Dr Gabor Maté | Authenticity Can Heal Trauma (Part 2)
Summary
TLDRThe video script explores the concept of trauma as pre-verbal experiences that shape a child's mind and manifest later in life. It discusses how early emotional memories, not just conscious recollections, can impact behavior. The speaker shares personal experiences to illustrate trauma's effects and explains how coping mechanisms like emotional suppression can become ingrained, impacting mental and physical health. Attachment and authenticity are highlighted as essential for survival and emotional well-being, with a focus on the importance of emotional development in early childhood.
Takeaways
- 😢 Trauma is not just about significant events like accidents or kidnappings; it can also stem from pre-verbal experiences such as neglect or lack of response in early childhood.
- 🌐 Trauma shapes the mind before the mind can shape the world, meaning early experiences can have a profound impact on a person's development.
- 🤕 The emotional memory of trauma is not a recollection but is embedded in the nervous system and can be triggered by similar events later in life.
- 🏊♂️ The speaker's personal experience of trauma involved feeling abandoned as a child, which was not the objective reality but his internal interpretation of events.
- 🚫 The term 'trauma' is often perceived negatively, but the speaker points out that it originally serves as a coping mechanism to aid survival.
- 🔒 Emotional baggage from past trauma can be 'triggered' by seemingly minor events that resonate with unresolved emotional issues.
- 💪 The body itself can carry and express the emotional impact of trauma, not just the mind.
- 🤝 Attachment is a fundamental need for humans, especially in childhood, but it can conflict with the need for self-authenticity.
- 😥 Inauthenticity, or being out of touch with one's true self, can be a survival strategy in childhood but can lead to poor mental and physical health in adulthood.
- 👶 Children learn their first moral language and form their identities before they can even speak, through the emotional interactions they experience.
- 🧠 The development of the right brain, which is emotional and holistic, is crucial for a healthy foundation; without it, intellectual development can be unbalanced.
Q & A
What does the term 'trauma' refer to in the context of the transcript?
-In the transcript, 'trauma' refers to a wound, an emotional injury that persists and impacts a person's life later on. It's not just about the event itself, but the internal response to what happened.
How does the speaker describe the impact of early childhood experiences on a person's mind?
-The speaker explains that early childhood experiences, even before language development, shape a person's mind. These experiences become embedded as emotional memories and can manifest later in life.
What is the significance of the Budapest trip mentioned in the transcript?
-The Budapest trip is significant because it connects to a traumatic childhood memory for the speaker. It illustrates how past trauma can be revisited and felt even decades later.
What does the speaker mean when they say 'the world makes our mind'?
-The speaker suggests that our early experiences shape our perception and understanding of the world. Before we can actively interpret the world, it influences and forms our mental framework.
How does the speaker relate the concept of trauma to feelings of being unwanted and unlovable?
-The speaker connects trauma to the internalized feelings that arise from early experiences of abandonment or neglect, such as feeling unwanted or unlovable, which can be deeply ingrained and trigger responses later in life.
What is the role of the body in storing and expressing trauma according to the transcript?
-The transcript suggests that the body, including the muscles and connective tissues, acts as a vessel that stores emotional memories of trauma. These can be triggered by physical sensations or experiences that resemble the original trauma.
Why does the speaker argue that the emotional baggage we carry can be triggered by seemingly small things?
-The speaker explains that what appears to be a small trigger can set off a much larger emotional response because it activates the 'explosive charge' of emotional baggage that has been stored within us.
What is the role of authenticity in the speaker's discussion of trauma and coping mechanisms?
-Authenticity is crucial as it relates to being in touch with one's own feelings and emotions. Suppressing authenticity for the sake of attachment can lead to inauthentic living, which the speaker links to negative health outcomes.
How does the speaker define 'attachment' and why is it important?
-Attachment is defined as the need to belong and be cared for, particularly in childhood. It's essential for survival and forms the basis for all future relationships.
What does the speaker suggest is the cost of inauthenticity in terms of physical and mental health?
-The speaker implies that inauthenticity, or being out of touch with one's true self, can lead to significant physical and mental health issues, including a higher likelihood of premature death.
Why does the speaker emphasize the importance of the emotional development of children before they can speak?
-The speaker emphasizes that children learn their first moral language and emotional lessons before they can speak. This early emotional development lays the foundation for all future intellectual and emotional growth.
Outlines
🧠 Early Trauma and Its Impact on the Developing Mind
The speaker discusses the concept of trauma, emphasizing that it's not just about significant events like accidents or kidnappings, but also about the subtle neglect that can occur in early childhood, such as not being fed or responded to appropriately. They explain that these early experiences shape the child's mind and can later manifest as trauma. The speaker uses their own experience of being given to a stranger as an infant and nearly dying to illustrate how the interpretation of such events by the child can lead to a sense of being unlovable or unwanted, which can persist as emotional memory in the nervous system and affect behavior decades later.
🏥 The Body's Role in Trauma and Emotional Memory
The discussion continues with the idea that trauma is not just a mental construct but is physically embedded in the body, influencing muscle and connective tissues. The speaker explains that emotional responses to certain triggers are not just reactions to current events but are rooted in past emotional baggage. They argue that behaviors often diagnosed as disorders, such as personality disorders, initially serve as coping mechanisms for survival during childhood. The speaker also touches on the concept of authenticity versus attachment, suggesting that the need for attachment can sometimes override the need for self-authenticity, leading to inauthentic living and potential health implications.
👶 The Importance of Early Emotional Development
The speaker highlights the critical nature of early emotional development in children, stating that children learn their first moral language and form their identities before they can even speak. They argue that emotional development precedes intellectual development and is essential for a well-rounded individual. The speaker also discusses the concept of 'gut feelings' as a form of survival instinct that is essential for authenticity and well-being. They suggest that the suppression of these gut feelings in favor of fitting in with family or cultural expectations can lead to long-term physical and mental health issues.
🧠💓 The Interconnectedness of Brain, Heart, and Gut
In this section, the speaker explores the idea that there are multiple 'brains' in the human body, including the brain in the head, the heart, and the gut, each processing stimuli and contributing to wisdom when in sync. They emphasize that the gut, often referred to as the second brain, plays a crucial role in emotional processing and decision-making. The speaker argues that a disconnect between these 'brains' can lead to a lack of wisdom, even in the presence of advanced logic and technology. They suggest that true wisdom comes from a holistic integration of emotional, intellectual, and gut instincts.
Mindmap
Keywords
💡Trauma
💡Pre-verbal
💡Emotional Memory
💡Trigger
💡Authenticity
💡Attachment
💡Coping Mechanism
💡Survival Technique
💡Gut Feelings
💡Moral Language
💡Holistic
Highlights
Trauma is defined as a wound that persists and impacts life later on.
Trauma isn't just about significant events; it can also stem from neglect in early childhood.
The world shapes our minds before we can shape it ourselves.
Early experiences can be classified as traumas that manifest later in life.
Trauma is not just what happens to you, but what happens inside you as a result.
The author's personal story of trauma involving being given to a stranger as a child.
Trauma is the emotional memory of being hurt, abandoned, and not wanted.
Trauma gets embedded in the nervous system as emotional memory, not as recollection.
Triggers are small things that set off the emotional baggage we carry.
Trauma is not just a negative; it can also be a coping mechanism for survival.
Personality disorders can be seen as maladaptive coping mechanisms that were once necessary for survival.
Depression can be a survival technique where emotions are suppressed due to danger or unacceptability.
Attachment is a powerful dynamic in relationships and is essential for survival.
Authenticity is being in touch with oneself, feelings, and emotions.
The conflict between the need for attachment and the need for authenticity.
Inauthenticity can lead to physical and mental health issues and strained relationships.
Children learn their first moral language and form their identities before they can speak.
The emotional part of the brain develops first and is the template for everything else.
The left brain can be very developed, but without a healthy emotional foundation, it can lead to problems.
The gut is referred to as the second brain and processes stimuli from the environment.
True wisdom comes when the brain, heart, and gut are in sync.
Transcripts
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[Music]
[Music]
to you I think you say at some point
that all trauma is pre-verbal and a
trauma is something that you you're
quite careful in the book to say look it
doesn't mean that you were you were run
over or you were kidnapped that it's
things like not being fed as a small
child and not being responded to yeah
yes
um
and you then take that idea of trauma
being something that can happen to a
very young child and you say before our
minds can make the world that you know
we make the world that we then live in
he says but before that happens the
world makes our mind yes
and it's
those early experiences for you are
those the things then that you could
classify as traumas that they they
become embedded in the child and
manifest them later in life for
something
how does that happen how does it get
does it get embedded yeah well first of
all what sort of things are they and
then why do they get invested drama
basically means a wound so traum is when
you're wounded and that one persists and
and has impact in your life later on so
tomorrow this is important to
distinguish trauma is not what happens
to you
tell us what happens inside you as a
result of what happens to you so
I I just came back from Budapest I was
there for representing this book on
Hungarian and uh
this is
I don't know who designs this but I once
you know one of the things that I have
to do every day is Slim you don't want
to talk to me if I haven't swung you
know and I swam this morning already
it's okay
[Music]
so in Budapest I was staying in a hotel
and around the corner there's a swim
club
where I go swimming every morning
across the street directly across the
street as far from us as say the second
row here
is the building where my mother and I
lived when I was 11 months old and I
nearly died there and she gave me to a
stranger in the street on the same
paving stones that are still there
and so I didn't see her for five or six
weeks a lot of people know the story the
trauma wasn't that she gave me to a
stranger the trauma is what I made it
mean that any child what can the child
make it mean except that I'm being
abandoned and who gets abandoned
somebody who's not lovable
somebody who's not wanted so the trauma
then is my sense of not being wanted and
not being lovable
[Music]
not being considered important enough
and not that trauma plays itself out in
for decades afterwards so it's not what
happened to me as such
because when you look at it objectively
what happened to me as such was that my
mother gave me to a stranger and the
stranger took me
those are both huge acts of Love
Actually that's the universe loving this
child to take care of it
but that doesn't matter it's how what I
make it mean so the wound is then what
happens within us
that gets embedded in a nervous system
as me as emotional memory not as
recollection I don't recall being given
to a stranger about my mother because
the parts of the brain that recall
aren't even online at that age yet it
doesn't come online until years later
but the emotional memory of being hurt
and being abandoned and not being wanted
that's embedded in the nervous system
and then it then it gets triggered
whenever anything even vaguely
resembling it later on decades later
shows up in fact if you look at the
expression being triggered it's a really
interesting expression but these days
we're you know trigger warning you know
don't you triggered me well here's the
thing what can be triggered
for the trigger to do anything it took
is a very small little thing for a
trigger to have any impact whatsoever
there has to be an ammunition there it
has to be explosive charge
so when I get triggered it's not because
somebody did something it's because what
they did
happen to set up the explosive charge
the emotional
baggage that I'm carrying so if I carry
the emotional baggage of
somebody who doesn't have a sense of
being wanted and being important
anything later on that reminds me of
that will trigger me and drive my
behavior so that's how the throne works
it's embedded in the nervous system in
the brain in a form of emotional
subverbal memory
Nothing by the way I'm sorry to say one
more thing it's also better than the
body so many of you will have had the
experience
or if you're a body worker like a
massage therapist inside you go to
massage therapists they touch you in a
certain part of the body and all of a
sudden you're overwhelmed by emotion
we've had that experience so that's the
body as vessel says vessels under cloak
the body keeps the score so the term is
embedded also in the in the muscles and
in the connective tissues and the nerves
you also in the book you make the point
that this word trauma it's difficult to
hear it in any way other than negative
but the point that you make in the book
is that these the thing the story you
tell yourself or that your body takes in
is meant to help you at the time
and is that why it gets it that it gets
retained that in its original form it's
doing something positive it's later
becomes that's a good point tell us more
about that please absolutely so um
let's take somebody with a diagnosis of
Personality Disorder you know borderline
personal disorder one of these diagnoses
that don't explain anything they might
describe something but they don't just
they don't explain anything you know
so one of the characteristics is that
they don't trust people
it's just hard for them to form
relationships
and they're very easily feel a hurt in a
relationship
well that's a perfectly normal defensive
response to a childhood when you were
hurt a lot
you shouldn't trust I mean why would you
want to trust how could you trust if you
were always having a sense of being
disappointed and even being betrayed so
that what's called to be a pathological
manifestation actually begins as a
coping mechanism
and it's associated with your survival
or
um
depression you know this disease of
depression well really
what does it mean to depress something
it means to push it down no look it's
pushed on in depression his emotions
but why would somebody push down their
emotions only because it was dangerous
for them to express it or unacceptable
for them to express it in other words
they listen to a lot of parenting
experts who tell people to
tram you know to to to
suppress children's emotions if if the
emotions aren't acceptable to the fans
then a child in order to survive will
suppress their emotions will depress
them that's a survival technique
associated with
being accepted and then being part of
the family which is something the child
cannot do without
so once you associate something with
survival you're going to keep doing it
especially since it's unconscious it's
not like you chose to do it it's just
that you know this is how your organisms
survived by depressing your emotions now
you're going to keep doing that in fact
you'd be afraid not to
later on you're diagnosed with this
disease but it begins as a coping
mechanism and there's so many others of
these coffee mechanisms that are
associated with
survival and therefore we don't give
them up because if we if something if
our survival depends on being a certain
way if that's what we learned we're not
going to give it up that easily
especially as you point out children
have very few options yeah the the ones
that are built into us as mammals it's
fight flight or freeze well if you're if
you're a baby you can't fight yeah and
you Fade to run away so it doesn't leave
you with much does it except as you say
just to freeze and
yeah and it's that need for attachment
this is a word that you deal with a lot
tell us about attachment so this is a
conflict uh it's probably Central to my
work
um
in in all manner of conditions
and and also in all kinds of situations
it's a very powerful dynamic in adult
relationships for example
is the the child
um has an absolute need to belong to the
parents and to be cared for by the
parents that drive to be close to
somebody in order to be taken care of or
to take care of the other for that
matter is called attachment and mammals
are creatures of attachment they can't
survive without attachment without the
caring relationship obviously Leon
cannot survive
so attachment that's fine but then we
have this other need that
um
that's also determined by Evolution
which is I call authenticity and just
out all the self-authenticity
being in touch with ourselves being in
touch with their feelings and our bodies
and our emotions
um I know last time I spoke here I think
I asked the same question but let me do
it again
um I think I did if you've had the
experience of having a strong gut
feeling about something and ignoring it
and then being sorry afterwards just
raise your hand okay
what you're telling me here is about
your childhood
because
gut feelings are essential for survival
we evolved artery in nature for millions
of years
the human audience the humanoid
ancestors of our species lived out their
nature as did our own species live out
in nature for most of our existence as a
species like out of the 150 200 000
years that homo sapiens has walked the
Earth
if that can be represented in one hour
then until about five minutes ago we
lived out there in nature how long does
any creature in nature survive if
they're not in touch with their gut
feelings
so that being in touch with our bodies
and and our emotions is essential also
terrific but what happens is if for the
sake of fitting with the family or with
the culture that doesn't particularly
support our authenticity we have to give
up our connection to ourselves our
authenticity
for the sake of attachment
then being inauthentic being out of
touch with ourselves
is how we survive we're afraid to be
ourselves because we associate being
ourselves with a threat of being
rejected
and so this means that for the rest of
our lives we're going to be in
relationships where we're Faith to be
ourselves to really say what it feels
like for us now that has terrific
implications when I say terrific I mean
significant implications
a study I quote in the book they
followed 2 000 women over 10 years
over a 10-year period those women are
unhappily married and didn't Express
their feelings we're four times as
likely to die as those women are unhappy
married but they did talk about their
things
so so that inauthenticity
which is not a moral not a moral
Judgment of my part it's a
something people do in order to survive
the childhoods but that exacts a major
cost in terms of physical and mental
health not to mention your relationships
um where you're afraid to be yourself
where you're in a relationship and you
don't even
you're they don't even your partner
doesn't even know you
because you're afraid to be yourself so
you feel alone even when you're
partnered because if you're not known
you're going to feel alone it doesn't
matter how many people surround you
so you know the the price that we pay
for an authenticity is huge and yet so
many of us survived our childhood and
when you put your hand up I mean have
you ever met a one day old baby that
wasn't in touch with that gut feeling
oh
I'm tired and I'm hungry and I'm
uncomfortable and I'm wet but Mom and
Dad are working so hard I better not
cry I better not cry you know come on
you know in other words when you put
your hand up something happened between
the day you were born
and a few years later
when you no longer listen to your gut
feelings because you couldn't afford to
something happened
one of the things which come across very
strongly especially in the early part of
the book is that we tend to think that
children learn things when we teach them
when they get to school or when we can
have a conversation with them and very
strongly in the book what comes across
is that children become who they are and
learn their first their first moral
language as it were before any of that
in other words if you think to yourself
I shall wait until the child can speak
and then I'll teach them it's too late
they've already learned everything
from what you did or didn't do yeah
that's right so the the the
um and as a parent
because I was quite out of touch with
myself and based on my own history
I was never comfortable playing playing
with kids I kept thinking well once they
learn language because I'm good at words
you see so I thought once they learn
language they're not able to
but I missed the whole point is that the
real development happens before words
even come along the the emotional part
of the brain the the holistic
you might say more feminine although
it's not gender determined at all
holistic
emotional part of the brain the right
side of the brain
both in terms of the evolution of the
species but also in terms of the
development of the individual the right
side of the brain the emotional brain
develops first
and it's the template for everything if
we get the rights out of the brain right
the left brain will follow very nicely
if we don't get the right side of the
brain if we don't establish the
emotional relationships which children
require for healthy development then
they might become very intellectually
developed on the left brain side but
they'll be very underdeveloped there
won't be a proper template for it and
then they're going to be professors and
all that kind of stuff you know
or philosophers I don't know
or medical doctors for them
so that in this culture the um the left
brain really rules
but the left brain
um
divorced from a healthy emotional
underpinning where does it get us
it gets us to where we are which is
we're the only species
but the only species that creates
environments that are destructive to its
own species
that's what we look that's what the left
brain has gone as because the right
brain is underdeveloped
and they and they can't speak
you can't
in some way you don't have verbal access
to the lessons that first language you
learned before by the time you were six
months old so
how does that part of us
to us when we won't listen
it speaks to us through our um see
here's the thing that's here's the other
thing we think that we have this one
brain up here
and what's a brain a brain interprets
stimuli from the environment processes
them and responds that's that's what a
brain does
so yeah we have the cerebrum up here
but there's also it turns out there's a
brain connected to the heart there's a
nervous system
that surrounds the heart
which is in communication with this
brain here and of course the gut has
been called the second brain the gut is
more some more neurochemicals than the
brain does in some ways
and gut feelings are not
um
luxuries as we've demonstrated they're
actually a form of knowledge
so the gut is processing
stimuli from the environment
when these three brains are in sync with
each other then you have true wisdom
then you have through awareness when
this one is unmoored from the other two
you can have all kinds of logic and all
kinds of Science and all kinds of
Technology but you're not going to have
wisdom
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