In some cases, these episodes can actually bypass a sufferer’s logical thinking and lead them to plans of suicide. A person can get detached from reality and display emotional and physical behaviour like they are reliving the event.” In a flashback, somebody will feel like the trauma is happening again.
“These triggers, or ‘trauma cues’, can cause fear or anxiety or flashback episodes. It is any stimulus that transports a PTSD sufferer back to the scene of their trauma,” explains Professor Metin Basoglu, former head of Trauma studies at King’s College London, founder of the Istanbul Center for Behavior Research and Therapy and renowned authority on mental health. “Being triggered is to remind somebody of a traumatic event. And it’s a word, which, just like ‘trauma’, has become much more colloquial than psychologists intended. Rather than just causing negative emotions, getting ‘triggered’ is a concept that first emerged when treating post-traumatic stress disorder in the 1970s. Probably not what most of Twitter thinks. Why isn’t everyone on the same page? Well, to answer to that question we first have to tackle another first… What exactly does the ‘trigger’ in trigger warning mean? Although a number of psychologists who treat trauma victims are in support of trigger warnings, others aren’t just sceptical of how effective they can be, but also argue that these messages could actually harm more than help. Some commentators have shrugged off the concerns for trauma victims with notions like “life doesn’t have trigger warnings”, while others point to the significant number of vulnerable viewers these cautions could aid.Īnd the logic from the latter seems simple: surely it’s better to warn the millions of sexual assault victims (an estimated 3.4 million women and 631,000 men in the UK), those with suicidal thoughts (about 7-8 per cent of young people) and victims of serious violence ( 1.7 per cent of all adults) that troubling viewing lies ahead?
These warnings are supposed to target those who have experienced the trauma portrayed on screen – the people most likely to be ‘triggered’ – and deter them from watching.
#LAYERS OF FEAR TRIGGER WARNINGS TV#
They’re not built for the benefit of parents watching TV with kids up past their bedtime. They’re not just informing audiences of troubling scenes to manage their expectations. The warning that appears before select episodes of 13 Reason WhyĪnd it’s important to point out these aren’t your usual pre-show advisories. Entire blogs are dedicated solely to spotting ‘triggering’ content and there’s even Feerless, an app that adds an extra layer of trigger warnings to your Netflix. Streams of tweets are now highlighting potential 'triggers' for behaviour such as self-harm and suicide attempts, or for reliving traumatic experiences, in shows from Tiger King to Jeffrey Epstein : Filthy Rich. Not only have broadcasters introduced ‘the following may not be suitable’ warnings after a backlash from certain sectors of their audiences – 13 Reasons Why being the prime example here – but viewers themselves are flagging troubling scenes for others. In particular, the rising demand for shows to embrace a special safeguard for viewers: the trigger warning. Although most viewers aren’t shocked by what’s on the box, the clamour to protect audiences has never been louder. It’s the same story with sexual content: 15 years ago, 44 per cent of people thought there was too much nudity, now it's only 33 per cent. And while in 2003 more than half of Brits thought there was “too much” violence on TV, today that's shrunk to one in three.
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