Dougal Sutherland: clinical psychologist agrees that trigger warnings are overused

'Trigger warnings' on sensitive content have been thrust into the spotlight after Hollywood actor Matt Smith criticised their use. 

The House of the Dragon star claimed giving viewers 'trigger warnings' has left TV shows 'dumbed-down'.

Clinical psychologist Dougal Sutherland says these warnings aren't particularly useful - and can create problems in their own right.

"What they do do is they increase people's anxiety in advance of something coming up, and that people don't end up avoiding looking up at or watching the thing you're supposed to be not looking at."

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Now Matt Smith. You might know this guy's name. He's
the actor from the House of the Dragon. He's played
Prince Philip in one of the Crown Seasons. He reckons
we're over using trigger warnings in films and TV shows
to the point where modern audiences have become completely reliant
on them, and he reckons warnings have left shows dumbed down,
and we're telling people to be scared before they've even
watched something. Clinical psychologist Google sutherlanders with us on this

(00:20):
a Google.

Speaker 2 (00:22):
Hey, how's it going?

Speaker 1 (00:23):
I'm very well, thank you. What do you reckon? Are
we overdoing or are these things useful?

Speaker 2 (00:28):
Well? That the research so far suggests that they aren't
particularly useful at all. That what they do do is
they increase people's anxiety in advance of something coming up,
and that people don't end up avoiding looking at or
watching the thing that you're supposed to be not looking

(00:49):
at or watching. So the research is saying that actually
they don't seem to be doing a particularly good job
of what we think that they should be doing.

Speaker 1 (00:58):
Is this part of the modern nods where we just
don't want to upset anyone or is there actually good
clinical grounding for putting something like this up there like it.
Are they basing it in some some good intention?

Speaker 2 (01:09):
Yeah, Look, I think the intention is good. We know
that if you have suffered a serious trauma, some sort
of abuse or attack or post traumatic stress or sort
or something like that, that if you get reminded of
that again, it can re trigger off that whole disorder
or all those symptoms again. And so there's a good

(01:30):
intention behind not doing that. But I think what's happened
is that that that the idea about triggering that off
has slowly slipped and expanded to cover off a whole
lot of things, including now things that make us mildly
upset or irritated. And look, that might be good intentions
as well, if we did follow the warnings and avoid them,

(01:52):
or or they did help us to feel better, But
the research shows that that doesn't actually work anyway. So
it's got good intentions, but I'm not sure that it's
living up to its good intentions. Right.

Speaker 1 (02:03):
Hey, have you ever watched any films when all TV
shows with the stuff, you know, the trigger warnings?

Speaker 2 (02:09):
Have I watched them with a trigger warning? Yeah?

Speaker 1 (02:11):
Have you seen the trigger warnings?

Speaker 2 (02:13):
Yeah? Yeah, yeah, yeah, Yeah, I just generally disregard them. Actually,
there's an interesting there's an interesting effect that they find.
It's called the Pandora effect or the forbidden fruit effect
that often when you put a trigger warning on people
tend to watch it even more because they go, oh,
there might be something juicy in here, and we better
watch it. So it sometimes has the reverse effect that
what you want it to do.

Speaker 1 (02:33):
Interesting stuff, Google, thanks for talking us through. Appreciative man.
That's Google Sutherland Clinical Psychologists. For more from Heather Duplicy
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