🚨 Warning: This might not help (and that’s the point)

Published 10 days ago • 1 min read

A few years back, I spoke about a case that involved the death of a child. My child.
Before I began, I paused and said:

“Just a heads up - this next part includes a case that might be difficult for some of you to hear.”
Heads nodded. One person quietly stepped out.
It felt like the right thing to do.
But lately, I’ve been wondering - does it actually help?

💡 ONE IDEA WELL

Do warnings prepare… or do they prime?

I've given content warnings before.
Sometimes it feels like the right thing - the kind thing - to do.
Especially when a talk might touch on grief, trauma, or scenes from frontline medicine that some might find confronting.

But you can’t give a warning for everything.

A recent meta-analysis in Clinical Psychological Science (Bridgland et al., 2024) reviewed 17 studies on trigger warnings and found:

“Trigger warnings have small effects, if any, on affective responses, and may actually increase anxiety for some individuals.”

In other words: warnings don’t consistently help, and in some cases, they may hurt.

This invites a distinction:

A trigger warning assumes a specific response: This might be harmful to you.
A content warning simply informs: This is what’s coming.

The first is about protection. The second is about permission.

For me, content warnings are about respect - offering people a moment to prepare, pause, or step out.
But as a speaker, your job isn’t to wrap your audience in cotton wool. It’s to be clear, intentional, and human.

Because not everything needs a warning.
But everything needs care.

🧰 LESS MESS, MORE MESSAGE

If you’re going to give a content warning, make it clear, brief, and timely.

⚠️ “The next section includes discussion of child loss.”
Not: “This might be upsetting.” (Everything in medicine might be upsetting.)

And remember: you’re not fragile - and neither is your audience.
You’re both human.

🧭 ASK YOURSELF THIS

Am I naming this for them, or tiptoeing around the subject for me?

Speak soon,

Andy

📎 PS

Here’s the meta-analysis from Bridgland et al. (2024) that sparked this conversation. Worth a read — or at least a skim.

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