Comment by retsibsi
3 hours ago
"it does suggest that avoiding your triggers [...] provides no benefit"
This is the part I'm sceptical of. When I look this up, I mostly find articles like https://theconversation.com/proceed-with-caution-the-trouble... (and the underlying studies), which mainly address the question of whether reading a trigger warning and then consuming the potentially triggering content is better than just consuming the potentially triggering content without a warning.
(The article also mentions a finding that trigger warnings have "no meaningful effect on an individual's [...] avoidance of this content"; but I think that's entirely compatible with a world where most people consume the content regardless of the warning, some are more drawn to it because of the warning, and some (including the few who are truly vulnerable) avoid it because of the warning. The effect on those vulnerable few is what's most relevant here. The article does briefly mention "unhealthy avoidance behaviours", but in the context of one university's opinion and without supporting evidence.)
What's the best evidence against trigger warnings as a means of enabling traumatised people to make an informed decision on when (and whether) to confront their triggers?
> The article does briefly mention "unhealthy avoidance behaviours", but in the context of one university's opinion and without supporting evidence.)
There's not much additional context here because avoidant behavior is basically universally understood to be a bad thing when it comes to the long term treatment of PTSD (this is separate from immediately/short-term after the event - different situation there) - there's no real serious argument against this idea, so when avoidant behavior is discussed it doesn't require context on why that behavior is a bad thing, in the same way that a an article targeted at cardiologists isn't going to explain why poor ejection fraction is an issue - it's baseline knowledge for the target audience.
The results are mixed on whether it encourages avoidance - some studies like https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S00221... indicate that it does, others found no effect or negligible increases.
To be clear, I'm not definitively stating it causes avoidant behavior - I am saying that it might, which would be one of those 'worst case' scenarios.
Trauma groups have been part of the meta-analysis that indicate no real change in avoidance, and some have had the 'forbidden fruit' impact even in trauma groups, but it's in similar quantities as the ones that show an increase in avoidant behavior.
Fundamentally, trigger warnings just don't make a lot of sense to try and argue in favor of from a 'helping people with their PTSD' standpoint if you believe the science.
1) For them to have the effect you claim is desirable, they would need to avoid the content - but avoidant behavior is a negative when it comes to overcoming PTSD
2) The science largely indicates that it doesn't cause them to change their behavior at all in this manner - so the desired effect, it doesn't seem to do anything.
3) There's some evidence that it might increase avoidant behavior (science would call this bad!) and some evidence it might increase people exposure due to the 'forbidden fruit' effect (which would be bad from the supposed desired effect, and not necessarily good from the scientific standpoint - unnaturally being pushed towards something might also be negative vs. more 'natural' exposure, particularly when coupled with the upcoming point)
4) A variety of studies have shown that they increase anticipatory anxiety in people when they appear, which is of course a negative for anyone. I haven't been able to find any studies particularly engaging on this specific topic of anticipatory anxiety from trigger warnings + follow up exposure from the 'forbidden fruit' effect so this isn't something backed by science like the rest, but my gut instinct is that it would be more likely to be negative vs. something more organic. I could very well be wrong there.
I don't see any combination of piecing together these studies that could lead to a belief that trigger warnings provide value from a therapeutic standpoint.