Thorough study of many fields is going to involve contact with uncomfortable material. Without that contact and exposure it's impossible to fully become immersed and study in depth. That is to say if you have PTSD and you study humanities you must go in to that program knowing you will be exposed to material that makes you uncomfortable. Individual content need not be labeled as potentially triggering.

I'll also add that people can get PTSD from any bad experience. It's pointless to add trigger warnings because you'd have to add them to everything. Hit by a car? Now you need trigger warnings on anything about car accidents. Parent died from diabetes? Willy Wonka now needs a trigger warning. Victim of a robbery...

We've already had prototypical trigger warnings in that shows with flashing lights carry epilepsy warnings. We accept that certain things can trigger nasty responses in people, therefore it's better to add a brief disclaimer so that people with said issues can avoid it.

That said, in any sort of discussion people usually preface links to videos with violent and disturbing content with some sort of warning. If I for example, decided to drop a video of something gruesome without context I would rightfully be lambasted for doing so.

Also, your attempt at downplaying the seriousness of PTSD is really not needed. You're essentially saying that anything can cause PTSD, therefore PTSD is worthless to worry about.

Sure, but we've ended up in a place where lawyers can't be taught about rape, or sociologists can't be taught about suicide.

https://www.legalcheek.com/2017/12/almost-half-of-law-studen...

https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/trouble-teaching-ra...

> One teacher I know was recently asked by a student not to use the word “violate” in class—as in “Does this conduct violate the law?”—because the word was triggering. Some students have even suggested that rape law should not be taught because of its potential to cause distress.

https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsocialsciences/2015/09/04/dr...

> AQA’s decision to ban references of suicide from textbooks has been met with criticism from the sociology community. Anaïs Duong-Pedica argues it is naïve to assume that young people will never have encountered the idea of suicide prior to their A-levels. Refusing to engage with suicide in the classroom also marginalises students’ own experiences of suicide. Rather, measures should be put in place with and for students to accommodate the teaching and learning of sensitive topics such as suicide.

---

> If I for example, decided to drop a video of something gruesome without context I would rightfully be lambasted for doing so.

I completely agree with this use of trigger warnings, if they're given in enough time for students to actually do anything with it.

But even then, a better option would be for the person to get treatment for their PTSD, and not engage in anxiety driven safety behaviours which usually make the problem worse not better, even if they feel comforting in the short term.

The fact that some people exaggerate issues that are sub-clinical into a self-diagnosis doesn't really come into play. The point is determining if trigger warnings are effective and useful for people that do in fact have a clinical issue.

And there's really no need to politicize this. It adds nothing to the conversation and only served to alienate people who might otherwise consider what you say seriously.

Oh but that’s my point, that it’s almost entirely a political issue, not a psychological one. Trigger warnings are used to strengthen victimhood culture, not to shield people from suffering.

As to their effectiveness, unless everything has trigger warnings it’s not going to do much difference, people will still be exposed to the things that traumatise them. I’m not sure that’s a bad thing, you need to get used to living in the world sooner or later.

If you're saying trigger warnings are mostly political (I think ideological is a better label but whichever) that is a different topic. The issue in debate here is wether or not, regardless of any social or political baggage, they have some actual utility. In the case of PTSD or depression w/ suicidal ideation, I think they do. Suicide is, in fact "contagious" in it's way. Letting someone make an informed decision about such content can literally save their life. Similarly, PTSD isn't something really helped by repeated exposure to a "trigger". What you propose in terms exposure to get used to the world is the psychological method known as flooding. It does help with phobias, but generally is not effective treatment for PTSD. Part of the treatment path includes minimizing exposure to known stressors while other treaments have time to take effect.

In short, your ideas here appear to be shaped by your politics, and they simply doesn't match up to mental health best practices for effective treatment.

Most of the "Trigger" warnings I've seen, seem to be there for the benefit of the writer so that they may signal their proper and approved virtue status to potential readers.

Sometimes I see trigger warnings made tongue-in-cheek, as a kind of joke.

Also, it's gone beyond it's originally intended purposed and begun to be used with any sort of "extreme" content, e.g., horror/gore/jump scare videos etc, where it serves as an inducement to watching, not a warning against it.

But aside from these, in the original intended context, I don't really see the behavior you mention. Maybe it's the case that a small minority are the caricatured smug virtue signaler you portray, but if so you are painting their entire use with the brush of an extreme minority of an example.

Visit a depression support group forum. You'll see just about any post with suicide content with a trigger warning. Why? Because while it's a common issue among the depressed, suicide is also contagious in a way. People already at some risk are much more likely to attempt or succeed when exposed to content of that nature. It's not uncommon for there to be a slight uptick in suicides after a public figure commits suicide. The second of two suicides within a week from survivors of the Parkland shooting may very well have been influenced in this way, as might the third suicide of parent of a Sandy Hook victim that committed suicide a few days after that.