because
“if it’s not an answer,
at least it make us forget the question”
(as goes a german saying about alcohol)
WARSAW
19-20 Nov
2018

As in every prayer (cfr.Turgenev), the thing we ask to a substance o
to our maladaptive behaviour is:
“My God, please change my life in sort that two + two
does not make four”
WARSAW
19-20 Nov
2018
maladaptive strategy/ dysfunctional coping >>>
could end in a pathological addiction
When our bio-psycho-social resources are inadequate compared
to our or to environmental expectations and we take the road to
“doping-coping” …

Everybody lives peculiar existential conditions
• Temperamental “kit” > risk factors for APP
• Environmental influences / unrepeatable experiences
• Constellation of values / family - relational schemas
• socio/economic/cultural setting
WARSAW
19-20 Nov
2018
Addiction: a relationship between a subject,
risk factors and a rewarding object / behaviour

Learned Helplessness
Seligman (1967, 1975, …)
Complex emotional, cognitive and motivational deficit, originating
from repeated expositions to uncontrollable negative events

Expected results are not linked anymore with acts or possible efforts;
the subject drawns into anhedonia and inactivity
Seligman, M.E.P. and Maier, S.F. (1967). Failure to escape traumatic shock. Journal of Experimental
Psychology, 74, 1-9 ||| Seligman, M.E.P. (1975). Helplessness: On depression, development and death.
San Francisco – W.H.Freeman
• promotes typical cognitive biases:
• illusion of control
• gambler’s fallacy (seeing patterns in random sequences)
• magical thinking
• erroneous beliefs
• irrational faith in one’s abilities (as natural counterpoint…)
Learned Helplessness
WARSAW
19-20 Nov
2018

Learned helplessness
Vs
Mastery
Until school age:
overestimation
of self
high
expectations
of success
high
frustration
tolerance
effort =
prowess
Successes are attributed to ability, failures to lack of commitment
or special difficulties of task.
Self-confidence, proactive behaviour, leadership
Successes are attributed to the commitment
or to easiness of task, failures to poor skills.
Anxiety facing obstacles, fatalism, anhedonia

From "learned helplessness" to "learned hopefullness"
45dr. Claudio Dalpiaz - Psychologist, Psychotherapist – Psy+ President – ProgettoOrthosArea South Coordinator – www.psyplus.org

re-own awareness of disturbing emotional & socio-relational issues
empowerment /re-owning self-efficacy trough step by step approach
from external help/ external influence (flimsy)
to self-help / internal locus of control (realistic – substantial)
re-own personal responsibility, relational needs awareness,
pleasure/unpleasure balance, possibility of social/responsible gaming and
acceptance of own “daimon” (Hillman)
Reinforce individual power to choose fostering competences &
knowledge but also active-citizenship political emancipation
From "learned helplessness" to "learned hopefullness"
WARSAW
19-20 Nov
2018

WARSAW
19-20 Nov
2018

Thank You All !
Claudio Dalpiaz
c.dalpiaz@psyplus.org
WARSAW
19-20 Nov
2018

Game Over for mafias. Promoting legality and preventing addiction in high schools.

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