Unburdened by false humility, postmodern trauma activists claim to have understood for the first time what drives all of human suffering
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CATEGORY: CONTROL OF LANGUAGE AND IDEAS  Frank Anderson, MD, psychiatrist Source: ABC News Read time: 1.9 minutes plus brief video This Happened Two days after the attempted assassination of Donald Trump, a psychiatrist interviewed by ABC News warned viewers that you can develop PTSD by watching the video footage. Who Did This? Frank Anderson's personal website describes himself as an author, psychiatrist, therapist, speaker and “trauma specialist who’s spent the past three decades studying neuroscience and trauma treatment.” His website sells video trainings on Internal Family Systems theory—one 60-minute video for $50, three 60-minute videos for $149, and a more expensive six-video course. On the Internal Family Systems website, he is part of a team of presenters who sell twelve pre-recorded videos: This “$1,239.95 value [is] just $299.00 today.” He published a 2017 manual on Internal Family Systems therapy, a 2021 book on how to heal complex PTSD, and a 2024 autobiographical memoir of his childhood and adult struggles with shame and abuse. His memoir explained that he suffered childhood trauma when his parents took him to a psychiatrist for play therapy because they were concerned about his sexual orientation. His memoir was endorsed by Bessell van der Kolk and Gabor Maté. He appears frequently as a trauma expert on news shows and podcasts. The Claim In the adjacent 2-minute video clip, Dr. Anderson explained that individuals can get PTSD from watching the Trump assassination attempt or other violent videos. He further explained in a confusing change of topic his belief that there is a “sweet spot” of talking about violent video (not watching the video itself)—talking about the video several times is fine, but the harm occurs when talking about it six or ten times. Analysis
Those claims are wrong and debunked by evidence. There are no known case reports published of an individual developing PTSD from watching video violence toward a person they do not know personally. I have conducted or supervised the evaluations of over 500 trauma-exposed individuals in clinic work and five research studies on trauma, and have never encountered such a case. If Dr. Anderson knows of such a case, he ought to write it up: it would be the first one. The only known study of individuals exposed naturalistically to the same television footage of trauma and then assessed by interview involved children who witnessed the 1986 space shuttle Challenger explosion live in their classrooms [1]. None of the children had developed PTSD one year later. Nearly all other studies of viewing violent video were based on retrospective self-report questionnaires, methodologically flawed, and no subjects could be diagnosed with PTSD [2]. Anderson’s description of finding a sweet spot of talking about the events to prevent PTSD is misinformation. PTSD symptoms develop immediately following the moment of fear during trauma exposure in one hundred percent of cases. There is no evidence that talking about trauma events causes PTSD. His information about critical incident stress debriefing was mostly accurate but it’s relevant for decreasing severity of existing symptoms not causing or preventing them, and has nothing to do with watching violent videos. The individuals he described who watch or talk repeatedly about videos on purpose are the opposite of PTSD. In fact, individuals with PTSD typically avoid reminders about their experiences. REFERENCES [1] Terr LC, Bloch DA, Michel BA, Shi H, Reinhardt JA, Metayer S. Children's symptoms in the wake of Challenger: a field study of distant-traumatic effects and an outline of related conditions. American Journal of Psychiatry. 1999 Oct;156(10):1536-44. doi: 10.1176/ajp.156.10.1536. [2] Just one example of many such studies: Holman EA, Garfin DR, Lubens P, Silver RC (2020). Media Exposure to Collective Trauma, Mental Health, and Functioning: Does It Matter What You See? Clinical Psychological Science 2020, Vol. 8(1) 111–124, doi: 10.1177/2167702619858300 Like Trauma Dispatch? You can subscribe to our email notices of new posts on this page. Comments are closed.
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