Exposure therapy can be effective, but under controlled circumstances as supervised by a professional and prepared for by the patient.

Uncontrolled exposure is more likely to worsen the anxiety than extinguish it.

I feel like the idea the parent was suggesting is that avoidance behaviour itself can increase anxiety about the topic, and that encouraging it may end up being more harmful than the risk of uncontrolled exposure, especially when the result of such exposure is not necessarily negative.

Classrooms aren't treatment centers. Regardless, your point is a much fairer one to raise than the "intellectual rigor" argument the University is making.

This argument is absurd and yet I see it often enough that I assume it is a standard political talking point.

I mean, are you really arguing that the clinical approach to trauma is to surprise the patient with the topic in the middle of important everyday tasks?

Obviously, trigger warning provide a useful tool for people to manage their own exposure to these panic attacks. If this was not the case then no-one would ever suffer from PTSD as it would be instantly self-healing!

You glossed over the first sentence:

> Avoidance in the form of 'trigger warnings' may actually worsen the underlying problem for people with PTSD because avoidance can strengthen the underlying fear.

The argument is that active avoidance is bad because it makes the ensuing panic attacks worse when they do happen and makes it harder for exposure therapy to work. Your post is addressing a strawman.

A trigger warning is not avoidance. No one is advocating avoidance, that is the straw man here.

I repeat myself: "Obviously, trigger warnings provide a useful tool for people to manage their own exposure to these panic attacks."

This allows for simple acts such as taking anti-anxiety medication beforehand or sitting at the end of a row to allow you to leave a lecture unobtrusively if you need to.

It's not your right to attempt to "treat" someone of a disorder as someone who isn't their doctor.