Many times, people like to use psychological jargon in there every day thinking that they’re being intelligent and well thought out. However, much to my dismay many times people are mis-using very technical yet thinking that they’re using them correctly. I know this happens in medicine as well and every other domain in life I’m just speaking to psychology. Triggers is one of them.

I am happy when I hear people use the word “trigger” when it comes to psychological issues. For those paying real attention the term trigger is from cognitive therapy in its various forms. That being said it is important to utilize it carefully. Part of what a “trigger” is psychologically is that a trigger or triggers are unique to the individual. The problem I see in daily usage of the term (when people think they are being sophisticated intellectually) is people use a generalization off the concept of a trigger. The vast majority of the time unless being used by a professional and I do mean in psychology not medicine is that they are using it in more of a blanket fashion.

An example here is apropos. Suppose you know someone who excessively used a hardcore drug. Then when they are quitting it and going to therapy and such happen to pass by a park that is known for frequent drug use and dealing. You as in the person reading this may assume this is a trigger for them to go back to using. However, you need to if invoking the concept of trigger appropriately consider individual differences. Upon a thorough psychological discussion you may in fact, find out that that walking by that park may in fact keep them from using (counterintuitive to you). In their mind it may be a serious deterrent! However, the reality is that people for the most part I have found people will generalize a trigger from one person to the many or from their own trigger to others. In fact, this person as in the example drug user may actually find, arguments, sadness, elation or (counterintuitively) group therapy a trigger to use again. The whole point I am making is when invoking the psychological concept of a trigger is that you need to do (as a friend of mine says), a deep dive into the individual’s conceptualization of what are triggers to them uniquely. Don’t you as the onlooker, family member, co-worker, etc. make a generalization that seems appropriate. You always have to apply the concept of trigger to each individual. What you think would logically be a trigger may actually be to the person you are thinking of be the opposite of a trigger or deterrent in the above example.