Why Normal Is a Myth-Dr. Gabor Maté

We think of love as a warm feeling and a sense of caring. Now almost all parents have that for their children. Only very traumatized parents who themselves was totally shut down in childhood lack that oceanic sense of love for their children. But that sense of love, that feeling is not sufficient because it's it's not what the parent feels that matters. is what the child receives. >> Gabbor Mate, Gabbor Mate, you are very very well known, but just for those that aren't familiar with your work, your training is is what? >> I'm a medical doctor. I

was in family practice for 20 years and I also did palative care looking after terminally ill people. So I I've covered all ranges of the human spectrum from birth to death. And then for 12 years I worked in um bankers down to on each side which houses North America's the western World's most concentrated population of drug users. So I worked there for 12 years >> and uh I'm also an author, international speaker. I've written five books published in 43 languages now. And uh >> your new your new book uh the myth of normal is a

uh is a fantastic book. >> Thank you. It was 19 weeks New York Times bestseller. It's been a bestseller in a whole bunch of countries and uh >> and your I'm sorry your specialty is mainly addiction and trauma and things related to this right >> you know what um >> or is it just life? >> Yes, but really my broad interest is in human development. So what allows people to develop according to their natural tendencies in a healthy way and what impairs the development and what are the consequences of that impairment and they show up

in addictions, mental illness, Physical illness, personal dysfunctions, relationship problems. So really what I'm interested in is the whole spectrum of human experience and how that is shaped by our interactions with our environment and culture. So any any anywhere in that range I'm interested. >> Where do we start? What what should we ask? What is addiction? >> Sure. So I define addiction as manifested in any behavior in which a person finds pleasure or temper relief Uh and therefore craves it but then suffers negative consequences and doesn't give it up despite the harm that it causes. So

craving, relief, pleasure in the short term, harm in the long term, inability or refusal to desist in the long term. That's what an addiction is. And if you understand that definition does not restrict itself to drugs. No, >> it includes substances whether legal like smoking or you know nicotine or Caffeine or or or alcohol but you know or the or the illicit drugs but also pornography, sexual roving, gambling, shopping, eating, bulimia, um gaming, um internet, cell phones, extreme sports work. Would laziness be in there too? >> Laziness, nobody craves laziness? >> Okay. >> You know,

so no. So again, the Definition is if it gives you temporary pleasure, relief and you crave it, you know. So laziness is more a habit behind which there's all kinds of reasons. But no, it's not an addiction. >> Yeah. And what is the role of of these addictions? Well, so the the medical um litany around addiction that it's a it's a disease of the brain that's largely inherited which I think is totally nonsense. Um some people Think it's a manifestation of uh weakness of will or moral failure which is also nonsense that it's a choice

that people make. When I asked when I talked to anybody, can I make this respon responsive with you? According to my definition, have you ever had an addictive pattern? I don't care what it was, but yes or no. >> Of course. Yes. >> Okay. Let me ask you this question then. Not what was wrong with the addiction And I don't care what the addiction even was. What I'm what I'm asking is what was good about it? What did you get from it temporarily? >> Feeling secure and safe. maybe >> security and safety. Now, who doesn't

want security and safety? In other words, that's a human need actually. In other words, the addict just wants to feel like a human being. And it also means that the addiction wasn't your primary problem. Your primary problem Was lack of safety and security, which then goes back to trauma. So, my mantra on addiction is don't ask why the addiction, ask why the pain. what is the underlying pain that's that the addiction is trying to temporarily soothe. So that's the role of addiction. It's it's it's it's a forlorn self-destructive um attempt to solve the problem of

human suffering. That's what it is. >> And on my channel there are thousands of examples of the terribly traumatic experiences that people have had especially in their childhoods. Do any of us get through childhood unscathed? Softwire underbelly is about giving people a space to tell their stories, even when these stories challenge what we think we know. Brown News shows us different perspectives in the media, which is why Ground News is a perfect Sponsor for my channel. In a world where algorithms censor much of the information we receive, some of the most important stories get missed

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40% off their Vantage plan. And by subscribing or even gifting it to Someone you know, you're helping hold the media accountable and helping my channel directly. Thank you for watching. >> Well, again, unscathed without a traumatic >> Well, so let's differentiate between hurt and pain and trauma. It's impossible to get to human life without being hurt, without being experiencing pain. That's just the nature of Existence. But that's not what trauma is. Trauma is not hurt or pain. Trauma is a wound that hasn't healed. And yes, it's possible to get through childhood without being wounded. But

in this culture, it's almost impossible. That's why the subtitle of my book is Trauma, Illness, and Healing in a Toxic Culture. Because I think this culture wounds people from even before birth onwards. Now if you look at human history, I mean prehistory Um we evolved in small groups very communal, very collaborative, very supportive where the members were very secure that they belong to the community. Children were surrounded by loving adults. Um so it's possible to grow up without trauma. It's not possible to grow without pain. But not everything painful is traumatic. Everything traumatic is painful.

But you can have pain without being traumatized by it. Uh depending on The environment and the support that you get. >> As a society, are we getting better or worse? >> Oh, it's getting worse. >> Is it? Um I mean on the one hand there's more awareness there's more methods there's more science but if you look at from the point of human needs of either children or adults it's getting more and more difficult. Children have the need for absolute Security which you didn't have or safety belonging in an attachment relationship that's not negotiable. Oxygen is

not negotiable. Security and safety for a child is not negotiable. It's a need. If we don't get it, we suffer. Children have a need to be able to experience all the emotions that nature gave them and to be able to express them and have those emotions validated and and and mirrored by the adults in a in a positive way. Um adults Have a children have we all have adults or children we all have a need to belong to be connected with that's our nature. Now adults have a need to be for a sense of belonging.

They have a need to be authentic which means they that they could be their true selves without having to um follow and and mold themselves according to the demands of their environment. and they have a need for meaning and purpose. Now, if you look at Any of those needs that I've just outlined, this society is less and less capable of meaning of meeting them. Children are less and less safe and secure because the parents are more and more stressed. There's much less sense of belonging because communities, extended families have been eroded significantly. There's increasing isolation

and loneliness. And in that context, no, it's getting worse. And uh you know, your your recent Um surgeon general in the states here, VC Murthy, Dr. VC Murthy wrote a book about loneliness and loneliness is an epidemic in the society. So is obesity. Um and all these both of those are harmful to health. And that's just one example. Um, here in the United States where we're speaking, 70% of adults are at least on one medication and 40% are at least on two. This is in the wealthiest country in the world. This is a toxic culture.

>> And of course, childhood trauma, you know, in all its forms is is is damaging to a person. Also, uh, neglect is also a problem. >> Well, you're absolutely right. So if you look at there were studies done in California called the adverse childhood experiences studies. They looked at 17,000 adults um at their childhood histories and their adult health and they identified 10 factors that they called adverse childhood experiences. Very famous ACC studies published all over the world which is why most doctors never heard about them. But that's a whole other story of what doctors

hear and they don't hear. Adverse childhood experiences included uh physical, sexual or emotional abuse, um violence in a family, a parent being addicted, a me parent being mentally ill, a parent dying, a divorce or a Neglect. And each of these added to the risk of addiction exponentially. So by the time a male child had six of them, his risk of becoming an injection using drug addict as an adult was 4600% greater than that of a male child with no such experience. A 46-fold increase and that was done in in California. to those adverse childhood experiences.

We also have to add um poverty and racism because they can also create extreme Harm to the psyche, the brain and and the body. >> And can trauma be transferred? I think it's called epigenetically where it goes from one generation to the next even even almost like in the DNA. >> I'm glad you said almost in the DNA. in that not yes >> because it's not in the DNA. Uh the DNA doesn't change but genes are turned on and off by the environment. So it's like um a musical Score uh which doesn't tell you how

loud or how softly you should play the you know that that's the epigenetics. It's which are which genes are turned on and turned off. And so traits can be passed on epigenetically like we've we've been known this in animals. You you make the grandfather mice scared and then you exposed and and then the grandchild which is not exposed to the Same scary stimulus is still afraid. So the fear was passed on epigenetically but that's only one way. Trauma in general is multigenerational. So that it's not just passed on epigenetically. It's also passed on to the

fact that parents who are traumatized and who hasn't resolved or even understood or even being aware of their trauma when they bear children will almost automatically pass their traumas onto Their kids through their behaviors and emotional patterns. And so I mean I did you know and so it's not um nobody's here to be blamed. Uh but trauma is almost always multigenerational >> and and is the solution to just learn how to love each other unconditionally as parents. >> Well, it depends on what we mean by love because we think of love as a warm feeling

and a Sense of caring. Now almost all parents have that for their children. Only very traumatized parents who themselves were totally shut down in childhood lack that oceanic sense of love for their children. But that sense of love, that feeling is not sufficient because is it's not what the parent feels that matters. It's what the child receives. If the parent loves the child but is themselves too traumatized to actually See the child and to and and and to attune to the child, then the love doesn't get through. the sense of love gets through and and

and that's good, but you to be truly loved, you have to be seen. And a lot of parents have great difficulty actually seeing their kids for who they are without their own anxieties and expectations and and and their own emotional reactions and so on. that love has to get through and for That love to really get through the parent has to be able to attune to the child and which is to say the child the parent gets the child's internal experience and knows how to respond to it. Um and when parents are stressed as many

of them are in the society they have great difficulty being attuned to the child that's so attunement here is the key >> and so maybe teaching us how to be better parents. Turn teaching us how to love ourselves and love each other could possibly help. >> Yes. But it's Yes. Yes. But it's not a matter of teaching. You can't teach somebody how to love themselves. >> Any examples? >> It's not like you can teach them mathematics or American history. Um self- loveve is not a skill. It's actually an attribute of the human being and what

We really have to look at is help people remove the blocks towards self self-love and and and one of the impacts of trauma. You're quite right to talk about self-love because one of the greatest impacts of trauma is that people have a deep abiding sense of shame about themselves and they're highly judgmental of themselves. And so the way towards self- loveve is to remove the blocks to it rather than Here's how you do it. >> And that's a lifelong process, let me tell you. >> Yeah. And even stress during pregnancy or early childhood can shape

someone's >> patterns. Well, um, there was an article from the Harvard Center on the Developing Child 13 years ago now published in the journal of pediatrics and it's on early childhood development. It's a classic article and it said that the process of brain development begins before birth and continues into adulthood. and establishes either a fragile or a robust framework for all health, learning, behavior. Um, and uh the fact has been known from multiple studies that when women are stressed during pregnancy, the stress hormones That she then generates from her adrenal gland go through to the

infant with a negative impact on the infant's brain development. And women who are severely depressed or stressed during pregnancy, their children are much more likely to have developmental problems, mental health issues a few years later. So that's just not even controversial. Um so when people talk to me about how do you prevent addiction and everybody thinks Um you prevent addiction by going to schools and telling kids how bad addictions are useless because the kids who are listening to adults are not at risk and the kids who are at risk are not listening to adults. The

preventional addiction needs to begin at or any mental health issue needs to begin at the first prenatal visit. So as a medical doctor I I delivered a lot of babies about a thousand in 20 Years and u I was well trained to look after the physical needs the physical requirements checking the blood pressure the weight the diet the you know blood sugar levels you know so on nobody ever told me to ask the woman how you feeling emotionally how is your relationship How much calmness or how much stress do you feel? Who do you ask

for help when you need It? Those questions are not taught to medical students. And yet the mom's emotional states do have an impact already on the infant. So that it begins really early. >> Do you believe any child escapes trauma completely? >> Yeah, I do some, but it's a minority. >> What does it look like? is an adult. >> An adult who is comfortable with who they are, who's in touch with their authentic self, which means with their Gut feelings, their body and their their gut and their heart. Um, who respects their own individuality and

the individuality of others and can interact with people in a non-defensive, non-reactive way. um and and can respond to the present situation based on the needs of the present, not some programming from the past. And by the way, um speaking of trauma, when I was working in the downtown east side of Vancouver In 12 years, I didn't have a single female patient who had not been sexually abused as a child. No one >> really. and all the men had been either neglected or abused or you know I mean these are this is the extreme but

in this society there's such a punitive attitude towards people who are drug addicted and there's two fundamental flaws about that one is we're blaming people for having Been hurt and being desperate to escape from their their pain number one. Number two, those people who are drug addicted are no different from the rest of us. When I was working with these people, I saw myself in them. I had my own addictive behaviors. I manipulated and I lied about them. And my addictive behaviors had an impact on my family and even on my work. Only thing is

it wasn't to drugs. So I I didn't face any uh um medical Consequences or or legal consequences, but they were no different for me in the sense of the desperation to escape from the discomfort that they were experiencing. >> You were you were a workaholic. >> I was a workaholic and I also had a significant shopping addiction. So I I I shopped relentlessly. I I I spent thousands of dollars in an afternoon on compact discs and by the evening I was back in the store. >> Classical music. Sorry. >> Classical music. >> Classical music. Yeah.

But it wasn't the um music that I was addicted to. It was the shopping. >> I had to have that hit. And I You always think when you're addicted that just one more will do it. I just like just get this particular piece of item or disc my I'll be complete. An hour later, you're running back to the store again. Because every addict looks for a quick hit of Dopamine. And dopamine is the brain chemical that makes us feel alive and vital and present and and you know um motivated. And of course that dopamine hit

is very temporary. So the if you look at the brain scans of pornography addicts there's the surges of dopamine. It's not the pornography they're addicted to. It's the dopamine. They just happen to get their release of dopamine through the pornography. The gambler is the same Thing. The gambler is not after money because typically a gambler wins a lot of money in the slot machine in the evening. By the morning he's losing again. He's after the excitement, the anticipation. The sex addict is not after sex as such. Cuz if they were, the solution to sex addiction

was very simple. Just marry another sex addict. Then you can have all the sex you want for the rest of your life. No, it's the conquest. It's The hunt. It's the excitement. It's that dopamine surge and everybody's who's addicted, that's what they're addicted to. And so why are we blaming these people who are using drugs? >> Why do so many people relapse even after years of being sober and doing well? >> That again has to do with the uh addicted brain. So what we have to understand here is that the human brain develops in interaction

with the environment. It's not genetically determined. There's 20,000 genes or so in a human organism. About 10,000 are dedicated to the central nervous system and the brain. And the brain is billions and trillions of connections. There's not enough genes to program our brains. So the second sentence from that Harvard article that I cited is um that um the interactions of genes and experiences literally shapes the circuitry of the developing brain. It's Not the genes, it's the action of the environment on the genes shapes the circuit developing brain and is significatively influ influenced by the mutual

responsiveness of adult child relationships particularly in the early years. Now the circuitry that doesn't develop in the addict really well is the opiate endorphine circuitry or internal opiates. That's why they want to do morphine. And the endorphins are essential for pain relief, for pleasure and reward, and for love. And so I asked a patient of mine in the downtown east side once, a 27 year old woman, she had HIV, and I asked her, "What does the heroin do for you?" And she said, "First time I did heroine, it felt like a warm, soft hug." She

was just looking for love because her own circuitry had not developed because of The childhood trauma. Then the dopamine circuitry that which is the motivation seeking vitality circuitry that doesn't develop and stress regulation circuitry um also doesn't develop and stress regulation means that when something happens I respond proportionately to what's going on in the present moment. But when the stress regulation doesn't develop properly, I don't know how to Regulate my stresses. I don't know how to calm myself down after a stressful incident. And so when you talk to people who relapse over and over again,

you ask them, "Well, what happened just before you relapsed?" Usually something stressful happened that they didn't know how to cope with. and then they go back to the known um entity which is the addiction that'll Soo their stress like it might soo your insecurity and lack of safety temporarily. So usually relapse is a response to stress and that's the whole problem uh with the addiction treatment industry and and even the 12step movement as much as I admire and support the 12 steps but they're missing the trauma piece. So somebody can and there's a distinction between

abstinence and sobriety. Abstinence means you're not using Something. That's great. Nothing wrong with it, but sois means that you can actually soberly consider your situation. So a lot of people give up the substance without becoming sober. And that means when they get stressed, >> they go for the tried and true. >> And what role does shame play in keeping people trapped in these cycles of addiction? >> Shame is huge. Um, and that's one of the greatest impacts of trauma is a deep sense of shame about the self. And people think that shame is a response

to what they did or they didn't do. No, they think they're ashamed of themselves because they're addicted. Actually, goes the other way around. The shame came long before the addiction. And the shame has all kinds of sources. But again, it Has to do with early trauma, early neglect or early disconnection. Um, if a child is suffering either because bad things are being done to them or because they're not getting their needs met in a positive sense, the child can make two assumptions unconsciously. One is the world is screwed. My parents are incompetent or cruel. Here

I am. The other assumption is these bad things are Happening to me because there's something wrong with me fundamentally and if I work hard enough maybe I can fix it. Now which belief do you think is more acceptable to the child? It's obviously the second one at least it gives them some sense. So even the shame comes along as a kind of adaptation but it's debilitating. Shame is the worst state when you're shamed. No, you just don't want to be here. You Want to sink into the ground and and and you want to even further

isolate yourself. >> Yeah, shame is a horrible emotion. >> It's the worst state there is. It's the worst state there is and it's very common and um then we try all these ways to escape from the the shame. Um by projecting a self-image uh that that we want to identify with, by pleasing others so they won't reject us, by suppressing Or needs. One of the great difficulties people have is just asking for help. They don't know how to ask for help. Now, no infant is born not knowing how to ask for help. That's all they

do. >> This is crying. >> But at a certain point, we learn that our asking for help invites a negative response from our caregivers. Then we get ashamed of even asking for help. I I I I say this a lot of the time, but Have you seen this book called by this British guy called Charlie McKeshi called The Boy, the Mole, the Horse, and and and the and the Fox? >> No. >> Okay. It's one of these children's books that are for adults. That is for adults. It's mostly illustrations. She's a wonderful illustrator. The Boy,

the Mold, the Fox, and the Horse is an international bestseller. Sold millions of copies. Amongst these four friends, the horse is the uh wisest one. And at some point they ask the horse, "What's the most courageous thing you ever said?" And the horse says, "Help." Now people are ashamed of themselves. They don't even ask for help. So shame is debilitating. >> Can someone truly heal without first addressing their underlying trauma? Can people heal without addressing the trauma? Well, literally the meaning of the word trauma comes from the Greek. It means a wound. So, can people

heal without healing the wound? No, they can't. They they can put on all they can behave the right way. They can present the right way, but are they are they healed underneath? No, they're not. I think the wound has to be and and the beauty of it is in my understanding and not just my understanding understanding of astute Colleagues is that trauma is not what happened to you. Trauma is the wound that you sustained. Trauma is what you made it mean. Trauma is the shame. Trauma is the self-rejection. Trauma is the uh is the ongoing

pain. So trauma is a wound that hasn't healed, which is a good thing because if trauma is a wound that hasn't healed, then you can heal it in the present. If the trauma was what happened to you all those years ago, it's gone, finished. It'll never not Happen. But trauma being a wound, yes, anybody can be healed at any stage of life as long as there's consciousness. sexual trauma as a child, which you know, I've covered a lot of stories that involve that seems to be such a debilitating form of trauma. >> Yeah. Well, in

sexual trauma, your very body is invaded and you become an object. You don't exist as a human being. You're simply the means to Somebody else's pleasure or gratification or sense of power. So your sense of self is obliterated and uh the shame is deep >> and then there's silence on top of it. >> Sorry. >> And then there's silent about it on top of it. >> Well, that's the whole point. Like I talked to anybody who was sexually abused as a child. I know you had my friend Kimberly Shannon Murphy on. Yes. Uh some months

ago and she told Via Aunti the really disturbing story of her perennial victim sexual victimization. >> Yeah. Horrifying story >> by her grandfather. And when I was talking to Kimberly when I first met her, she was, you know, naturally focused on the what the grandfather had done. But then I asked her a question and I asked it of anybody who was traumatized. Who Did you speak to? And the answer is almost nobody. In other words, by the time the abuse started, the child already knew intuitively that they were alone and helpless. And that's what potentiated

the trauma cuz the perpetrator can tell with almost laser-like accuracy who is undefended. It's not the child's fault. But by the time the abuse happens, this isolation also happens. So people then don't ask for help. Remember the infamous case of Dr. Larry Nasar or Nasser, who was the physician to the Olympic gymnast. girls that he looked after would wear double underwear to his office to minimize the sense of what he was doing to them, but they never told their parents. Most of them never told their mothers. And the ones who and of course also what

happened is when they did tell and and then the parents tried to do something The Olympic Association dismissed it just ignored it. So that this silence this cone of silence surrounds the sexual abuse victim whether in a family of origin or in the institutions at large. How can parents break the cycle when they're still carrying their own wounds? >> Well, look, when I first became a parent, um I had no idea I was even wounded. I just thought this is life. So, when you ask Carter as a parent, break the cycle, if they know they're

wounded, that's already a huge step forward. That's already a huge step forward. That's the beginning. Then you know the the Buddha said somewhere that uh the Buddha was a great psychologist. Um all the great spiritual teachers are wonderful psychologists by the way. I mean they just see into the human soul. Uh and Buddha said that once you know The source of your suffering you're already in the way towards healing. So the parents who know that they've been traumatized, they can get all kinds of help to deal with their traumas and that'll ensure they will not

pass it on or they'll pass on much less of it to their children. And there's all kinds of ways, but being aware that you're traumatized and then having the awareness that in order not to pass this on to my kids, I got to work on myself. That's the best thing they can do. H is it possible to repair relationships with our children after years of disconnection? Funny you should ask because uh I wrote the myth of normal with my son Daniel who is 50 years old this month as we speak. Daniel and I are now

working on a new book. It's called Hello Again, a fresh start for parents and adult children. And believe me, we've had to work at it. And yes, it is possible if the will, it's not always possible or even desirable. Uh but in many cases, if there's some cintillaa of willingness there, yes, it is possible. What would you say to a parent who's feel who feels guilt for the way they raised their child? >> Yeah. >> Well, you're talking to one of them. At least for many years, I carried a lot of guilt. Here's what I

would say to them. Yes, you're right to acknowledge that the way you showed up for your children hurt them or maybe the way you didn't show up for them hurt them. But what morning did you decide to hurt your kids? What decision did you make to make them Suffer? You never did. You did your best. That was your best at the time. That's who you were at the time. So guilt is totally inappropriate. you're not to be blamed. It's fine that you should acknowledge that it happened. A bit of healthy regret is is always a

good thing. But guilt and guilt implies you did something and you knew better and you didn't do it. Well, you didn't know any better. Or if you did know Better, something in you prevented from fulfilling what you knew. There was some trauma there. So, it's not deliberate on your part. never was. And so guilt is totally inappropriate. Parents should never be blamed. Um that doesn't mean we don't acknowledge what they did or didn't do. It also doesn't mean that the child shouldn't feel angry about it. You know what I said to my kids once they

became aware of all this stuff? I said, "I'm Not worried you'll be angry with me. I'm worried you won't be angry enough. I I want people to experience you know a lot of people who are hurt there's a lot of anger there that they suppressed that suppression of anger has got terrible consequences. So I'm not saying there's no room for anger as no I'm not saying there's no room for genuine healthy remorse but guilt and that's the first thing. The second thing is no child wants to be seen as The parents mistake. If I look

at my kids and if I see only my guilt, I'm not seeing them. I'm just projecting my own stuff onto them, I need to see them for who they are. And uh when you look at them through the eyes of guilt, you're doing them no favor whatsoever. I think in romantic relationships, in a marriage, for example, it's really important when you have, Let's call it a fight or an argument, whatever, with your partner to allow them to come back without shame. >> Well, absolutely. And >> super important. >> Absolutely. It's so >> even even after

they've [ __ ] up terribly. >> Yeah. >> You allow them to come back with their head held high. >> And my own pattern in relationship has been, and I've been married This year it'll be 56 years. >> Um but my own pattern has been when there's a dis a rupture. Um I withdraw in a sullen punitive rageful kind of way. You know that's my own that's ingrained to my nervous system from my infancy. Then you feel even more ashamed. Now there's a wonderful colleague of mine Dr. Red Trronic TRO N I C um who

is one Of the seinal figures in looking at child parent relationships and he he says that rupture and repair are an inevitable and even necessary part of human relationships. So ruptures will happen uh between child and parent, between married couples, between friends as long as we recognize that rupture and repair are natural human attributes. And once we've had the rupture, we go back to the repair without shame, just with Some curiosity about what happened here and what was my own role in it or what did you do to me? But which is my own tendencies.

you know, we all want to be victims and uh cuz when you're a victim, you have no responsibility. I don't recommend victimhood to anybody. Um, as much as you know, acknowledge what happened, but in a relationship, the most important thing you can do is to look at your own role in it, what you Contributed to the situation. >> It's interesting how we create our worst fears in our lives. >> Oh, yeah. And if you're afraid of being betrayed, if you're afraid of being a victim, you're afraid of like you you'll you'll subconsciously almost create that

scenario. >> You will. And when you form relationships, you'll almost inevitably find somebody who will fulfill your worst nightmares. So, um it's interesting. And so when we get into relationships, we kind of get together with a dream lover, but we also get together with a nightmare lover. And the the dream lover is what we see, you know, the nightmare lover is what we carry in our unconscious. And that's what we're going to attract to ourselves, which is okay as long as both partners are willing to work on it together and use the relationship as a

Template for growth. In relationships I and especially in romantic relationships, it's helpful to almost be your own psychologist. >> Your own psychologist. >> Yeah. >> Your own relationship coach. >> Well, if you can um what you need to do is to be at least curious. I mean, >> what do you mean by on psychology by the way? Well, like understanding why your Partner is behaving that way and see seeing through their their behavior that's pushing you away. >> Yeah. You have to get what their experience is. >> Exactly. Seeing things from their side of the

fence. >> Exactly. Like in my marriage relationship, almost any time I feel myself agrieved and uh perceive myself as victimized and I'm assuming that I know what the Motives of my partner are. Then when we talk about it, it's like a totally flip. No, that's not what she was intending at all. And she had a totally different experience. But the natural tendency is to identify with the hurt ego and then not see the other person's experience. >> Forgiveness is a very powerful tool. >> What do you mean by forgiveness? >> Just just in terms of

relationships like >> Yeah. But what do you mean by forgiveness? >> Understanding what that behavior was was why why it happened. with >> oh okay >> what created it >> excellent >> if by forgiveness you mean understanding then >> understanding yeah that's great >> what did Jesus say on the cross >> I don't >> he says forgive them father for they know what they do >> he actually knows that these people persecuting him they don't know what they're doing that's his greatness you know he's in touch with deep love and he sees the frail Y

of the very people that are killing him and he understands. So he says forgive them father for they don't know what they do. So that forgiveness and understanding. Yes. No. That doesn't mean you put up with it You know so that you know somebody's an abusive relationship. understanding whether the person does it does not uh take away from you the necessity of perhaps leaving that relationship. Um so you still have to take care of yourself. Um as a matter of fact in an abusive relationship I'm not even saying to that you should understand your partner's

Behavior. I should you should understand your own. You should understand why you're still here. What is it that's compelling you to put up with this and to subject yourself to it? What what sense of shame keeps you believing that you deserve this? So, I think in in an abusive relationship, I don't talk about forgiveness much. I I talk about, you know, self-awareness. >> Yeah. Are you are you can call yourself Religious? >> Religious? >> Yeah. >> Not in the least. I've never been religious in my life. >> Yeah. Same here. >> I mean, I um

I'm a Jew, but I never believed in the religion. Um in a sense, look, in um I grew up in communist Hungary till I was 13. And there used to be a joke there that um in Eastern Europe that you could Be honest, intelligent or a member of the Communist Party. As a matter of fact, you could be any two of those three things, but not all three at the same time. Because if you're honest and intelligent, you wouldn't join the party. If you join the party, if you're intelligent, you couldn't be honest. And so

on. Now, that was my same attitude towards the God that I was sold. God is supposed to be all good, omniscient, And omnipotent. And as as soon as I had a brain or a mind, I said, "Well, if God is all good and all knowing that he can't be powerful otherwise, how come Awitz happened? How come my grandparents died in a gas chamber? How come I nearly died in a gas chamber as an infant?" So if and if God is all powerful and knows everything, he can't be any good. otherwise he Wouldn't have allowed you

know so no I never believed in that um as a matter of fact what's interesting looking back is I used to be enraged even at the word god and I've been thinking for decades now what was that rage about you know it was about because I wanted to believe I wanted to believe in something greater than me this little ego and that god image that they were selling me just got in the A so if you ask me if I'm religious now no I'm not I don't have Religious practice I don't have religious beliefs but

do I think there's something greater than we are yeah that we belong to that we're a part of that we manifest that manifests us I mean these are words but I truly sense that there's some there's truth there and some people have experienced it directly I haven't but I trust their experience And I also that's the only way to understand the universe. >> Tell us about your childhood, how you grew up. >> Well, so um I'm always I'm almost tired of telling the story. >> You can do an abbreviated version if you want. >> It

kind you know, but you know uh um I made a very poor career move by choosing to be born as a Jewish infant in Hungary in 1944. You know, some people say you choose your birth. What an idiot would Choose to be a a Jewish baby in 1944, two months before the Nazis occupied Hungary and kill half a million Jews, including my grandparents, and persecute us. And I nearly died. I was very sick. To save my life, my mother gave me to a stranger. So, I didn't see her for 6 weeks. That was my infancy.

Um my father came back from forced labor when I was 15 months of age. The first time I saw him um then we grew up in communist Hungary And um what I remember is we had a a loving family. My parents didn't see me. I mean they they they couldn't they had problems actually, you know, but they sure loved us and uh it was a stable family home and uh I read a lot. I was very serious. I was always thinking um truth and justice were essential to my soul from an early age on. I

stood up for kids in school who were being bullied. Um I experienced an anti-semitism Uh in school. Um at the same time I was obviously troubled. I wet my bed till I was 13. Um my mother took me to a psychologist when I was eight or nine and the psychologist says, "Ma'am, if um the only problem this kid has is that he wets his bed, you're lucky." Well, it wasn't the only problem I had, it turned out. Um, so, you know, I had a a supportive environment and we played, friends, and family Outings and so

on. My parents had a stable marriage. They respected each other. Um, but I was deeply scarred by the my first year, one and a my first one and a half years. And my mother when I look back to it she wasn't a very warm person. So she did a lot of work to meet our needs but warmth was not something she was capable of giving us. So that's the kind of childhood that I had and I lived in Hungary till I was 13 and then the Hungarian revolution broke out against the communist rule and then

we became refugees came to Canada. M >> how do you think what your childhood experiences were affects your work that you do now? my work. Um, well, for some reason, and people have often said this, I'm very comfortable with pain, not my own, uh, but other people. I'm not afraid of people's pain. So, I can be with their pain. And that's given me A lot of power in my work as a physician and addictions worker and and healer. I'm not shy. I'm not afraid of other people's pain. I can be with their pain. So, that's

a positive thing. Um, >> do you see it as when you hear someone telling their gruesome story of their childhood, do you see that as as freeing them to maybe get get access to what might heal them? >> That's the whole point. >> Yeah. >> They were never heard or seen. And so to hear them and see them and witness them uh is a powerful healing um powerful aid to healing. So that's how I also became a workaholic you know as a result of the childhood experience that made me do a lot of work but

it also had negative impacts on my emotional physical health and certainly the well-being of my family. Um but it's uh how did my childhood affect My work? Um I think the biggest capacity is the curiosity that I have. I >> mean I'm really curious. >> Yeah, me too. >> I mean I think >> that's one of the attributes that I see when you interview people. Deep curiosity about people and and so I really have that >> uh curious about the world or what makes things tick. Um why are things the way They are? Um why

am I the way I am? Uh so I think that willingness to be with the pain and deep curiosity and you know what um there's this phrase compassion people tell me that I manifest a lot of it. Uh and I think I do. I mean I really care about people's suffering and I really don't want them to suffer and I want to know why they're suffering and um I want to help them with that. And so that's um those are the attributes That I think my childhood contributed to. >> That's great. Do >> you believe

modern society itself is traumatizing? >> Yeah. Again, the subtitle of my book is trauma, illness, and healing in a toxic culture. So I think we live in a toxic culture. So look, the an here's the analogy that I give. Let's say you're a laboratory scientist and you're growing Microorganisms in a petri dish. And so you have to give them a certain brew in which they're going to live and proliferate. We call that a laboratory culture. You say we're culturing microorganisms. If those microorganisms were striving, sorry, not striving but thriving >> thriving. >> See, this is

a healthy culture. But what if 70% of them were sick? What if They weren't proliferating the way they should? What if they manifested strange behaviors? You say, "This is a toxic culture." Well, apply that to human beings. Going back to what I said earlier, you see increasing chronic illness among children in this society right now. you see increasing mental health conditions amongst children. ADHD, which is what I was diagnosed With. It was the subject of my first book. Um so-called oppositionality, which doesn't even exist as far as I'm concerned. Um spectrum disorders, depression, anxiety. In

the United States over the last few years, every year more people died of drug overdoses than died in the Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghan wars put together. This is every year. No, if we understand that human beings as as a great American physician George Angel said in 1977, if we understand that human beings are biocschyosocial creatures, which means to say that their biology is inseparable from their psychology because the mind and the body are are one and from their social relationships. Then what do you make of a society where there's so much disease, illness, mental dysfunction,

and all kinds of other ailments? It's a toxic, traumatizing culture. >> How do poverty, racism, and inequality compound trauma? >> So, there's been major studies in inequality. And in a society as inequality rises, stress rises, obesity rises, heart disease goes up and so on. That's not controversial. This been studied up to yan. Um >> um poverty um extreme poverty is toxic to the brain largely because of the stress that that exists in families in extreme poverty. You can look at the life expectancy of people in Philadelphia or Chicago, I forget which city now, but this

is true in Canada as well. In one neighborhood, the life expectancy could be 20 years shorter than in another neighborhood because of poverty. That much racism. Studies have shown, people have trouble believing this, but it's just so obvious, that the more episodes of racism a black American woman is exposed To, the greater her risk for asthma. Um, if you look at the, not to get too technical here, but there's a structure called tieumirs at the end of our chromosomes. And tie are DNA structures that are like the aglets on my shoe here that they keep

the strands from unraveling. We're born with about 10,000 units of these tieumirs. By the time we die, we have 4,000. Because as we age and the stress, they fray. you Know, they they fray. Now, the telomeirs are kind of a cellular clock. The they tell you how biologically aged you are. If you look at the telomeres of women who are the chronic caregivers of chronically ill kids, they're shorter. They're biologically aged. If you look at the tele of black people in the United States, they're seven years shorter than those of nonwhite of Caucasian people. That's

Racism. And there's been studies that have shown that if you look at inflammation in the body, and there's ways of measuring levels of inflammation, the more racism, the more inflammation in the body. So that's how racism comes into it. It it there's a great Canadian um physician no longer alive Clyde Herman who talks about how poverty and racism get under the skin literally they do They affect the nervous system the gut the immune system inflammation and so on and so on. So that again the point here is you can't separate the mind from the body

and you can't separate the mind from our social relationships because our social relationships are reflected in how our minds function. So all these things are significant factors. >> Back to addiction. Uh are the parts of us that act out in these Self-destructive ways trying to protect >> trying to >> trying to protect us from something underneath? But I think that's my whole point is that the addictive behavior is an attempt to protect us from our emotional pain, our insecurity, our anxiety, our sense of isolation. when I speak to hundreds or thousands of people Um and

I give my definition of addiction and then I ask according to that definition how many of you would acknowledge that you have some addictive pattern in your life just about everybody puts their hands up just about everybody I mean >> there's a few people who are either blessed or they're liars I don't know which one in denial >> they don't put their hands up but you know vast majority >> then he asked individuals just as I asked you know what's wrong with the addiction what's right about it what did they do for you stress relief

pain relief in numbney when do people need to get numbed when they go to the dentist and there's going to be pain um it gave me a sense of control give me a sense of um belonging sense of love all these things are wonderful attributes and If we lack them, it's not because we're Deficient, but because they were shut down somehow owing to trauma. So again, the addiction is really an attempt to protect us from the impacts of trauma. Again, as you and I both know, it's an attempt that ends up as a total failure,

but that's the attempt. Why does an addict often seem to become like the the worst version of themselves when they're in the grips of their addiction? >> Why do they become >> like the worst version of themselves? It's almost like they're possessed by something evil. >> Well, they are possessed. Um, but by the way, I personally stay away from the language of worst. There's a judgment implied there. What if we actually spelled it out? If we didn't call it the worst, why did They become somebody who does something against their own values? Like >> self-destructive.

>> Yeah. Yeah. They can be uh self-destructive. They can be dishonest with other people and themselves. They can be manipulative. They will do things to themselves that'll harm their bodies. Why do they? Well, again, because they're so desperate for temporary pain Relief, that's all there is to it. So, it's not a moral question for me. It's a question of why they're in so much pain. >> But the the the temporary pain relief comes with the the behavior that'll make them dishonest. And >> yeah, when I was in my addictive phase, I lied to my wife

regularly and uh shamelessly. Well, ultimately the shame came, but at the moment, you know, so that Addiction brings along all these behaviors necessarily. Um, but they're not it's not as the worst version of myself. It's it's me and it's me being unconscious. >> And why does a emotional disconnection often lead to a moral disconnection? >> Okay. Yeah. So why does emotional disconnection lead to moral disconnection? There's a wonderful psychologist now retired still active but retired from her academic career Daria Narvves professor Amita of psychology at uh Notre Dame University and she studied the development of

human morality. In fact, she wrote a wonderful book about the development of human morality that I that I quote in the myth of Norormal and Dar and others have found that morality, empathy for others, ethical behavior is a natural outcome of healthy relationships in childhood. So these are not qualities that you have To inculcate into a child or teach them dedactically so much as something that will automatically unfold in them when they're connected with disconnection then leads to all kinds of defenses that subvert morality. So say in the case of addiction it will not be

moral. Um so that human connections there's a psychiatrist here in uh LA uh Dan Dan Seagull uh was one of my Colleagues friends and mentors and uh he said that human connections lead to neuronal connections. In other words, human connections actually program the brain. And so when the human connections are there and they're flowing, the brain develop the circuits of morality and belonging and connection. So connection is everything to do with morality. In other words, morality is not a moral issue, but it actually is is an issue of Uh connection. And as soon as you

feel connected to somebody and you really care for them, does somebody have to teach you to be moral? No. You'll be automatically moral in your behavior with them because you don't want to jeopardize the relationship. You don't want to create a a rupture. So, it's not morality that's lacking in this culture, it's connection that's lacking. And when someone loses touch with their values or their kindness, what what do you believe has been lost underneath? >> What do we what sir? >> What what do you believe has been lost when someone loses touch with >> what

has been lost? >> Yeah. Well, there's some teachers that I really respect who and I accept this that there's kind of a human essence um that given the right Environment will just develop and unfold which is uh that we care about the world and we're connected about the world. We're connected with the world. We're a part of the world. We wouldn't if we realize that we're part of the world, why would we hurt the world? As one spiritual teacher said, if you realize that your lungs are hanging, the half of your respiratory system is hanging

up in the trees, which is the Case because without uh photosynthesis, we wouldn't have oxygen. Why would you hurt trees? So when we lose that connection to ourselves, that's when we lose the connection to others and we lose the connection with the larger world. No, would you repeat the question because I'm not sure I quite have answered it. >> Uh Why does the emotional disconnection >> Okay. Yeah. Right. the emotional disaster is with ourselves and that that everything else follows. Now, the disconnection from ourselves, however, we shouldn't blame ourselves for because you've never met an

infant that's not connected to themselves. They know what they they don't know consciously but they experience what they feel and they show you and Communicated to you very directly very valuably now. So they're connected to themselves. We're born connected to ourselves. Then something happens to disconnect us and it's not a mistake that we make. So again in the mythanormal I talk about this. So we have these two needs. One I've already I've t I mentioned both of Them already. One of them is for attachment, belonging, being held, being safe, connection, being nurtured. That's attachment. We

have also need to be ourselves. That's authenticity. What happens however and ideally we have both. Ideally, in adult relationships, we can be truly ourselves and still be connected, be attached. Now The child if he, she, they are in a situation where if they are themselves, if they express their true emotions, they get rejected or disapproved of or their parents are overstressed by it, then the child has this terrible choice. I can be authentic or I can be attached but I can't be both. What do you suppose gets sacrificed every time? It's the authenticity and it's

not so so that giving up Disconnecting from ourselves and and you know or take somebody like our mutual friend Shannon who's being sexually abused. What was she experiencing at that time and she's got nobody to talk to. Nobody in the family wants to know about it. And you know when this is happening repeatedly, how does she survive? By disconnected from her body. So that disconnection is actually a survival mechanism. But then later on it becomes a problem. So the these early childhood adaptations like disconnection from the self and our authentic self which serve a function

a protective function originally then become problems later on and they create ailments and disease and so on. Um so then as adults there there's a book that I read by an Australian woman who worked with dying people which is what I did for seven years as a Paliative care physician and she wrote a book called the top five regrets of dying people. You know what the top regret was? >> I wish I had the courage to be myself. Now, do you want to be on your deathbed and regretting that you haven't been yourself? Now, the

the only problem I have with that formulation is I wish I had the courage. That's Self-laming. It's not a question of courage. They were programmed not to be themselves by their early experience. And sometimes it takes some crisis to wake us up. Um again in the middle of normal I quote Cheryl Crow you know the singer songwriter and she had breast cancer. Typically that happens to women who suppress their authentic self in order to make their relationships work. And Sherlock Crow writes in the myth, not in The mythal, sorry. She actually said in an interview,

I quoted her that until my breast cancer, I was trying to please everybody else, suppress my own needs. Uh there was always a no more. Now I put myself first, she says, and there was always a voice in my head telling me everything I did was wrong. I've silenced those voices. So sometimes disease comes along. I don't recommend getting sick as a way of learning anything but when it does come Along it can be a powerful teacher and for Sherlock Cro is a powerful teacher that she had not been herself and know that's her primary

uh intention is to be authentic. Nobody I don't wish on anybody that they have this regret in their dying days. That's not the only regret people had but that was the top one. Do you believe everyone, even the those that are the most lost among us, is still reachable with compassion? >> Everybody is reachable. >> Yeah. For everyone. >> Well, actually, I don't want to say that. Everybody who wants to be reached can be reached. Doesn't matter how dysfunctional or troubled or ailing they are, they can be reached. Not everybody wants to be reached. Some

people are very comfortable in their defensive shell. In fact, that's one of the toxicities of this society is that People are so defensive that they have to keep acquiring more and more in order to feel okay about themselves. They're aggressive, so they trample all over other people. They're competitive. They have to win at all costs. and they're self agrandizing because their sense of self is so poor they become CEOs they become presidents and then the world says oh isn't that wonderful one of the toxicities of this culture is it is it It is that it

rewards and even admires these high levels of dysfunction and those people are not reachable because as long as it's working for them or they think it's working for um they don't want to hear anything about what's really going on inside. And what's really interesting is um when I was researching the book, I read extensively on these two um rivals for the presidency in the first Trump presidency uh 216 uh Hillary Clinton and and Donald Trump. They both said in interviews almost verbatim, "I don't want to look at myself too much because I don't want to

find out what's there." M >> and they both had very traumatizing childhoods. >> And what's what's ironic is they were both innocent little children at one point. >> They were born innocent children >> and they were formed and became >> when you read about Donald Trump's Childhood and in a book by his psychologist niece Mary Trump who who is the daughter of Donald's brother Fred who died of alcoholism. He she describes Fred Senior, the Patra Familas, the father of Donald and Fred as a sociopath who really made his kids suffer. And the mother was ill.

She was totally not there to protect the kids. If you look at Hillary Clinton's childhood, her father used to beat her And and um if I remember right, was very strict, would throw her out of the house, would yell at her, and um I talk about this sometime. This is fascinating to me. At the Democratic convention where Mary Clinton was nominated after the nomination went through, they played a video about her life narrated uh by the voice of God, Morgan Freeman. And uh Hilly at some point tells about this experience of resilience building Parenting. And

here's the the the nub of it was she's four years old, five, she's bullied by neighborhood kids. So she runs into the house to her mother to seek protection. And the mother says there's no room for cards in this house. Now you get out there and you deal with those bullies. Now what mother would do that? And what's the impact? The message that the Child gets is not that there's no room for cowards because a four-year-old who wants protection. A little bear cub that runs to mother bear for protection is not a coward. She's a

ch he's a child. So, but this is given as an exemplar of of of resilience building parenting. And the message is suck it up. You're on your own now. What happens during the election campaign? Hillary develops pneumonia. What does she do with it? Doesn't tell Anybody. She collapses in the street. Her husband is a serial philanderer. What does she do? She sucks it up. In fact, she says, "It's probably my own fault cuz I didn't realize how stressed he was." Typical trauma responses. And this is celebrated. And this was in front of millions of people.

And nobody said, "Hey, wait a minute. A four-year-old kid wanting protection from mom is not a coward. She's somebody in need of protection." That's how toxic This culture is. >> Normal is a myth. >> Normal is a myth. Yeah. Well, if you look at um the word that normal, so as a physician, I can talk about normal in a certain sense. So within a certain range of blood acidity, life is sustainable. If the pH is too high or too low, if the blood is too acidic or too alkaline, you get sick and you die. Certain

range of blood pressure is normal. Normal meaning Healthy and natural. Outside that range, same with body temperature, normal range. Outside that range, you're at risk. So normal equates healthy and normal. But we have another meaning for normal which is what everybody's used to, what we take for granted. So for example, if everybody in Los Angeles beat their kids, then beating your children would be normal. As a matter of fact, at some point it was normal in the sense that this is what we Used to. But is it healthy and natural? The opposite of it. We

now know from studies that kids who spanking kids is just as harmful to their health as more severe physical abuse. So, but just cuz it was normal at some point didn't make it healthy and natural. And what I'm saying about this culture is a lot of the things that we think are normal are actually unhealthy and unnatural. That's the one meaning in which I talk about the myth of normal. The other is I've been diagnosed with ADHD. This was my first book. Um, after I was diagnosed with it. Well, it's an abnormality, right? No, actually,

it's a normal outcome of my infancy because in that stressed period, how did I deal with the stress? Could I escape, run away, change the situation? No. Oh, I tune out. It's a protective Mechanism. But when am I tuning out? When my brain is developing, so it's a normal response to an abnormal situation. We talk about post-traumatic stress disorder like it was a medical disease, but actually it's a normal response to abnormal circumstances. So when we talk about these people are abnormal, no, they're not. They're normal. They're ex exhibiting Normal responses to abnormal situations. And

there's a third sense is that we think there's these normal people and those abnormal people. Come on. We're all on a spectrum of some kind. I've never seen any medical or I should say mental health conditions that I didn't recognize some aspect of it in myself. Maybe not to the same degree, but it's not like there's a silo where you can put the abnormal people and the normal People. It's just that we're on this continuum. It's a question of where are we on the continuum. >> I read something uh recently that uh people who are

ADHD are much more susceptible to drug addiction. >> Well, that's true and there's a good reason for it. >> Um not just drug addiction, by the way. Um there's one study that showed that in a population of male alcoholics, 40% met The criteria for ADHD. Um gamblers are almost uh always very frequently have ADHD. Um uh sort of comedians by the way, but that's another story cuz that rapid, you know. Anyway, well, here's the reason why. how we treat ADHD. And I I took these medications myself. Um, and I'll be opportun opportunistic enough to tell

you that my book on ADHD scattered minds is on the New York Times audio bestsellers list For this month for September. And I wrote that book 26 years ago. >> Wow. >> And that's the first book. And so I talked about how how we treat ADHD. And I took medication, stimulant medication. When I wrote that book, I took medication. Uh I didn't when I wrote my last book, which is much more complex, much longer, much more difficult. I didn't need any medication. My brain has changed. You can change the Brain. Um but I took stimulant

medication. What stimulant medications do is they elevate the level of dopamine in the brain. And dopamine as I mentioned earlier is this motiv motivation, curiosity, incentive, aliveness chemical. People without a dopamine are listless and inactive, inert. In the movie Awakenings where um Robin Williams played the psychiatrist Oliver Saxs, he gives these People dopamine for a while and they come alive for a while. So the dopamine circuits develop early in life as I said earlier in interaction with the environment when interaction is stressful those dopamine circuits may not develop and then you give somebody dopamine hey

now they're motivated they can pay attention they can even calm down. Now what else elevates dopamine? Cocaine does. A lot of uh crystal meth does. So not all but a significant Minority of stimulant addicts are actually self-medicating ADHD and the the porn pornography addict as I said earlier gets these dopamine it's the gambler gets his dopamine the shopping addict like me I get a dopamine it it's a dopamine deficiency so and all addictions elevate dopamine so therefore of course there's an overlap significant overlap between ADHD and uh and addictions cuz they both arise out of

different levels of childhood stress and They both involve the dopamine circuitry. So of course there's an overlap. >> Mind and body are inseparable, aren't there? >> They're one there's a great uh American um scientist called Candace Pert and she coined the phrase mind body. This is one one phrase. It's one unit. So whatever happens, see I could change your physiology in a split second without touching you, without giving you Any substance. Just by screaming at you, your physiology would change. your adrenal gland would start, you know, your the amygdala, the fear center in your brain

would um send messages to a gland in your brain that would send messages to another gland that would send messages to your adrenal gland that would secrete cortisol and adrenaline. And all of a sudden, your heart would beat faster, your muscles would be stronger, you'd be faster, you'd be more Alert, and you would conquer the threat and your cortisol levels would go up, give you more sugar to have more energy. So the mind body and all because I yelled at you. Now that unity is 24/7. So our emotions and our mind states are forever affecting

our physiological states. And so a lot of illnesses that people have. Now, you know, I mentioned the study that the more um episodes of racism a black American woman experiences, the greater the risk of asthma. Now, we've also known for decades now, not that most doctors are told this, but there's been all kinds of studies in the medical literature, scientific literature, that the more stressed parents are, the more likely the kids are to have asthma. In other words, stress in the parents triggers inflammation in the air tubes and narrowing of the Air tubes. Now, how

do we treat asthma? You know asthma you give people adrenaline and cortisol. Now what are adrenaline cortisol? They're stress hormones. As a matter of fact across medicine, if you go to a dermatologist with a skin rash, what are they going to give you? Cortisol cream. If you go to a gastroenterologist with inflamed intestines, Very frequently they'll give you cortisol. If you go to a neurologist with inflammation in your nervous system, as in multiple scerosis, very often they give you cortisol. Um, I could go on. You'd think we'd ask ourselves as physicians, and this is where

the training of the medical profession is so woefully lacking. I'm not criticizing individual doctors. I'm saying that the medical culture is so lacking. We're giving cortisol for Everything. We're giving the stress hormone for everything. You think we would ask ourselves, gosh, the stress maybe have something to do with the onset of these conditions? No. Even though there's all these studies that show that yes, stress is implicated in system conditions of the nervous system, of the gut, in malignancy, in autoimmune disease and so on, which we treat with cortisol. But we never make this mindbody connection

that Candi's port and so many others have demonstrated over and over again in the laboratory and in clinical practice and yet it's almost completely ignored in medical practice. Almost completely. >> Why do you think medicine often treats symptoms without exploring the root causes? >> Well, one of the reasons is the utter failure of medical education to educate Um to inform practitioners about the mind body unity. Let me give you an example. Um I think the second book I wrote is called when the body says no which is about the mind body unity. When people don't

know how to say no they take on too much. Their body will say no in the form of illness. Here at UCLA there's a rheatologist who deals with autoimmune diseases. She read the book and I saw her at a conference five years ago and she said to me, "Since reading your book, when I see these people with autoimmune disease like lupus, rheumatoid arthritis, I start asking them about their childhoods. I start asking them about their stresses. I start asking them when they're not saying no. And you know what? I can reduce the medications. And very

often they don't need medication anymore." And I've seen such Cases all over the world, believe me. And then she says, uh, so I so I asked her if I could interview her for my next book, which is, you know, and she said, "No, at least you can't use my name because my colleagues would scorn me out for practicing scientific medicine. That's how bad it is." M >> um um I tell another story. There was a teacher at Harvard in the Late 1930s. His name was uh Is this okay or am I telling too many stories

here? >> No, it's great. >> All right. All right. >> I love your stories. >> Yeah. Um the there was a teacher at Harvard in the late 1930s, early 40s. His name was S Weiss like me. He was a Hungarian Jew. Uh but he came from Transylvania which at that time uh was part of Romania but it was a Hungarian speaking part and he came to um he Taught at Harvard. He's so revered at Harvard that to this day they have an annual Soma Weiss research day in his honor. Okay. So that's how revered he

was. In 1939, he gave a lecture to the medical school class in which he said that emotional factors are at least as important in the causation of illness as physical ones and it must be at least as important in the treatment. He said this in 1939. His lecture was published in the journal of the medical medical association in 1940. Now, jump ahead to the present. A few years ago, I was interviewing a psychiatrist at Harvard. His name is Dr. Jeff Reigger. And um he's a department head at one of the hospitals at Harvard. And he

Jeff wrote a book called uh Cured about people who seem to get better from terminal illnesses without medical treatment or Despite the failure of medical treatment. So I was very interested to talk to him. Anyway, so we're talking with Jeff and Jeff told me that to talk about mindbody health at Harvard is to jeopardize your career. Now it's changing. They've not established an institute for mindbody. It's but he said he said it's changing but it's very slow now. So here's some of saying this wisdom. How many years ago now? We're looking at 70 years ago,

80 years ago, I don't know. And they honor his name, but they've totally forgotten what he taught. That's how that's how absurd it is. >> Talk to me about how modern culture disconnects us from ourselves. Well, again that disconnection happens uh in early childhood. And so one of the first um The first impetus to disconnection is stress or trauma in the family of origin. When that stress or trauma gets too much or the or the traumatic situation gets too much, the person disconnects so as not to feel the anger, so as not to feel the

pain. So that's the first way. Then we send kids to school where what we value is behavior and achievement. We don't actually care about the internal experience of the Child. So kids get kids get the message that they're valued not for who they are but for what they show the world. So that's the second way. Um the third way then is the culture of certain expectations of how we should be, how we should look, how we should act. Now, a child who gets the message that they're not important Just for existing. They're not worthy just

for existing. Well, then trying to make themselves worthy by say becoming a helper. And a lot of people go to medical school because they have this need to be important. I mean there's all kinds of good reasons to go to medical school but a very frequent unconscious need is just the sense of importance. Um people that um are not valued for who They are um will be always trying to measure up to the people's expectations. If you don't get the sense that you're liked, you'll try to be very nice all the time. So they will

like you, suppressing yourself. Um, if you weren't loved for who you are, you might become very charming so people will love you. In other words, we develop these personalities not based on who we actually are, but to Gain the approval of other people. It's all very addictive because the it's always very temporary. So part of my workholism was it doesn't matter how many people admired me or or praised my work or wanted my help. I keep that's the nature of any addiction. You have to have more and more and more. If you have 15 friends

on Facebook, you'll want 30. If you want, you got 30, you know, if you have um so many followers on Instagram, you'll be Checking your numbers all the time. You never enough. >> Mhm. >> So, that's another form of disconnection. Um then there's the physical stuff. We value what we consider to be physical beauty. It's okay to admire beauty, but to make it an essential human attribute and make people suffer if they don't meet the standards. So, look at here in Hollywood. I mean, all this all these people that are forever trying to change their

bodies through surgery because they need to look a certain way. What a disconnection from the self cuz actually you are who you are. >> And what if you could accept that? Wouldn't that be imagine the sense of peace if you could accept who you are >> and people would be more attractive as Well? >> That's the whole point. >> Yeah. When someone walks into a room, how quickly can you sense the trauma that they're carrying? >> How quickly can I sense the trauma of >> that they carry >> with a person? >> Mhm. >> Um,

give me five minutes. >> You've seen a lot. >> Give me five minutes. Sometimes give me 5 seconds because they carry it in their face. >> Yeah. You can hear it in the tone of voice. You can see it in their body language. But if it needs the conversation, give me five minutes. >> Do you believe the body remembers everything even when the mind forgets? >> Um, yeah. Um, it's not that the mind forgets, it's that the memory is not available to conscious awareness. So, there's two kinds of memory. Um there's explicit memory which is

recall. Um like a few minutes ago I was talking and I was talking about these glands in the brain. I actually forgot the name of the gland. It was it's the hypothalamus >> but old age moment. It escaped me for a moment. >> It's not really that I forgot but it wasn't available to me at that moment. Well, a lot of the early memories are Preverbal. So, um verbal memory uh the capacity to recollect episodes, the structure in the brain that encodes that the hippocampus doesn't begin to develop. Doesn't come online till about 3 years

of age. So, nobody recalls anything. Recall means you can call it back. You can recall call back what you had to breakfast this morning. You can call back what your grade five teacher might have said to you on a good day or On a bad day. That's recall. That's called explicit memory. But there's another kind of memory which is non-hypocample. It's uh non-verbal. It's the imprint of emotional experiences from inuro onwards. It's in there. It's just not accessible to conscious awareness. And also what happens is when people are traumatized, when they're really being Hurt, the

brain is flooded with cortisol and the hippoc campus goes offline and uh and then something happens later on and then the memory comes back and this happens to a lot of people. Well, I think it happened to Shannon >> that stuff started recurring to her um conscious memory that previously was inaccessible to her. So, yes, the body remembers everything, but it doesn't recall everything. But it's not unusual, for example, for somebody to go to a massage therapist or the physiootherapist and they'll massage or touch or press on a certain muscle or a certain body part

of the body and the person is flooded with emotion. That's the body remembering. And uh so the body does remember it keeps a record. Um, as my friend Bessel Benol says, the body keeps the score. Um, and somebody else I think it was, I Forget the name of the author. First name is Babette. I forget her surname. I think she called the body remembers. Um, yeah, the body does remember. Um, and whether or not that memory is accessible depends on the circumstance. Do you think some people secretly don't want to heal because their pain feels

like their identity? >> That's true. They uh they so identify with their trauma, they don't even conceive Of the possibility of healing. And um it's also true that sometimes there's what this you call a secondary benefit. So let's say I've interviewed people who said that when they got sick is the only time they could ask for help. Now they have an excuse to ask for help. Well, if you believe that you're only worthy of health, only worthy of help when you're ill, then you might not want to Give up the identity as as an ill

person because now you have a reason to ask for help to get some attention. So yeah, there are some people who are so identified with their pain because it gives them some kind of benefit. In a lot of the stories on my channel, you know, it's obvious that the addiction is about killing the pain, but also sometimes it appears that the addiction is about killing the self. >> Um, >> they almost seem so self-destructive that they're trying to kill themselves. I'm not sure I agree with that, but to the extent that I do. >> Well,

like when somebody is doing fentanyl and they over overdosed 12 times and they're doing it again. >> Well, let let's say I agree with you. >> Okay. >> Okay. They're trying to kill themselves. It's not themselves they're trying to Kill. It's their suffering they're trying to kill. the person who thinks about suicide and I certainly have you know not that I've done it or have ever planned it or ever intended it but I've certainly imagined it that that that's just how can I escape the suffering so even if person wants to kill themselves it's because

they can't imagine themselves without suffering and The suffering is too much so even that impulse there's some self-saving um uh self-saving dynamic behind it >> with the recent uh release or or you know all the attention that these GLP1 drugs are getting for weight loss. >> Yeah. >> Can you imagine >> how that would impact the addiction world if there was a similar drug that that treated alcoholism and addiction? Interestingly enough, um, and I don't remember this, I could be missp speaking here, but I think I saw one article about how those drugs have a

positive impact on addictions. Yeah. On addictions. >> The cravings. >> Yeah. Because it's all about craving, isn't it? >> Yeah. It just suppresses cravings. >> Um, well, I tell you, here's the issue. I'm not sure that the last word has been written yet on these these new drugs. I know they're the rage right now and I've certainly read the articles about their benefits. Here's what we don't know. What is the long-term effect after decades? We have no idea. They haven't been around long enough. Number one, so it's a bit of an experiment, a massive experiment.

Number one. Number two, what seems to be the case is that they work as long as you Take them. >> No, you stop taking it. And and if you stop, nothing's changed >> except that your craving has been temporarily suppressed, >> but you haven't healed. And obesity is not a it's like any other addiction. You know, the eating is just another way of people trying to com comfort themselves with junk foods and and overeating in a Highly stressed society. So these drugs, you know, for all their benefits and again I have to really see we'll

have to see after decades what their impact really is in the long term. They don't solve the underlying problem which I'm not telling people not to take them. That's their their call. But I'm telling you they're not a long-term solution unless you take them for the rest of your life which we don't know what the outcome will be. >> I mean so far there's a lot of positive >> so far it looks >> things about them. >> Yeah. Yeah. And a lot of people swear by them. Yeah, certainly a lot of people losing a lot

of weight. >> It's true. >> Yeah. Why do people sabotage the the the very love that they're desperate for in relationships? >> Well, again, I I'm very careful about language. Now, a sabotur If somebody wanted to sabotage the airport, is it LAX, the airport here? >> If somebody wanted to sabotage the airport, they'd plan it. They deliberate intention to cause harm. They'd have a scheme, you know, a plan that they would execute to to commit this act of sabotage. When you say sabotaging the very thing they want, does the person actually plan Have a conscious

intent >> or is it more fear? >> Sorry. >> You're you're saying it might be more fear. >> It's more about fear. And sometimes it's just the acting out of impulses they got no regulation over that will have the effect of damaging the relationship, but they're not trying to sabotage anything. And sometimes it's even testing the relationship. >> Will I still be loved? >> I think very often it's that. >> Yeah. So it's not the intention is not to sabotage. >> Mhm. >> Is there a point where healing becomes learning to live with the wound

instead of fixing it? >> To some degree. Um it's learning to live with the pain. So um I have this deep sense of abandonment because of what happened to Me when I was 11 months of age being given to a stranger. So in my relationship when I perceive that I'm being abandoned by the way I'm not. It's just a perception that I have based on old programming. My tendency is to again to withdraw. That's my default setting is to withdraw and to get solen and to close down. What if I could just say to myself,

and by the way, increasingly this has been the case. Oh, I'm feeling pain right Now. Can I just stay with the pain and not withdraw? So, it's not so much to live with the wound, but to live with the pain. Can we can we live with pain without having to escape from it? I think that's a key question and and and uh eventually of course I learn I'm not being abandoned and even if I was I can handle it cuz I'm an adult. But it's being yeah we in life we have To deliver the not

deliver sorry uh develop the capacity to be with the pain. and and and be with the grief, you know. >> Yeah. >> One last question, Gabbor. After all your years of fabulous work, what do you hope the world finally understands about trauma? >> That it's very human, that it's almost universal, that it has multiple consequences as I've been outlining, and that it can be healed. And ultimately, and most importantly, it's not your fault. You're not flawed. You're not damaged goods. Nobody is. >> All right. Gabri Mate, thank you so much for the fabulous talk. >>

Thanks so much. >> Your new book is uh The Myth of Normal. >> That's one of my books. Yeah. >> Well, yeah. You have How many books do You have? >> It's the most recent one. I've written five books. People can look them up. Uh The Mythormal is the most recent one. >> Yeah. I'm sure they're all great. >> Yeah. >> Awesome. Thank you so much. Thank you. >> When I was designing the first Softwood Underbelly book, I realized that there were so many great portraits that weren't going to make it into that book. They

just wouldn't fit. And once I saw How well that first book sold, I knew I'd have to design a second book. This second book is finally ready to ship. Like the first one, this book has a collection of some of the best portraits from Softwite Underbelly, accompanied by a quote from that person's interview. This book features another group of Rebecca portraits as well as a collection of color images of the Whitaker family and plenty of others. You can order yours for $125 or $150 for a signed copy at softwhiteunderbelly.org. Again, like the first book, once

this book is sold out, I will not be printing more of them. The portraits are what Softwood Underbelly is all about. And these two books contain the best of all that work. Thank you for watching.