Copperfield takes aim at trigger warnings following a recent NHS England primary care bulletin
In what must have been a desperate attempt to get itself read, a recent NHS England primary care bulletin contained a TRIGGER WARNING (6 Feb, issue 326, check your junk folder).
I’m going to be honest here, even if it makes me sound fossilised. Whenever I see a TRIGGER WARNING I come out in hives. In fact, the only TRIGGER WARNING I want to see is the one warning me that a TRIGGER WARNING is coming.
Yes, I do understand we’re more in touch with our own feelings these days and that perfect mental health is seen as a basic human right, yada yada. But just as the old stiff-upper-lip approach wasn’t always helpful, nor is the complete pendulum swing to encouraging emotional incontinence. There must be a sane middle ground somewhere between these two extremes.
If there is, the primary care bulletin hasn’t found it. Its TRIGGER WARNING warns that it includes content on sexual assault and abuse which could cause distress and may be triggering to some – simply because of a mention that NHS England plans to mark Sexual Abuse and Sexual Violence Awareness week with a campaign to raise awareness of sexual assault referral centres. That’s it.
I won’t patronise you by explaining that I’m not mocking a serious subject, but I will say all this triggered in me was bewilderment. This is a bulletin for healthcare professionals, right? Whatever trauma we, or our patients, may or may not have suffered in the past, do they seriously think we’ll dissolve at its very mention? Don’t they realise that, in the NHS, we regularly encounter death, grief, frustration, morbidity, anger and violence? How do they think we get through the working day?
Not that the psychologization of normality is restricted to NHS bulletins or TRIGGER WARNINGS. Take the situation where we GPs get frustrated about the NHS’ inability to manage our patients properly. Various bodies have suggested this puts us at risk of ‘moral injury’, a phrase just begging for inclusion in the next iteration of the DSM.
Another view (mine) is that this is not really an injury, moral or otherwise, but amounts to proportional professional pissed-offness, and the only one genuinely suffering here is the patient. Besides, you can’t fire off the requisite angry phone calls/stroppy letters to secondary care if you go all bleary-eyed hand-wringer.
If we continue to dish out emotive labels and TRIGGER WARNINGS so readily, then soon, those of us unmoved will be left wondering if we’re the ones with the problem. Honestly, I could find a TATT presentation quite triggering, but I just have to suck it up. As we GPs all do, with everything, every day. Which is why this nonsense serves only to remind us that politicians and the public have no idea what GPs cope with uncomplainingly, throughout our careers.
Which, admittedly, sounds like I’ve been triggered. If you too, have been affected by the issues brought up in this blog, well, you know, whatever.
Dr Tony Copperfield is a GP in Essex
You should sue NHSE for failing to provide a trigger warning before what your second patient said to you this morning. I have no idea what they said, but I am sure it contained at least one thing that should have been preceeded by a trigger warning for emotional distress!
Then again, should have trigger warnings for all NHSE bulletins: exercise caution if easily distressed. Might make you stick needles in your eyes then run headlong into the surgery door.
And perhaps one for your column: the following will be funny and may cause belly laughs. Not suitable for agelasts, goose-steppers and NHSE managers.
Goodness. I’ve just realised how many triggering posters are in our waiting room, with not a single trigger warning to be seen. Will CQC be cracking down on this negligent approach to triggering information?
I’m spiralling !