Trigger Warning

News flash!

Trigger warnings are not helpful and might even be

harmful.

According to research (here’s one study, and here’s another), letting students know ahead of time that they will be seeing or reading disturbing material does not change their reaction to the material. In other words, trigger warnings do not serve to protect anybody.

Perhaps more interestingly — and importantly? — the same studies suggested that, for students who have been traumatized and/or who experience post-traumatic stress responses, trigger warnings might even deepen their trauma by “countertherapeutically reinforc[ing] survivors’ view of their trauma as central to their identity.” (That quote is from the abstract of one of the articles).

That is, focusing students on the possibility that they will be traumatized reminds them that they have been traumatized.

What to do, then, with

potentially traumatizing material?

First, I’d say, is ask yourself why students need to read or view it. If you can identify a really good purpose for engaging with potentially traumatizing material, then give THAT to students.

Give them a

purpose

rather than a warning.

And then (second) give them a forum for metabolizing what they have read or seen. Where that purpose makes intellectual and emotional sense. Where any re-traumatization gets subsumed under a sense of agency and control. (Because trauma is all about loss or lack of control.) Where the content gets integrated into increased knowledge and useful intellectual skills that can make students feel more powerful.

Where students can work together safely to take what they need and

poop out

the rest.

Goes without saying that, if you can’t come up with a good pedagogical purpose for having students engage with potentially traumatizing material, and if you can’t make that material academically nutritious for students, dump it.

Third, bring in students’ bodies. As trauma guru Bessel van der Kolk claims, trauma lives in the body. So the best antidotes to trauma are physical movements. Like tapping. (Which apparently resets the activated body by alternately stimulating the two sides of the brain.) Like yoga. Like moving away, closing the eyes, and self-regulating through breathing.

So, for example: “Here’s an experiment,” you could say. “If you feel yourself getting triggered, alternate tapping your knees. Left hand on left knee. Right hand on right knee. Back and forth, giving your brain some exercise. Practice it now so you know how to help yourself if you need it.”

Give them

empowerment

rather than a warning.

I mean, teachers are not therapists, and trauma is not something teachers can cure in the classroom. But it feels important to mention that trigger warnings are simply not enough.