I went to a UCLA seminar on triggering — and was triggered by a MAGA hat

I circle around UCLA’s Moore Hall for the third time. Security officers block each entrance. Police in riot gear patrol the streets. Metal fences wall off the building from protesters, and barricades separate protesters on the left from those on the right. Everyone prepares for Donald Trump Jr.’s arrival to promote his new book, “Triggered: How the Left Thrives on Hate and Wants to Silence Us.”

As a trauma therapist who works with women and refugees — and who practices on Canada’s west coast — I admit that I live in a progressive bubble. I’ve never met a Trump supporter in the flesh and the psychiatrist in me is curious: What puzzle pieces of life experience could come together to produce a world-view so opposite to mine? I hope to chat with a Trump voter to try to understand.

My mind floods with images of climate activist Greta Thunberg crying “How dare you?” and white men marching in straight-pride parades, wielding swastikas, guns and Confederate flags. I envision immigrant children warehoused in cages and online comments that scream, “Go back to where you came from.”

I tense up and glare at the man in MAGA. I want him to feel unwelcome, unsafe and, mostly, to feel shame.

I’m at UCLA to attend a psychotherapy course to learn about these kind of moments — when big emotions short circuit our mind’s higher functions so we can’t think or behave skillfully. The professor playfully called it “boom time.” In other words, we’re triggered.

“She practices psychoeducation, cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), mindfulness-based interventions, dialectical behavioral therapy (DBT), and psychodynamic therapy.”
These all sound like useful techniques for brainwashing.

I think you are CORRECT!

Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) is a short-term, goal-oriented psychotherapy treatment that takes a hands-on, practical approach to problem-solving. Its goal is to change patterns of thinking or behavior that are behind people's difficulties, and so change the way they feel.

I had to look up the definition...even after watching all those cop shows.
I guess it means "doing what you're SUPPOSED to, that is, what is moral and right." Do what God wants you to do.
Duh...

My Protestant friends have NO obligations to God: no weekly service, no Lent, no fasting, no confession, no Holy Communion. One of my friends THINKS she's getting the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Jesus with her Protestant "communion." I didn't say A WORD to her.
I asked one of them how they know that God forgives them. She answered: "I just said 'I'm sorry, Lord.'" And she knew she was forgiven.
No act of contrition--just "Sorry Lord." No penance.

"O my God, I am heartily sorry for having offended Thee, and I detest all my sins because of thy just punishments, but most of all because they offend Thee, my God, who art all good and deserving of all my love. I firmly resolve with the help of Thy grace to sin no more and to avoid the near occasion of sin. Amen.

Oh well. That's life.

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