The Irrational and Holistically Meaningful Nature of Triggers

I recently spoke to a friend on the phone, who lives about thirty five miles from me, and my other friend Luke, and who says he can’t see us lately, because of his mental health problem. He had said to me before, in a previous phone conversation, that he is avoiding drinking hot drinks, and hot food, because he believes that the heat from them, is affecting and damaging his brain. When he avoids hot drink and foods he feels fine, and so I told him to do what works for him, and to do what he wants to do.

I asked this friend what symptoms he gets, when he is drinking hot drinks and eats hot food, and he said that he felt less alive, and basically that he felt more empty. I asked him if he felt empty of emotion, or energy, and he said he felt empty of memory, and confirmed to me that his memory was going away. I said to him, that this could be due to the fact, that he was repressing painful or complex memories, which most people do, and which is in some ways necessary for staying sane, and survival. Some exploration and catharsis of bad memories is good, but self-repression isn’t all bad, and can also be very useful; and helpful.

After I said, that I didn’t really want to label him, I then suggested that he might have a form of OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder), in terms of the avoidance behaviour (people with OCD repeat or avoid harmless things, or they fear bad things will happen to themselves or their loved ones, if they don’t avoid the triggers), but he said it wasn’t a compulsion, as he has stopped drinking hot tea and hot food altogether.

I explained to this friend that, I wasn’t patronising him, before on the phone, when I said that his theory about hot drinks and food, was as good as any other theory, because I didn’t want to say it was a delusion, and because I believed that there was much more involved in it.

I explained to my friend that there are such things as triggers - experiences or events - which can bring back bad, painful, or traumatic memories. In his case though, the trigger of hot drinks and food, repress his memory, and therefore doesn’t flood, or cathartically release it.

However, I felt it was necessary to point out to him, that contrary to the psychotherapeutic view, that triggers are linked to bad, painful, or traumatic memory - triggers - can be completely irrational, and have no causal meaning to them. When I was very mentally unwell in 2000, before I stayed in psychiatric hospital for three weeks, I thought that there was something implanted in my computer and television, which was firing radiation at me, and destroying my brain. There is no psychotherapeutic link to this trigger for me, because I only have happy memories of watching TV, and using my computer, although it could be argued that those things had stopped me from socialising face-to-face, with other people.

The other key thing about triggers, is that although they can be irrational, and not linked to past or recent bad, painful, or traumatic events, the triggers all make sense and have meaning and explanation, when they are all linked up, and understood holistically together. This is the approach which is needed in psychotherapy, against the old simplistic, dogmatic, and inaccurate model.