[Webinar For Specialists] “Mental Health Challenges in the Digital Urbanized Society” on Mon 20th Jan, 1100-1300(GMT)
2025.01.09
Professor Takahiro A. Kato, our lab’s director, will organize the World Psychiatric Association(WPA) Section on Urban Mental Health webinar for specialists in psychiatry.
Flyer_WPA Urban Mental Health 5th Webinar(20 Jan 2025)
[Date and time] Monday, January 20, 2025
0800-1000 Brazil-São Paulo (GMT-3)
1100-1300 GMT-UK
1200-1400 Central European Standard (GMT+1)
1200-1400 Switzerland-Geneva (GMT+1)
1900-2100 Singapore/Shanghai/Macao/Taiwan time (GMT+8)
2000-2200 Japan/Korea (GMT+9)
[Participants] Psychiatrists, Psychologists and Hikikomori Supporters
[Title]Mental Health Challenges in the Digital Urbanized Society: Internet Gaming Disorder, Modern-Type Depression, Personality Formation and Hikikomori
[Abstract]
With the spread of the Internet and smartphones, and the rise of virtual reality (VR) and the metaverse, the traditional lifestyle of direct face-to-face communication is undergoing a major transformation. Based on such digital transformation, we can now live without going out or meeting people in person, and today’s world shas become truly a digital urbanized society. The digital urban society is providing many benefits to people around the world, but it is also creating new mental health issues.
This symposium will highlight mental health issues in the digital urbanized society and discuss how to overcome them.
First, Professor Norman Sartorius, one of the long-time leaders in world psychiatry as a past president of WPA, will provide a historical perspective on the significance of these issues.
Professor Masaru Tateno, a child psychiatrist, will discuss the relationship between internet gaming disorder and pathological social withdrawal (hikikomori) in youth.
Professor Umberto Volpe, Co-Chair of the WPA Working Group on Digitalization in Mental Health and Care, will introduce a new type of depression that has emerged in the digital urbanized society.
Professor Darko Marčinko will introduce the trends in personality pathology, loneliness and depression in the Digital Urbanized Society.
Finally, Professor Takahiro A. Kato, who runs the world’s first hikikomori research clinic and Secretary of the WPA Section of Urban Mental Health, will introduce a dialectical treatment approach that dares to use digital tools such as VR and the Metaverse to support hikikomori in the digitally urbanized society.
We hope many participants will join our webinar.
