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I PC'd this to @SamBBC, but I thought I would copy it here, because this is an interesting discussion for our community, I think.
Plus the bugger may never get back to me. It's a bit of a diatribe, really. :roflmao: No, but really, I'm more interested in hearing what others have to say about my attempted explanations than I am in knowing what the BBC thinks of my efforts. Plus, who knows, maybe they'll put me on the air, and then maybe I'll get taken out of context, but the public is welcome to see my actual, candid thoughts here if they bother to dig! :smug:
Hi Sam,
I am a big fan of the BBC as well as PRI/PRX/NPR... public media is a wonderful thing. I'd love to enlist as a BBC journalist after grad school, if you Brits consider Americans! :D
Re: your topic about media. This is sort of atrocious spin, don't you think? I expect better from the World News Service. The study is not about media causing post-traumatic stress disorder. It is about being traumatic and bringing about symptoms akin to those found in PTSD.
I don't know how long a clip you're producing for this, but I really recommend you do your research concerning the difference between trauma, trauma & stressor based disorders, and PTSD. Those are different subjects with a common thread (trauma and stress). It's like talking about cartels and tortillas. Sure, they're in Mexico, but there's a difference between a fish taco and a drug lord, y'know?
At the very least, from one media writer to another, I think you need to invite someone on who will delineate that difference. PTSD is a biological issue. You have actual physical changes in your neurology (as well as chemical changes, an affected nervous system, and otherwise shit that doesn't just "go away").
PTSD is also a very rare disorder, contrary to popular belief nowadays. Those exposed to qualifying (Criterion A) trauma really have quite a low chance of actually developing PTSD as a result.
A more interesting and maybe, to the general public, controversial--what's better in journalism than stirring a bubbling pot, yeah?--conversation to add into this whole mess is the fact that PTSD is (so far as I understand) the only disorder with very specific experiential criterion that qualifies a person for that disorder. Think of it more like Fetal Alcohol Syndrome than, say, schizophrenia. Schizophrenia is overwhelmingly genetic and can be "triggered" by an event, but you do not have to have a "triggering" event to have schizophrenia. To have fetal alcohol syndrome, you have to have been exposed to a certain level of alcohol while developing as a fetus. You can't have a totally sober gestating mother who produces offspring with FAS. It isn't possible. Similarly, you canot have PTSD without criterion A trauma. The criterion for PTSD is not a matter of debate any more than what brings on FAS.
If you were raped, in an abusive relationship, survivor of war, etc., you may not show signs of PTSD for years and years. Let's say you're a war veteran exposed to criterion A trauma. Then, one day, you're online, and you see a filmed public execution by ISIS (or whatever the BBC is calling it now--IS? "The self-professed Islamic State? You guys always switch it up!). BAM. Your PTSD is triggered, but you had that neurological change before. Just not the development of symptoms.
It's like someone with a family history of alcoholism who never had a problem, but they went on that one bender due to divorice and now they're a full-blown alcoholic. The potential for alcoholism was already in place, the genetic factors, addictive personality, etc. But the symptoms of alcoholism weren't there yet. Something then sets it off. That's a little bit like how it is with PTSD. Or, think early-onset dementia. It's hard to say when that begins. Does it begin when you just become "a little more forgetful in middle age"? Was that the reason you started tripping frequently? What about that time you started getting ready for work at 2am? But that dementia may go unrecognized until a year later, you move to a new city, and things get weird. One day, you look at your husband and call him dad. Did you spontaneously get full-blown dementia? No. Were the changes already well underway in your brain for a long time before? Totally. Did moving to a new city catalyze what was already occuring in your brain? Certainly.
Can viewing traumatic media set off PTSD that was dormant? Sure. Can traumatic media bring other trauma/stressor based disorders where no criterion A trauma ever existed? YES. Are those disorders PTSD, in all its chronic neurological glory? No. That is completely idiotic.
I am happy to speak on the radio. No problem. But you're not going to get a comment here from someone saying viewing media voluntarily will cause PTSD. The study doesn't even say that. It says it can bring on symptoms that kinda sorta look like the symptoms of PTSD... if you tilt your head just right and squint.
See what I mean?
Don't be That Guy who spins something to the detriment of millions of those who actually suffer from a neurological issue that is chronic, incurable, and produced by directly experienced horrors. You are participating on a site where people have been kidnapped and tortured, gang raped, stabbed dozens of times after being in years-long abuive relationships, prisoners of war, raped by parents and siblings. It's really disrespectful. I would be seriously alarmed if the BBC produced something positing such nonsense, especially based on a study that doesn't support such claims in any case.
I mean, who are you guys, the Daily Mail? ;)
-Simon
Plus the bugger may never get back to me. It's a bit of a diatribe, really. :roflmao: No, but really, I'm more interested in hearing what others have to say about my attempted explanations than I am in knowing what the BBC thinks of my efforts. Plus, who knows, maybe they'll put me on the air, and then maybe I'll get taken out of context, but the public is welcome to see my actual, candid thoughts here if they bother to dig! :smug:
Hi Sam,
I am a big fan of the BBC as well as PRI/PRX/NPR... public media is a wonderful thing. I'd love to enlist as a BBC journalist after grad school, if you Brits consider Americans! :D
Re: your topic about media. This is sort of atrocious spin, don't you think? I expect better from the World News Service. The study is not about media causing post-traumatic stress disorder. It is about being traumatic and bringing about symptoms akin to those found in PTSD.
I don't know how long a clip you're producing for this, but I really recommend you do your research concerning the difference between trauma, trauma & stressor based disorders, and PTSD. Those are different subjects with a common thread (trauma and stress). It's like talking about cartels and tortillas. Sure, they're in Mexico, but there's a difference between a fish taco and a drug lord, y'know?
At the very least, from one media writer to another, I think you need to invite someone on who will delineate that difference. PTSD is a biological issue. You have actual physical changes in your neurology (as well as chemical changes, an affected nervous system, and otherwise shit that doesn't just "go away").
PTSD is also a very rare disorder, contrary to popular belief nowadays. Those exposed to qualifying (Criterion A) trauma really have quite a low chance of actually developing PTSD as a result.
A more interesting and maybe, to the general public, controversial--what's better in journalism than stirring a bubbling pot, yeah?--conversation to add into this whole mess is the fact that PTSD is (so far as I understand) the only disorder with very specific experiential criterion that qualifies a person for that disorder. Think of it more like Fetal Alcohol Syndrome than, say, schizophrenia. Schizophrenia is overwhelmingly genetic and can be "triggered" by an event, but you do not have to have a "triggering" event to have schizophrenia. To have fetal alcohol syndrome, you have to have been exposed to a certain level of alcohol while developing as a fetus. You can't have a totally sober gestating mother who produces offspring with FAS. It isn't possible. Similarly, you canot have PTSD without criterion A trauma. The criterion for PTSD is not a matter of debate any more than what brings on FAS.
If you were raped, in an abusive relationship, survivor of war, etc., you may not show signs of PTSD for years and years. Let's say you're a war veteran exposed to criterion A trauma. Then, one day, you're online, and you see a filmed public execution by ISIS (or whatever the BBC is calling it now--IS? "The self-professed Islamic State? You guys always switch it up!). BAM. Your PTSD is triggered, but you had that neurological change before. Just not the development of symptoms.
It's like someone with a family history of alcoholism who never had a problem, but they went on that one bender due to divorice and now they're a full-blown alcoholic. The potential for alcoholism was already in place, the genetic factors, addictive personality, etc. But the symptoms of alcoholism weren't there yet. Something then sets it off. That's a little bit like how it is with PTSD. Or, think early-onset dementia. It's hard to say when that begins. Does it begin when you just become "a little more forgetful in middle age"? Was that the reason you started tripping frequently? What about that time you started getting ready for work at 2am? But that dementia may go unrecognized until a year later, you move to a new city, and things get weird. One day, you look at your husband and call him dad. Did you spontaneously get full-blown dementia? No. Were the changes already well underway in your brain for a long time before? Totally. Did moving to a new city catalyze what was already occuring in your brain? Certainly.
Can viewing traumatic media set off PTSD that was dormant? Sure. Can traumatic media bring other trauma/stressor based disorders where no criterion A trauma ever existed? YES. Are those disorders PTSD, in all its chronic neurological glory? No. That is completely idiotic.
I am happy to speak on the radio. No problem. But you're not going to get a comment here from someone saying viewing media voluntarily will cause PTSD. The study doesn't even say that. It says it can bring on symptoms that kinda sorta look like the symptoms of PTSD... if you tilt your head just right and squint.
See what I mean?
Don't be That Guy who spins something to the detriment of millions of those who actually suffer from a neurological issue that is chronic, incurable, and produced by directly experienced horrors. You are participating on a site where people have been kidnapped and tortured, gang raped, stabbed dozens of times after being in years-long abuive relationships, prisoners of war, raped by parents and siblings. It's really disrespectful. I would be seriously alarmed if the BBC produced something positing such nonsense, especially based on a study that doesn't support such claims in any case.
I mean, who are you guys, the Daily Mail? ;)
-Simon
