The concept creep of "trauma" already minimizes the experiences of people who truly suffer persistent, disordered responses to terrible events. But as @buttonslives writes in @CityJournal, the idea of "secondary trauma" may become an excuse to avoid the people who've had the worst types of experiences, leaving them with even less support and resources. Christina is hitting on something fundamental to most trauma (and mental health) conversations: they are largely an accountability-reducing exercise. Consider in 2023 when the dean of faculty at Harvard Chan conflated actual physical harm from police violence with the "deeply traumatizing" possible mental health effects of watching body cam footage. While police body cams "ensure accountability", she wrote, footage of physical violence could worsen mental health, and "psychological strain has physical repercussions too." That is explicitly reducing accountability to address actual violence by distracting from it with concerns over someone who might feel bad watching it. bmj.com/content/380/bmj.p616