All day trapped on the web, in chat and social networks, like Facebook and Msn. But in Rome, at the Policlinico Gemelli hospital, a new centre for the treatment of internet addiction has been set up, even for pathological cases that cause obsessive behaviour towards the web.

The department dedicated to the “Internet Addiction disorder”, will start working today, within the psychiatric Day Hospital of the Gemelli Hospital, in which other addictions are also treated, for example against gambling, alcohol and drugs. “The pathological use of the internet causes physical symptoms very similar to the ones drug addicts have.

We will help our patients with this disorder, that for many, during the abstinence from the web, turns in anxiety, depression and fear of losing control of what is happening on the internet”, said psychiatrist Federico Tonioni, coordinator of the association “La Promessa” (the promise), that will take part in the activity. The department will be open from Monday to Friday, from 9.30 to 1.30 a.m. and the “Internet addiction” protocol will consist of three steps: an initial talk, other meetings to understand the underlying psychopathology, possibly treated with medication, and the introduction in rehabilitation groups. A therapy to return to reality and come out of the virtual world, sometimes “toxic”. Translated by Chiara Nunnari from John Milton Institute