There is no reason to assume that people at LW are experts on psychology or trauma. (I mean, it may happen that we have an expert or two here by coincidence, but we are not a mental health expert community.) Or that their experience is representative for the population in general.
It would be tempting to generalize from one example, so that e.g. people who were bullied at school might say “for example, bullying at schools is the most frequent source of trauma in our society”, and the people who were not bullied might say “actually, bullying at schools is almost non-existent these days”, and everyone would pretend that their opinion is based on more than an anecdote.
You would get all kinds of selection bias. On one hand, people love to complain, especially if they sense a supportive audience. On the other hand, people don’t want to make their darkest stuff public knowledge.
It is also difficult to distinguish between a person who had a wonderful life with virtually no problems, and an abused person who is deeply in denial. Their reports may sound very similar: “everything OK”.
There is no reason to assume that people at LW are experts on psychology or trauma. (I mean, it may happen that we have an expert or two here by coincidence, but we are not a mental health expert community.) Or that their experience is representative for the population in general.
It would be tempting to generalize from one example, so that e.g. people who were bullied at school might say “for example, bullying at schools is the most frequent source of trauma in our society”, and the people who were not bullied might say “actually, bullying at schools is almost non-existent these days”, and everyone would pretend that their opinion is based on more than an anecdote.
You would get all kinds of selection bias. On one hand, people love to complain, especially if they sense a supportive audience. On the other hand, people don’t want to make their darkest stuff public knowledge.
It is also difficult to distinguish between a person who had a wonderful life with virtually no problems, and an abused person who is deeply in denial. Their reports may sound very similar: “everything OK”.