Slightly OT re trigger warnings, but Richard McNally is on one particular side of a very active debate within trauma-focused psychology, especially around memor

Slightly OT re trigger warnings, but Richard McNally is on one particular side of a very active debate within trauma-focused psychology, especially around memory repression. "Remembering Trauma" makes some very large conclusions that are by no means accepted widely. Not that he's a demagogue, but I think there's not really a full accepted understanding of how memory works or doesn't work on traumatized people's brains. A large segment of clinicians absolutely do work off the idea that memories are repressed, though not in the "amnesia" sense, but rather more as something pushed deep down, or instinctively avoided and less accessible. > The perverse consequence of trigger warnings, then, may be to harm the people they are intended to protect. Personal opinion as someone who's dealt with trauma - a trigger warning reminds me of trauma in general, but its absolutely better than entering into say a piece of fiction with a prominent traumatic scene I'd identify with, with no warning. One can make me feel slightly worse, one can put me in a full on flashback. OTOH, there's not really a reasonable line that's been developed yet as to what deserves TWs and what doesn't, in which contexts. If you allow for it in all situations where someone could possibly benefit from it then you're not really free to do very much. In the context of say a trauma forum though it makes much more sense to try to tag as much as you can. Finally this stuff isn't new. We have the MPAA making ratings explicitly around movies about the themes involved. Broadcast media isn't allowed to curse because a lot of the audience can't handle it. TV News has said "Warning, this may be tough to watch" for decades.