The recent military invasion of Ukraine threatens the life, liberty, physical and psychological well-being of people in Ukraine and surrounding nations.
At the International Consortium for Maladaptive Daydreaming Research, we stand in solidarity with the National Psychological Association of Ukraine and the Ukrainian people. We are gravely concerned about the immediate and long-term trauma and psychological impacts on innocent civilians. We added a solidarity badge to our website. Easter, Ramadan, and Passover coincide with significant violence and suffering worldwide this year. We hope that this holiday season heralds the promise of peace and the revival of self and spirit.
Spring is also reviving the maladaptive daydreaming field.
For example, we were delighted to learn about two recent professional lectures on MD by members of the ICMDR. One was a webinar for psychology students in
Turkey titled: “What is maladaptive daydreaming?” held by Clinical psychologist and researcher Buse Göçmen.
The second lecture, “Fantasizing, dreaming, living: On daydreaming and mental health,” was presented as a University of Haifa webinar by Dr. Oren Herscu. His study on the treatment of MD is currently under review.
Maladaptive Daydreaming Italia, led by Valeria Franco (president), is an Italian non-profit society dedicated to advancing MD awareness.
The association is active on social media, including LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. The organization also offers various activities to the public. For example, Vice President Maria Barone, a pedagogist, leads a group of parents to talk about helping children with MD. The organization also holds a moderated open and free weekly chatroom for all members.
What promises to strengthen our young field most is quality research. One such paper by Nirit Soffer-Dudek et al. was published in the Journal of Clinical Psychology. The study, conducted by graduate student Nitzan Theodore-Katz under the guidance of Eli Somer, identified a subgroup of patients diagnosed with ADHD who would benefit more from a diagnosis of maladaptive daydreaming. The original research, titled: “Could immersive daydreaming underlie a deficit in attention? The prevalence and characteristics of maladaptive daydreaming in individuals with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder,” can be viewed and downloaded as an open-access publication.
The findings of this study are generating extraordinary interest and have been reported in The Jerusalem Post
and on numerous ADHD and mental health Internet pages. Example: ADHD International, Neuroscience News, MedicalXpress, MSN (Microsoft Network), PressReview24, or the German language PressFrom website, to name just a few.
Maladaptive daydreaming continues to capture the attention of international professional forums and news media outlets. Below is an update.
· France. The French health news service Destination Santé featured a story on a particular form of immersive daydreaming called “reality shifting .”The article titled: “On social networks, these teenagers are in search of esotericism” (in French) describes a trendy mental activity that emerged abruptly following the flare-up of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 and seems to be practiced mainly by members of the post-millennial generation. Reality shifting was first described by Somer et al. in an open-access paper.
· The Netherlands. PsychoSociaal, a Dutch mental health platform with 16.000 subscribers, has published a column by Ankie Driessen titled: Maladaptive daydreaming: A relatively unknown concept requiring further study (in Dutch)
· Turkey. Our colleague, Prof. Dr. Barış Metin, has published a column in the Istanbul-based daily Milliyet (circulation 350,000 copies) titled “Excessive daydreaming ruins life: What is maladaptive daydreaming? (In Turkish).
· Italy. Cose Nostre is a monthly magazine published in Turin (Torino). Its latest edition published a story by Alessandra Banche titled: “Head in the clouds” (in Italian).
And finally, at the request of consumers, Eli Somer has posted a new 14-minute YouTube video in which he compares and contrasts dissociative identity disorder and maladaptive daydreaming.
So, until next time: Ramadan Karim, Happy Easter, and Happy Pesach to all!
