Left to Our Own Devices: Helping Clients Reclaim Their Attention
Explore how digital technology shapes attention, reward systems, and behavior—and how we can help clients reclaim their attention. This hands-on, experiential course combines evidence-based education with mindful, creative activities to help clinicians recognize problematic patterns of technology use and develop practical approaches to assessment, psychoeducation, and intervention. Come prepared to learn, play, and explore more intentional ways of engaging with technology.
3 Hours General Continuing Education Credits - ASWB Approved
Carin Channing, LCSW
Course Instructor
Live Class
Live Course
$70USD
3 hours of instruction + 15-minute break
Registration deadline: Dec 12, 2026, 10:00 AM (America/Chicago)
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Course Description
Digital technology is increasingly shaping the attention, behavior, and daily lives of our clients. How can we help?
This hands-on, experiential course explores how modern digital environments influence attention, reward systems, and behavior. Clinicians examine the attention economy, dopamine delivery, and design features that contribute to ongoing, often unconscious, technology use.
Through evidence-based education and mindful, creative activities, participants deepen their understanding of these concepts and explore practical, evidence-based strategies to help clients recognize and assess problematic patterns of technology use and develop greater agency in how they engage with technology.
Participants experience these approaches firsthand while exploring how to adapt them for clinical assessment, psychoeducation, and intervention.
Come prepared to learn and play while strengthening your ability to help clients build more intentional relationships with technology.
This is a full-participation course. We'll experience the concepts together so clinicians leave prepared to apply practical approaches in clinical practice.
Learning Objectives
After attending this course, participants will be able to...
- •Explain how fast and slower dopamine release influence clients’ technology use and behavior.
- •Identify at least two attention-economy design features that shape technology engagement.
- •Assess clients’ patterns of problematic technology use through structured reflection and a standardized assessment tool.
- •Demonstrate at least two mindful or creative interventions that increase clients’ awareness of their technology use.
- •Identify at least two evidence-based strategies to support clients in moving toward more intentional technology use.
Timed Agenda
- Creative & Mindful Foundations20 mins
- Dopamine Basics15 mins
- Unpacking Problematic Tech Use35 mins
- Interventions, Pt. 125 mins
- Break15 minute break
- The Attention Economy & Digital Design30 mins
- Interventions Pt. 240 mins
- Recap & Wrap Up Reflection15 mins
Total Duration: 3 hours of instruction + 15-minute break
ACE Approval Statement
"Left to Our Own Devices: Helping Client Reclaim Their Attention,” ASWB # 6793, is approved by the Association of Social Work Boards (ASWB) Approved Continuing Education (ACE) program to be offered by CEUs You Want to Take as an individual course. Regulatory boards are the final authority on courses accepted for continuing education credit. ACE course approval period: 11/10/26 - 11/10/28. Social workers completing this course receive 3 hours of General Continuing Education Credits.
If You Are Seeking CE Credit
Please confirm that we are certified for your licensure.
At this time, we are approved by ASWB.
How to Prepare for Class
This fully interactive class is hosted on Zoom. Come ready to participate with camera and microphone ready, as well as:
Your willingness to explore Notebook (or loose paper) Your favorite writing pen Some coloring tools (crayons, markers, etc.)
Content Level & Target Audience
- •Social workers, mental health counselors, and related healthcare professionals seeking continuing education.
Instructor
Carin Channing, LCSW
Carin Channing, LCSW, is a hands-on expert in rest and creativity. A therapist, author, and educator, Carin brings a distinctive blend of clinical experience and creative practice to her work. Her nurturing and transformative techniques have reached into therapy rooms, schoolrooms, prisons, airlines, architecture firms, state parks, the Grateful Dead community, and many other unexpected spaces. Carin is the grateful founder of CEUsYouWantToTake.com. She is the author of 365 Days of Doodling: Discovering the Joys of Being Creative Every Day (2015, Intentional Publishing) and Doodle Book Junior – 101 Creative Prompts for Kids (2016, Intentional Publishing). Carin shares her unique practices on the Crooked Lines: Creative Therapy channel on YouTube.