Gabor Maté || The Myth of Normal

Today we welcome doctor Gobbler Mate to the show. Doctor Mante is a physician, renowned speaker, and best selling author who is highly sought after for his expertise on addiction, stress, and childhood development. For his groundbreaking medical work and writing, he has been awarded the Order of Canada, his country's highest civilian distinction. He's also a co developer of Compassionate Inquiry,

a therapeutic approach for deep healing and transformation. His new book is called The Myth of Normal, Trauma, Illness and Healing in a Toxic Culture. In this episode, I talked to doctor Mate about the myth of normal healthcare and west societies tend to focus on physical health without accounting for an individual's lived experience. The tension between authenticity and attachment and the pressures of a capitalist culture puts undue

stress on our minds and bodies. Doctor Mate invites us to rethink trauma and disease by emphasizing holistic well being and the role of agency. We also touch on the topics of early childhood, epigenetics, and self improvement. This was a really meaningful chat for me with someone who I admire greatly. I really like the way he thinks about trauma and the way he humanizes trauma. It's very much in line with my own humanistic perspective on healing and

importance of becoming whole. So, without further ado, I bring you doctor goblor Mate. Doctor goblor Mate. Wow, so great to have you on the Psychology podcast. Nice to be with you. I wanted to talk to you for quite some time. Really loved your latest book, and I was so excited to see a lot of areas of common interest, including our admiration for Eric from There's a name you don't hear that much these days. Oh, and I have to say that this book of Mind a Metal Normal

is almost like a tribute to from. I know, here's a book I was published I think in the nineteen forties, maybe early fifties the same society. It was a seminal in my own thinking. And you know, he's a psychologist and I'm a medical doctor, so we cover some of different areas. But his understanding of the unity of the individual psychology and social circumstance and social structure is very much fundamental to my own understanding, absolutely, and fundamental to

mind as well. I love this quote that you open up with, and I want to read it. It says, the fact that millions of people share the same vices does not make these vices virtues. The fact that they share so many errors does not make the errors to be truths. And the fact that millions of people share the same forms of mental pathology does not make these people seen. And that's from his book The Seine Society.

The general encapsulation of that book is that to be seen in an insane society is one of the highest forms of insanity and says such a great book, and your book is really great too. I'd love to hear some of your thoughts on our society today. Do you think that American society or we can include the Canadians and there are insane. How would you describe the society today? You do use the word toxic right to describe it.

The full title of the book is the Metaanormal Trauma, Illness and a Toxic Culture, but the original subtitle said Trauma and Healing Insane Society. And if we thought in the end that toxic is more accurate, it's less pejorative. Perhaps you know it names it more exactly how it is. Look it is an American society, but as an American political writer points out, it's the twentieth century was the American century than the twenty first century. The American eye

is the century. So globalized American COPD tabitalism has really taken over the world as the dominant economic model, but also as the dominant cultural model. And so that what we say of America is just representative of what's true all around the world. And you can see that in the arising of mental and physical health conditions in societies that didn't used to have them or not in the

same numbers as globalization takes over the world. You know, for example, obesity, which has long been an American problem, and there is a major health government in China and AHD which has not become a health concern in China. I didn't even us to exist there, you know, and so it says a certain culture imposes its dominant internationally,

all the ailments associated with it are cropying up. So yeah, we can talk about America, but America is only sort of the heightened and the most concentrated representation of what become modern culture international. Yeah, this idea of capitalism and how a lot of people are benefiting off of the myth of normal is so interesting to me. Reading those aspects of your book really opened my eyes up in a lot of ways. I think it can be naives sometimes.

I really think it's interesting how a lot of these afflictions that we suffer are will you you really humanize them, first of all, You really say that they really stem from a lot of thwarted basic needs. And I love that perspective. That's a perspective I take as well from my mentor Abraham as well, which I saw you. You

have a couple of paragraphs about in your book. Well, I close the book with Maslow actually and being as paragraph, and he's the one I pointed out that the people that are what he calls self actualized, actually you are detached some social values that they're not reflexive opponents or rebels, but they also don't necessarily identify with the values of a society that less healthy, that's less healthy than they are. So that in the modern world, there's a real tension

between genuine being ourselves and conforming to society. And you can conform to society, then you're not being genuinely yourself for the most warty given the nature of this society. Yeah, I don't know how deeply you've gone into him as his writings, but I went down a real rabbit hole when I was working in my book Transcend, and I came upon his writings on what he called metapathologies or meta grumbles. Not many people are aware of these things,

these this term. Yeah, yeah, I want. I wanted to see what you think of it. So he argued that we have our basic When our basic needs are thwarted, we can grumble like, oh I'm hungry, or oh I'm uh don't I'm lonely, or oh I don't get respect. But meta grumbles are he said, it's good to have meta grumbles. Meta grumbles are oh there's not enough meaning in the world, or there's not enough beauty, Oh I'm frustrated,

there's not enough justice. And he said that the meta grumbles or I have a very different flavor of them, and that to not have those pathologies is actually a source of pathology if you don't have the metapathologies. Isn't

that it's clever? Isn't that clever? But it's also actually accurate because as human beings and as a species, we do a certain needs, so that the health or toxicity of a society can really be gauged by one measure, to what degree does this particular culture meet genuine human needs? And those needs in the capitalist world that tend to be defined purely as physical needs. Even on a level of physical needs, this society is very uneven in delivering

the goods the men. Let's face it, some people get a lot more than their share, and others are utterly deprived. This is even in the wealthiest countries. I don't think I need to put too much trouble to prove that. But let alone spiritual and the emotional needs for belonging and connection, sense of meaning and purpose and transcendence, which are genuine human needs, is as magon hum more than anyone else. Society doesn't even consider them, let alone provide

for them. If I tramples all over them and which is a lot of them what we call pathology and people, but that pathology is actually a normal response to what is an abnormal society. Very well said on the Psychology podcast, I like to make connections that we've already noticed them and started doing this, make connections to your work and other work that I really admire. I also saw a great connection between your way of thinking about things and

Isaac Protensky's a way of thinking about things. I don't know if you've come across his work at all in the field of positive psychology, I think you would really like it, and I know he loves your work. But he studies the need to matter, Yeah, and what he argues we need to change from a me culture to a wek culture where we recognize that some people matter too much in our society, some people don't ever get the opportunities to matter. And he has this whole model

well being, this need to be careful. I think, I mean, I for so agree with it. And studies show that people that lack a sense of meaning, that presence makes a difference that has an impact on the physiology, pathological impact and that phys so I absolutely agree with that. On the one hand. On the other hand, the question

becomes what do we have to do to matter? So if I look at myself and my workoholism as a physician, it was very much about you wanted too much to matter in a sense that I didn't matter to myself. That's the results of childhood trauma. And then I try to compensate by trying matter too much to others in a sense of being important to them, and that mean ignoring my own needs or the needs of my own

children for the sake of being thought important. So it's a fine balance between mattering just as we are because we are, and genuinely showing up as ourselves. On the one hand, otherland trying to buy that sense of importance through suppressing our own needs and impressing others. And this society is rife with demands that people should matter because they fit in with other people's expectations, and so we have to be careful on that one because that creates

pathology as well. That's a really good point. Can you explain a little more what you meant when you say our concept of well being must move from the individual to the global. How can it move to the global while still keeping in individual being as mattering as well like integrating that into the global We can just begin

with early childhood. One of the essential needs of any human child is that the mere existence matters to the people that look up to them, not because they're smart or good, or pretty, or compliant or pleasant or useful, but just because they exist. So that sense of importance that only nurturing parenting environment can deliver it to a young child is an essential developmental need of the child.

It begins on that level, and children, as many of us do, will get the impression that we matter only if we please, if we matter only if we are attractive, or only if we're smart, or only if we're good at sports, or only if we're good little kids that we have to buy somehow that sense that we matter. That's a source of distress and physical and mental pathology later on in that same child wants to give an adult even before. So that's just an essential need that

we should matter. Now that's the one side of what comes up for me when I contemplate your question. The other side, of course, is that any spiritual tradition, and I know you've studied them, will tell you that we're not isolated creatures that we are by our very existence we stemmed from and we're part of a large unit

that's really global. I mean, when you think about it on the strict level of physics, at some point there was something when there was nothing, and then there's this mysterious big bang and all of a sudden the universe is born. And then some billions of years later, some particles of that universe are organized in such a way that they become what we call human beings with consciousness. But does that make us being part of that unity

any less or any less dramatical and less real? So that our mattering shows up on an individual level by our very entry into this form as human beings, and that's a need that needs to be recognized by the parenting environment. But at the same time, it's just fundamental reality that they're also part of a global entity in unity,

So there's no separation between the two. Properly understand it. Now, that's my own limited formulation of something that's truly is a great mystery, But that's the clearest that I can put it. Yeah, this tension that you bring up in your book between attachment and authenticity, I can't stop thinking about it. It's just it's so interesting. We have these Both of these are big needs that we have, right,

and they come online very early in our life. At the same time, and especially when you think about think about adolescens, Oh my gosh, when people are trying to find an identity. But at the same time, you know, there needs to be some sort of healthy attachment there to the caregiver in order to explore that identity. I was wondering if you could just explain a little bit about that tension and how it can get resolved in a healthy way in one's life. Sure, well, that needs

not to be attention. So we have these two fundamental needs. One of them is for attachment. Now that's just closeness, proximity with people who take care of us. And that's just a biological psychological need, not just of the young human, but of the young bear and the young elephant. And you know what happens when an elephant is born. An elephant mother goes into labor, all the other mothers stand around, and when the young elephant plops onto the ground, all

the mothers stroke them with their trunks. Talk about a sense of belonging, so that attachment, and then the parenting of that little infant elephant happens in a group setting, so there's a sense of belonging and connection right from earth. Now that's also need of the human child. And obviously without attachment, without somebody who's close to us, who's willing to extend themselves to take care of us, we just

don't survive. So that's not a need that's in any way negotiable, especially with the human child, who's the most helpless and the least mature and the most dependent of any animal for the longest period of time. Now that's one need. Now we have another need, which is what I call oftenicity, which is not some vague New Age concept. Auto literally needs the self, so being in touch with oneself.

And if you want to see the evolutionary significance of that need, imagine any animal, including a human art in nature where we developed then evolved as a species who's not in touch with their gut feelings. How long do they survive? So that authenticity is again a survival need. There needs not to be attention between them. In fact, we should be able to be authentic and still belong

that's healthy development. And as you alluded when that attachment need is provided in individuation, becoming a separate individual with self respect who at the same time can respect the community. Is it given. Indviguation happens automatically. In fact, you notice it in young kids. Is the one and a half? What do they start saying? What's the word they start using it? One and a half? I mean it's not yes, it's no. That, No, you're put on your shoes. No,

dinner time. No, there are terrible tools. There's nothing terrible about it. That's nature's way of individuating the child. Nature says, okay, kid, you can't be this cuddly, cute little bundle all your life. You have to become somebody who knows your own mind. You knows what you want them and you don't want. And before you can figure out what you want, you're

going to have to know what you don't want. Before you can say yes, you have to say no. It's without a no. Your yeses don't mean anything at all. So that's individuation, and that happens naturally and spontaneously. In the context of safe secure attentionments needs not to be attention between the two. However, in our culture, parents are very often taught that the way you socialize kids is you frustrate their needs. So a child has a need

to experience all their emotions, all of their emotions. Our brains are wired for joy, for pleasure, for fear, also for anger. Those all have essential roles to play in any animal's survival and existence. But what happens when parents today listen to any number of best selling psychologists who tell the parents child's angry time out. Now, the child's biggest need is to connect with the parent emotionally and physically. The child also is the need to be able to

experience other emotions. But what happens when the message that the child gets is if you have a certain emotion, you're on your own. Your attachment relationship no longer exists until you come back to what we think is normal. Then the child learns, oh, in order to attach, I

have to sacrifice my authenticity. So it becomes attention, not automatically, but because of a culture that doesn't understand genuine human needs, and so many of us we learn that if we're authentic, they're not going to like us, They're not going to approve us, and not going to help to us. We have to talk the way they talk, look the way they look, like, what they like, walked away they will talk with, have the same shoes whatever, and think how

they think. And if we don't, that threatens our attachments. So let me learn that our survival in this culture is associated with giving up our authenticity. And then thirty years later or thirty five years later, you start asking yourself, whose life am I leading anyway? And who am I anyway? Because that lack of authenticity shows up in a form

of mental health conditions and physical illness. And now we're saying, well, okay, what happened here, But what happened is in our own environment we associated surrendering our authenticity for the sake of belonging. That's the tragic tension. It doesn't need to be there, but in this culture it is. The trauma, loss, and uncertainty of our world have led many of us to ask life's biggest questions, such as who are we? What

is our highest purpose? And how do we not only live through but thrive in the wake of tragedy, division, and challenges to our fundamental way of living. To help us all address these questions, process what this unique time in human history has meant for us personally and collectively an emerge whole. I've collaborated with my colleague and dear friend, doctor Jordan Feingeld, MD to bring you our forthcoming book. It's called Choose Growth, a workbook for transcending trauma, fear,

and self doubt. It's a workbook design to guide you in a journey of committing to growth and the pursuit of self actualization every day. It's chock full of research from humanistic psychology, positive psychology, developmental psychology, personality psychology, cognitive science,

and neuropsychology. So lots of themes that you hear about on this podcast, and it's aimed to help us all integrate the many facets of ourselves and co crete our new normal with a renewed sense of strength, vitality, and hope. Whether you're healing from loss, adapting to the new normal, or simply looking ahead to life's next chapter, Choose Growth will help steer you there two deeper connection to your values,

your life vision, and ultimately, your most authentic self. Choose Growth will officially hit the shelves September thirteenth, and you can border your copy or the audiobook in the US now on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Indie Bound, and all major retailers. If you're in the UK and Commonwealth, you can order now at bookshop dot org dot UK. We truly hope this book helps you grow and thrive and become your best self. Okay, now back to the show.

There's something so interesting about you, something ironic. Let me see if I can articulate it. It sounds like you're not a fan of like psychiatrists just dispensing medicine. You really, in a lot of ways, you're actually advocating what psychologists do, which is therapy. But you're a physician and not a psychologist. So it's almost like you're saying, like, don't listen to the psychologist. Now. I know this is a great simplification, but it's just it's kind of funny in a way.

I appreciate you talking about how important the human psychology aspect is. Oh okay, so here's what happened. In my medical training. Nobody told me these things, but in medical practice I began to notice that people got sick, chronic

autoimmune conditions or malignancy, people developmenttal health conditions. These were just not isolated random events they represented something about that person's life, and in every case I could trace it back to experiences date in childhood and trauma and stresses they took and on, and this tension between authenticity and attachment. Like people, particularly with autoimmune disease, they tend to be people who really suppressed their emotions for the sake of belonging.

That's not just my fine thing. The funny thing is it's been studied over and over and over again and shown to be the case. It's just that nobody teaches you that in medical school. So once I began to realize all this through my own observation, and then I found this vast literature showing the unity of mind and body and the relationship of early experience and early in training psychological patterns to physical and mental illness. Then I realized it wasn't just enough for me to push kills

on people which deal with symptoms. I had to deal with the underlong dynamics. And that's when I began to console my patients. And that's one stream. The other stream was that I myself had issues. I was in my forties, I was a successful physician, but I was depressed. I recognized that Adhd. I was in a marriage that I'm still in after fifty four years almost but it was a very troubled marriage and we're struggling. So I had to realize that something's going on here, and then I

began to attend therapy myself. So the result is, in reality, there's no separation to be made between the psyche and the soma. From that point of view, every condition is psychosomatic, not in the sense of an imagined neurosis, but in the genuine scientific sense of the word. That the psyche

and the soma can't be separated. Through where they were talking about malignancy and multiple sorosis, room to electritis, depression, addiction, anxiety, whatever, So how could I not then discover the psychological literature. And then, furthermore, what's also happened in medicine is the psychiatrists also over since the fifties and sixties have really

narrowed their understanding. They used to have a broader understanding of things, but then the pills came along and they could be dramatically helpful sometimes, and then what's called today biological psychiatry, where it's all about just changing the biology of the brain and giving you a pill, but not looking at the issues that shaped the volge of the brain. Because that's the other thing that's absolutely essential to know is that the human brain develops an interaction with the

environment from the uterus onward. So the very biology that activates their brains is itself a product of social and psychological relationships. So there's no separation to be made. Well, I love it. I mean I reading your book is like, yes, a physician. He was talking about why psychology is underlying so many of these issues. In nineteen thirty eight, at Harvard there was a very famous physician. His name was Soma Weiss. Like me, he was a Hungarian Jewish immigrant

to North America. He came from Transylvania. He's so revered that to this day at Harvard they were research Day named after him every year. And in nineteen thirty nine some wise gave a lecture to medical school class which was published in the Journal of the Medical Association, and he said that psychological emotional factors are as important as physical ones in the causation of illness, and there must be at least as important in the healing of them.

But this is a physician. He was a pharmacologist and a pathologist. He wasn't a psychiatrist. He said this, he printed this in the journal the American Association, just what you and I talking about. And then four years ago, I'm talking to a guy who teaches at Harvard right now, and he said to me that until recently, to talk about the mind body unity at Harvard is to jeopardize

your career. Really, this is seventy eighty years after Summer Whites made that statement to medical So what's frustrating here is that what we're talking about wasn't confined to the realm of psychology. Doctors have understood this. Certain doctors have understood this all along. It's just that their insights get lost and they don't get incorporated into medical practice despite all the science that we now have to prove it.

So it's doubly frustrating. That's a real shame. I have a book coming out on the overcoming trauma, and it's called Choose Growth. But the reason why I bring this up is not not just to promote my book, but I bring it up because my co author of that book, her name is Jordan Feng, and she just got her MD and she's trying to start this field called positive medicine. And I couldn't be more proud of her. She was

actually my undergraduate student. I get tears in my eyes when I talk about there because she was she was my undergrad student, you know, when I was a professor at University of Pennsylvania. And now here she is, she's gotten, she's finished med school, and she's starting this field of positive medicine. Would you know. It's just she's trying to

do a lot of what you're you're talking about. She's trying to get the medical profession to pay attention and to the flourishing of the patients as an important goal in addition to their physical ailments, you know, and how these things are connected. So I just wanted to plug Jordan there for a second. You know, in nineteen seventy seven,

I mentioned sommer ice in nineteen thirty nine. In nineteen seventy seven, that was an American psychiatrist and physician called Georgia Engel instead that we have to look at the whole person because human beings, and he called for a biopsychosocial model of medicine, means that the biology of human beings is inseparable from the psychology and from their social relationships. So it sounds like your friend is trying to revivify that perspective maybe with modern science. I'm trying to do

the same thing. I wish you are lots sufford itude because she's going to run up against a lot of brick walls. But so what. Yeah, well, so far she's been implementing some of these programs in the med school and the doctors are loving it. So there's been a lot of positive reception to it so far. The individual doctors love it. Individual institutionally, it tends to be a lot of resistance anyway, maybe your friend will be successful

at it, then more part to her. Well, thank you for the word of encouragement, because you say in your book, and we're very aligned with that perspective. In our book, you say trauma is not what happens to you, but what happens inside you. This is a really, really kind of I think, a revolutionary rethinking of the idea of trauma. And it's so in line with the post traumatic growth literature that we are focused on in our book. I don't know if you've come into contact with that whole

psychological literature and post traumatic growth. But the way they define trauma within that field really is it's very much the eye of the beholder. Yeah and yeah, I want to get some of your thoughts on how you think about trauma. So, you know, I used to be an English teacher, so I pay a lot of attention. Really, you were an English teacher. I was an English teacher. Yeah, when well, before I became a doctor, I taught high school English and I decided that was way too stressful,

so I went to medical school instead. That's that is actually funny. Well you know the whole story of why I taught before I became a doctor. But that's the truth. But the result of which is that I pay a lot of attention to the language. So trauma itself, what is the origin of the word? It means the wound, That's what it means. It's a It's a Greek word for a wound or wounding. So if I look at the wound, is not what was done to you. It's what happens inside you. Is the result of what was

going to you. So if I hit myself on the head of the hammer, but I'm suffer is not the hammer blow. What I'm suffering is a concussion. That's the result of the hammer blow. So that trauma is what happens inside you. Now that's the good news, because the trauma is what happened to you. So my trauma, you might say, it begins with me being an infant under Nazi occupation in Germany, born to a Jewish family. That's

a traumatic circumstance to be born in. And as I explained in my first chapter, when I was a year old or eleven month old, my mother, to save my life, gave me to a total stranger in the street, and so I didn't see her for five She did that to save my life. Literally, I would not have survived where we were, so I didn't see her for five or six weeks. That was the traumatic incident. The trauma is that as a result, speaking of the eye of the beholder, what can a one year old infant make

of that separation? Is that I'm being abandoned. I don't know that this is Hitler and Warren genocide. I know my mother will sudden disappear. What I make that mean is I'm being abandoned. And who gets abandoned somebody who's unlovable. So the meaning I derived from that incident that saved

my life. And incidentally and miraculously enough, when I was in Burlapesh a couple of months ago, I went swimming every morning at a sports facility that was across the street from the pavement when my mother give me to the stranger all those years ago. But the meaning that I derived in the eye of this beholder, I was abandoned because I'm not worthy. I'm unlovable. Well that means

now all my life I have to compensate. One way to compensate for being unlovable is go to medical school, because if they don't love me, at least they're gonna want me. You want to be wanted to go to medical school. They're gonna want you all the time, when they're being born, when they're dying, in every moment in between. It's very addictive because I'm so trying to prove myself that I'm lovable, but I don't know that I'm doing that.

And when you get this hit of being wanted momentarily, it doesn't satiate the internal emptiness of this belief that I developed, and I'm not lovable. Therefore I have to get more and more and more of it and so when you say it, Sinaia, the beholder, Yeah, but the beholder was a one year old child, And it's the only cut conclusion I could have drawn at the time, you know. But then I have to overcome and understand

and let go of this belief. Now, the good thing is, if the trauma was what happened to me, then I'll never be the person that wasn't quote abandoned by my mother all those years ago. But if the trauma is the wound that I sustain, which is that I'm not lovable, that I can overcome at any moment. So this view that we share that trauma is what happens inside us rather than the event that happened to us, is much more positive. It opens up the possibility of healing. Whereas

if it's all in the past, the past is the past. Wow. So may I ask you a personal question? Absolutely, see your seventy eight right now? How old are you? Yeah? Seveny? First of all, you look great. You look great for seventy eight. Second of all, seventy eight. And my second question is do you feel worthy of love? Now? Yeah? I do? So you did it? Wow? Well? You know not that I don't have my moments, you know, but overall, you can't compare my consciousness and how I relate to

myself with even five years ago. Now you know. Wow, It's been a long process and my view of myself has shifted a lot as a result of the work I've done on myself and in my relationship with my spouse and my work in the world. So the answer is yes, whereas not that many years ago I would have said, well, I don't know. I mean, intellectually, of course I would have said yes, but I would not have felt it. I'm trying to like comprehend your way

of being. It's very interesting. There's like a real uh sensitivity to you that I can identify uh with myself as well, and I want to be queer. I'm not saying too sensitive. I'm just saying there is a lot of sensitivity and it's not too but it's it is what it is. And do you find a lot of moments in your life for joy and spontaneity and laughter because you don't, you don't smile a lot. Well, if you saw me throughout the day in my resue with my wife, my kids, adult kids, or my friends and

my fas, there's a lot of laughter. There's a lot of joy, you know when I tend to. But there's a kind of serious demeanor to me, and you're very serious. Yeah, well we're talking about serious subjects here. You know, I don't know people that get to know me. I actually have people who are listening. I have a great sense of humor. I love trust me, believe me. You want, I'll get a certificate from my wife about how funny I can do. But that was funny. That was funny. Well,

thank you. There's a serious bent to my mind. And I know that you've written about consciousness and the imbalance in the Western world of the over the over writing importance that we placed on the intellect as opposed to the intuitive conscious. Yes, that's right, that's my dissertation work. Yes, I know, I know. Yeah, Well it's amazing. I did

do a bit of research. I'm impressed. And when you actually look at how human beings developed, both as as a genus or as animals, it's the emotional circus that developed first. In fact, animals, the emotions are far more dominant than any kind of cognitive process. It has to be.

That's how they survive. And human beings on individual level, all the same trajectory, so that the right side of the brain that is associated with a holistic view and an emotional wisdom develops before the lest side of the brain. In early infancy. Now, my early infancy was spent under conditions of extreme stress. I was two months old when the Germans occupied Hungary. Before then, Hungary was an ants in the country. My father was raising a reinforced labor

It was a tough situation. So the right side of my brain tends to be flooded with some pretty negative inputs, and that can show up, and I think that's what people sometimes see, you know, even though I'm kind of past it in many many ways. But I was not programmed for joy. And when you mentioned joy, joy is experienced in an infant, how through play. One of the essential circuits in a brain has to do with play. But there's all the essential circuits. Just because they're there,

it doesn't mean they're activated. They have to be activated by the environment. So a little babies start playing, you know, nobody played with me when I was an infant. My mother was grieving the death of her parents in Ashwitz, lamenting the absence of her husband. She didn't know if he was dead or alive. She didn't know if her and I would survive from one week to the next. I didn't get a lot of joyful, playful input in

the formation of her in my brain. So when people see that that's the impact of my infancy, I've come a long way. But yeah, it shows up in my demeanor sometimes. But the idea that when you enumerate the things that trauma does to separate us from our gut feelings, I resonated so much with him. I just found it so truthful. I just want to elucidate them for audience, enumerate them for audience. So trauma foster is a shame based view of the world. Trauma distorts our view of

the world, and trauma alienates us from the present. Yeah, given that is the case, do you think that it's helpful for someone who has this kind of victimhood mentality, but someone who their identity is that they're a victim, Their identity is that you know, they've had trauma and there's nothing they can do about it. Do you see a great way forward for those individuals to kind of transcend that mentality so they can heal. Absolutely not. No,

only is it important, it's actually essential, it's indispensable. There are two ways to go sideways a trauma. One, which is a lot of people do is they deny it. They're not aware to how traumatized they are. I had a happy childhood. Not what happened to me wasn't any worse what happened to anybody else. All these things are sort of dismissing one's own pain. That's one, and this society reinforces that quite a bit. But the other way

is to identify with the victim part of oneself. Is this is who I am, which is the limit who you are. Even when people say I'm a survivor, I say, no, you're not. That's something that was an expense of yours. But that doesn't define you because we exist in the present moment. Wow, really profound, And in the present moment, you are a human being who are quite capable of being fully here and fully in touch with themselves. The fact that you survive something doesn't define you. So I

can understand that language. But whenever we identify with a certain experience, Okay, you might have been victimized, if you're sexually abused as a child, it's hard to say that you're not victimized. You were, But if you identify as the victim, then you limit yourself to that particular experience. And you always were even then and you are now much more than that. And so that identification itself whenever identification,

the word itself is interesting. I theem to make no idem the same for char to make identification is we make ourselves the same as something. So as soon as we identify ourselves one aspect of our life experience, we're limiting. We're making ourselves the same as that experience that keeps us stuck in the past. So when I do therapy with people, when I teach therapy to my students, it's helping people let go of identify, identify, recognizing the past,

not denying it, but also not identifying with it. It sounds like you've you've come a long way in that regard as well over the course of your life. Well, believe, in my marriage, I love to be the victim, you know, right, You're right about that in the Book of the Airport, Yes, you know, because can I get to be right? You know? And it's not my fault, you know, and not ot responsibility. We all love to you know not that we love to be victimized for any conflict. We love to see

ourselves as the hard done by party, you know. So you know there's that My wife calls it the I'm an ugly told kiss me syndrome, you know, where you show up as a victim and put me and then she's supposed to kiss me and then become the beautiful friends. You know, And thank god she no longer puts up with that. You know. But there's a thing I understand that urge to see oneself as a victim. I'm telling

you people, it doesn't help you. It's one thing to recognize what happened, what to identify with it, and to continue to bring that up as a justification doesn't watch for the Psychology podcast. We need the help of some great advertisers, and we want to make sure those advertisers are ones you'll actually want to hear about. But we need to learn a little more about you to make

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You have this, this idea that runs through It's a thread that runs through the whole book, which is disease is a long term process. Why is that a better way of looking at the situation than other ways that the doctor's view disease as well as psychologists view disease, right like in the DSM. So let's take a physical illness and let's take a mental health diagnosis. Okay, so I've been diagnosed with ADHD, which is considered by my profession to be a heritable disease. I say, it's neither

heritable nor is it a disease. When you consider the conditions of my infancy, all the stress that surrounded me and infused my environment, how does an infant deal with all that? Can I run away change the situation? No, you tune out? But when do you tune out? When your brain is developing, So the tuning out gets programmed into your brain and then you totally have this disease. No, you don't. You get a coping mechanism that's outlasted its usefulness.

So to say that I have ADHD makes an assumption. It assumes that there's this thing called ADHD. Then there's this entity called me, and I have this thing. When you say somebody has Rumato's writers, it assumes that there's such a thing as rumatoith writers. Then there's an entity called so and so and so and so has this thing. Now here's the case that holds my glasses. I have this thing. I can put it down, I can pick it up, I can throw it any air. It's not

part of me. But there's no such thing as Rumato that I writers. Is a thing. It's a process inside a person. It's a process that manifests according to a lot of research, and certainly my observation, trauma and long term stress. This is not a new idea, goes back at least one hundred years or more. It's just been

even over and over again since then. Now, if rutal treatis is not a thing that has a life of its own, but it's a process that manifests my life, then if I change my life I can affect the process. So rather than this disease having its own trajectory independent of who I am and what I do, now it's a process that I have agency in affecting. That's the first point is that this idea of these conditions not

being things but processes allows us individual agency. And that's contrary to the medical view that you've got this condition, it's got a life of its own. Here's what it's going to do, and all we can do is to mitigate its impact. So I know people who no longer run medications for their room to rights? Is they taken on the process. Now, when you come back to ADHD, Now there's also a kind of circular, almost absurdity in

this diagnosis. So gobb Or has ADHD. How do we know that Gobbler's ADHD because he turns out and he has poor impulse control? Why does he turn out have impoor impulse control because he's got ADHD. How do we know he's got ADHD because he turns out and it's poor impost control. Why does he too not have impoorantposs control he's got ADHD? In other words, these diagnosis don't explain anything, right, They describe things, and they might be

useful as descriptions, but they're useless as explanations. The reason I tune out and I have had difficulty impulse control is because when I was growing up and my brain was being shaped, the situation called for me to tune out as a way of protection, and the impulse regulation circuits of my brain didn't have the right conditions for the development. It also means that with some consciousness and support, I can learn to be in that present moment and

not tune out, and I can gain impulse regulation. So once you're reckon is that these diagnoses can be helpful descriptions, but the useless as explanations. The explanation has to be found in that person's life and the relationship to themselves. Now you have this whole broad field of possibility that opens up in terms of treatment and healing. So I completely hear that and the importance of bringing in the experience the life experiences of a human and understanding these diseases.

But I just want to make sure I really understand your position. So you know the field of epigenetics, which I know that you're you like you like some of the you know the findings coming from the foot up a genetic I think it is explanatory. It does include genes as as part of it, part of the story. You wouldn't deny that that genes are part of the story though, right, Well, for some epigenetics doesn't so much bring in genes as the impact of the environment in

genes and activating genes. Yeah, yeah, that's besidesly the point, so that, yeah, things are turned on and off by the environment, but not everyone has those same genes. Now, there are some diseases that are really determined genetically. One of them runs in my own family. If you have this gene, you're going to have the disease, and my mother had it, my aunt had it. By the end of their lives, they're both nearly paralyzed because of it.

You know, purely genetic, those are like one in ten thousand. Most conditions are not generically determined. Even if there's a genetic disposition, that disposition does not determine what will happen, but it depends on the environment. You talked about sensitivity earlier. Now I'm pretty sure from what I can read in the literature that sensitivity is significantly genetically determined, but sensitiviious

means that you feel everything more. That can make you joyful and creative and a leader and absolutely fulfilled if the conditions are right. It can also make you suffer tremendously when the conditions are not there. So the genes themselves don't determine any kind of condition. What they create is the pitiest position to be more effective by what happens to you. And so the more sensitive you are,

the more creative you're going to be. But you're also at higher risk if the conditions are not right, because you'd be more hurt. So for most illnesses, genes don't play any kind of determinate role, And nobody's ever discovered any gene for any mental health disorder that if you have this gene, you're going to have this disease. No, there's something you know rarely, there's hunting in his career,

you know very rarely. But for the most mental health conditions, there's no single gene, there's no group of genes that if you have these genes you will have this disease. What they have found is that there's a large group of genes that the more them you have, the more risk you are for any number of mental health conditions, which means that the genes are not for any particular mental health condition, but they what are they for? And

for sensitivity? There's so much to discuss here, right, like, and maybe we can we can continue some of this specific discussion in our ig live. But yes, you're referring

to polygenic scores, which you're absolutely right. The genetic behavioral geneticists have discovered that the holy grail is not going to be finding single genes, but there are When you look and multiply watts and wats and lots and lots of genes, you start getting some pretty decent risk predictions depending that are very much based on triggers environmental triggers. So that is true nature via nurture, not nature versus nurture. Yeah, but look, so I know geneticists who have all kinds

of arguments with pologenic scores. There's a debate in the genetic world. Number one. Number two, Let's say you're right in the student that you just articulate it is correct, which is the part that we can actually do something about. Right, Look, even if a condition was ninety nine percent genetic and one percent environmental, what's the part I can work with the environmental part, you know. And there's no conditions that are ninety nine percent genetic, I mean not in the

mental health field. So let's just look at them. Let's grant that there's a whole bunch of genes that the more than you have, the more likely to have this start or the other depending on the environment. Let's look at what are the fact Let's just stop looking at the molecules of the genes. Stop all those billions of dollars,

They're useless. The Genome project has led to absolutely nothing in terms of positive featments, nothing after billions of dollars, As its own advocates have admitted, Let's look at what is it in this society. What are the environmental factors? Like if you take a condition like anxiety or say ADHD or depression, the number of people suffering them is going up and up and up, and that documentally. Now, if that's the case, that shows that it can be genetic.

Because genes don't change in a population in ten thirty or even one hundred years, it's got to be environment. So, for goss sakes, let's take our lift our eyes to the social environment that promotes function or dysfunction and human beings. That's the part. The parenting and the schooling, and the

laws and social organization and communities and relationships. That's the part we can actually partfully effect To play off deves Avaca for a second, in the spirit of a discussion, there's this raging debate in the field that I work in, in in gifted education and in the genetics of academic achievement. Some people like Robert Pullman and his colleagues believe that there is great value in identifying certain genetic risk factors

for reading disorders as early as possible. He argues, we should be screening for these genetic abnormalities as early as possible so that we can get them the right environments and inputs as early as possible to help them, and even more controversially, for gifted education, identifying those that are going to be able to learn quicker than others and

give them the supports they need. So one could say to you, and by the way, I'm totally playing Devesavac because I'm not a big fan of that what Pullman recommends.

I'm on the other side of this debate, but just in the sense of you know, Steel manning this could one argue that, well, there's still is great value then in being able to identify the subset of individuals that will be more responsive to certain environments and others, so that we don't waste our money on just everyone, but we can target it towards those that really actually would

be affected in the environment with certain genes. Well fair, now, but you don't need genes so that any mother words assault will know what the kid's needs are, and any teacher who is a tall educated in human development and recognizing diversity will know what is the need of this particular kid. I agree and making education needs based, but

we don't need genetics to identify. And even if we had genetics, you can never show you can show two people with the same genes have very different outcomes based on environment, Landlord, So forget all this stuff about genes, you know, just let's just notice kids. Those kids that need the extra help don't manifest that their behavior will cry for it, and so we don't need all that stuff.

We just have to be alert and sensitive and attuned to children's needs and know something about the interaction of the environment and the child's main development. If we get that right, you know, we don't need the genetic proofs. In fact, the genetic proofs can create all kinds of alarms and unnecessary interventions that, if the environment is right, aren't even needed. You know. So to me, it's a non debate. Okay, Yeah, I'm inclined to believe with your perspective, there, yeah,

pathways to wholeness. I love love that you define healing as moving in the direction of wholeness, not a designation, but a direction, just like what self actualization is. When did that definition or way of thinking about healing come to you? I mean, have you been talking about that throughout your whole career in that way? Is that no more recent development? I just don't just the door that

you know, that whole way of thinking about healing. But I'm just wondering when that in your career did that come to you? It didn't come a result of education. I was trained as a medical doctor, which talks about cures, but not about healing so much. And there's a difference. Now, again, this is not a concept that's at all original to me. The word itself healing comes some word for wholeness. That's the word origin. That's the etymology in fact, I'm Hungarian,

and it's interesting. In Hungarian the word for health is egga shig and gas means whole, So literally the word for health is being a whole. Now in English the word is the same derivation of wholeness. I didn't make that up, nor was it the first one to discover it. But as soon as I was acquainted with that concept, it made total sense to me. Because one of the things that trauma does is it splits itself from parts of ourselves, and it's that split that then creates all

kinds of pathologies, whether the mind or the body. And so that he then involves becoming a whole again, not just so much to becoming whole, but to recognizing a wholeness and to integrating it. So that's why are the last day chapters. The healing part of the book is called Pathways to Hollness because that's what health is. So no, I didn't learn it in medical school. I don't know at what point it starts to resonate with me, but

it's certainly for me what I understand now. Yeah, and can you also explain why healing is not synonymous with self improvement because everyone's obsessed with self improvement right now, and like Instagram and TikTok. I don't know if you're on TikTok there, doctor Monte, I know I'm not had the pleasure nor we'll expect to have the pleasure of going on TikTok. There's only so much time in my life,

you know. Yeah, yeah, fair enough that everyone's obsessed with this optimizing, hacking themselves, you know, is that that's not the same as healing, is that right? Well, if you look on TikTok, well do you have a lot of these influencers influence to what? Influence to image? There's got nothing with the true self. It has to do with portraying an image that other people will like, which is

just the opposite of authenticity. So TikTok is the least authentic invention in the history of the universe because it's all about it And why do you want, by the way, to be an influencer so you can sell products that nobody needs? I mean, the benefit of being an influencer on TikTok is that some company will want to use your image, not who you are, because they don't know who you are. They don't care who you are. They want your image to sell some products that, for God's sakes,

it is not going to make anybody's life any better. So, but in a broader sense, if you talk about self improvement, what they mean is to make themselves better in their inauthenticity, more successful in authentic versions of themselves. They don't talk about self awareness of self knowledge. They talk about self awareness improvement according to the standards of a toxic culture. So what's called self improvement is very often the opposite of authenticity. So it looks, I mean, look an almost

crash level. I could practice self improvement by getting some bolltox ingestions. Not there'd be a fewer lines on my face. It's that self improvement. No, it's tinkering with my image. I don't want to be crass about it, but a lot of self improvement is really superficial stuff. It's not about self improvement. It's about self awareness and self manifestation. Yeah,

you say, I would like to quote you. You say, none of us need be perfect, nor exercise saintly compassion, nor reach any emotion or spiritual benchmark before we can say we're on the healing path. All we need is readiness to participate in whatever process wants to unfold within us so that healing can happen naturally. See, healing is a natural, dynamic and inside any creature. If you cut a tree, I mean, if you just make a gash in a tree, there's a healing process. An animal. They

don't want the doctors. They just have an internal healing process. We all have a healing process. Now, traditional medicinal practices and shamanic medicines, wisdom medicines will always recognize that Western medicine which is brilliant and a lot of its interventions and indispensable. So I haven't turned anti doctor. I'm still a doctor, you know, not that I don't practice anymore, but I still think like one. Western medicine has made

incredible contributions, but it's forgotten about healing. And what if we combine the science and tradition, both science and the modern science, and the traditional wisdom of healing with the ingenious developments of Western medicine. Boy, could we have a beautiful medical system. Yes, agreed, preach, preach brother. Yeah. The four threads that run through the book for the healing

process are the forays. So I just want to tell the listeners the four ays, So authenticity and as I understand it, you really in quote awareness is a core part of authenticity. I do, and I wish i'd added awareness is a fifth to a by the way. Really yeah, oh interesting, Yeah that was an oversight on my park. I'm doing it right now, thank you. Yeah, you're welcome.

So authenticity, awareness, agency. So let's double click on agency for a second, because I'm sure you agree there's there can be toxic agency where you believe that you're you can do anything if you just put your mind to it and the environment doesn't matter at all, And that's not what you're talking about. But these days don't exist in isolation from each other. So there's authenticity and agency.

You're not going to do that because you got the awareness, and so double click explain what you mean by agency a little bit. So let's go back to my idea of disease as a process. Okay, So let's say you have multiple processes, which means that you get numbness in your skin or your parallels to a lamb, or you go blind in when I temporarily, or you get weakness or lag or something. If you see the disease is a thing, then all you can do is go to

the doctor. You get steroid infusion or whatever medication they want to give you to override the symptom. But if you see the process as a manifestation of your life, and that if you recognize, along with all the research that has been done, but the flare up of your multiplese throsis has to do with stresses that you unwittingly taken on your life, and you have the agency to say, Okay, I'm going to learn from this. How was I stressing myself before the flare up? And I want to not

do that to myself anymore. No, you have agency. No, you're actually in charge of the process. And I've known people who have done this with wonderful results, and I'm not the only one to have researched this kind of an approach. So that agency means that you take charge. You take advice from others, but you're the one who's the active agent in your and healing rather than a passive recipient healthcare from some expert. Is it related to self efficacy? Well, it's a good other word for it,

isn't it. But it doesn't with an A, so I couldn't use it and that's true. That's true. And then the other the other one is anger. See, you have a good sense of humor. You have a good sense humor. And the other one is anger. And wow, that's the fasting one because a lot of people at first blush will be like, oh, including anger is a path to healness, sorry, a path to wholeness? Do you like cal combined healing and wholeness? And said, hellness what I just did there? Yeah? Yeah,

as a path to wholeness. But I totally see what you're saying about being able to regulate that anger. So can you talk a little about why that is so important? Well, it's healthy anger, healthy anger. So I will play a bit of a game about anger. M yeah that okay, Oh yeah, I love games. So let's assume that all of a sudden, you know, the only rule in this game is that you can't leave this space. Okay, this

is your life, so you can't leave it. Okay, but this space that you and I share, you know, online, is your life. And I'm here on the screen. But all of a sudden, I start getting intusive, I start asking personal questions, I start demeaning you somehow, what would be a healthy response. The healthy response would be to have healthy assertiveness. I think just set a boundary exactly, and that in a healthy way. And that's what healthy anger is all about. It's a boundary defense. It says no,

this is a my space, get out. That's the essence of healthy anger. But once you said that, and if I persisted, there's no reason for you to stay angry. It's gone. It's done. His job is not. You're have to stop fuming about it and projecting into the future, recalling all the others in the past. It's in the present moment. It's a boundary defense. So the roll of the emotions in general to allow and what is healthy and nurturing, and to keep up what is toxic and unwelcome.

That's the role of emotions. No, I'm going to ask you a skill testing question. What's the rule. What's the role of the immune system? Well, our immune system. It's almost a signal. It's like a barometer, barometer of what's his role notifying us, alerting us to well the immune system well, to protect us, protect us by allowing in what is healthy and keeping out what is not. That's what I passed the test. Three? Did I pass the test. You came very close, you know, I mean it's going

to half out of ten. Okay, not bad. So the role of the immune system is to keep up what's toxic like bacteria or toxins, allowing nutrients, allow in healthy bacteria. You know something. The emotional system and immune system have the same role to keep up what is toxic and unhealthy and welcome, allowing what is nurturing and welcome. Now, the physiological fact is that the immune system and the emotional system are It's not that they're connected, it's that

the part and parcel of the same apparatus. It's the one unit where we suppress our healthy anger. We're actually suppressing our immune system and an immune system. And you know, as a psychologist, what happens to anger that we suppressed. Does it go evaporate to the heavens. It's a complamation. It turns against the individual in the form of self loathing and depression and so on. The same thing happens to the immune system. So we repress healthy anger because

we're programmed to do so in childhood. We're at the risk for our immune disease and malignancy and depression. I mean, even look at the word depression. What does it mean to depress something? It means to push it down. What are we pushing down? When we depress something, We're pushing

our emotions. Where are we pushing it down? Because in our mind, in earther environment, our emotions were not accepted for what they were, So that the repression of health the anger is a major contributor to phathology of all kinds. That's why I emphasize it. I'm talking about a healthy anger. I'm not talking about toxic rage, which is a totally different proposition. I get it, I get it, and I love that you include that as the path to the

wholeness because a lot of people leave that out. Well, I will say overall, a lot of people in the well being industry leave out wholeness as an important So I love that you do that. And I was actually going to call my most recent book my prior book Trends, and I was actually going to call it How to Be a Whole Person was actually the working title of it. It's just I feel like that has left out a lot so wonderful. And then the last one here for

wholeness is acceptance. What's the difference between acceptance and tolerating something huge difference. If I were to be permanently and chronically insulting to you in our whatever relationship that we had, or if you were to me, and if I just put up with it by getting my teeth or you did, I'd be tolerating something that's actually toxic because it's toxic to being that kind of a relationship. So tolerating is

putting up with something that is actually unacceptable. Now, acceptance is just a recognition in the moment, is that, at this moment, this person is doing this. That's the truth. I can't deny that they're doing that. Now I have to decide what I want to do about it. So acceptance is just recognizing reality and saying that's how it is right now. So accepting is that acceptance. There's this COVID pandemic. As much as are real about it, as much as I don't like it, I can't deny it.

I accept that here it is. Now My question is how do I respond? Not how do I tolerate it, but how do I respond to it? So acception acceptance leads to healthy response. Here's how it is. I'm going to respond to it. Tolerance means putting up with the intolerable, the huge, vast world of difference, so one can masquerade

as the other, another all the same thing. So when you combine these four and then we add in some a dose of what you call compassionate inquiry, what do we get tell people about what compassionate inquiry is and

how it can help us undo self limiting beliefs. So compassionate inquiry is both a method that I don't want to say I developed it, but as a physician, for reasons I already explained, I found out I had to begin to look at the whole person, and not just look at people's pathologies, but to look at their lives, their multi generational histories, how they relate to themselves and

all that. Not because as a family physician, my patients in a part where I worked in Vancouver, they couldn't afford private technologists, and because the psychiatrists are so narrow in their perspective, this biological psychietary, let's give you a pill, where would I send my patients for counseling. I had

to develop some consoling skill myself. So I just learned how to start asking questions and as people saw me demonstrated and groups, and so they started asking me to teach them what I do and I said, I can't teach it to you because I didn't learn it and I don't even know what I'm doing. I'm just doing it. But they said, yeah, yeah, you can teach it. So that became this therapeutic approach called Compassion Inquiry, which now has an online one year long course studied by physicians

and psychologists, psychiatrists counselors in about eighty countries. We've had about three dozen students in the last three years. It's a one year online course, but it's also an approach that I teach the individuals, which means that any aspect of you that you don't like, like let's say of addiction. Now, you could just be hard on yourself. I'm an addict and I'm a failure and I'm moral coward. You can do that, or you can ask yourself, what role is

that addiction playing in my life? Oh? It helps me soothe my pain. Then the question is how do you develop that pain? What happened to you and how are you still holding on to that pain. Enquire just means asking questions. So let me give you any obvious example, I could say to you or to me, why are you doing this? Now? Is that a question? It's not a question, No, it's a judgment. What if I do, Hey, how come you're doing this? Which question I am more

likely to answer? Yeah, totally the second one. Yeah. So when there's safety and compassion, So there's a spiritual teacher that I highly value and respect. He says, only when compassion is present will people allow himself to see the truth. So the work that you and I do is all intended, if it is a core intention is that people should come in contact with the truth of their lives, the truth of their world. But they only do that in

the context of compassion. So that's why it's called compassion inquiry, asking the right questions, but in an atmosphere of compassion, non judgment, non rejection. And if if I notice you judging or rejecting any part of yourself, I will point that out to you. Like if you say to me, oh, yeah, okay, so my dad yelled at me a lot, but a lot of kids have had that happen to them, I would say, okay, would you ever say that to a

five year old? Okay, your dad is yelling at you, but a lot of other dads are yelling to so put up with it. No you wouldn't, Well, then don't say it to yourself. So it just means training people and being compassionate to themselves as they explore their own lives. I love it. And you know, someone who studies self actualization, the science of self actuation, the way you distilled self

actulation in just one phrase, you said, authentic satisfaction. I was like, huh, because you know, I never really thought of it in that way before. But the way I had been thinking about self actuation does resonate with with that phrase authentic satisfaction. And you know, you get to a point in your life where you, as you used the word awake, you're waking up, right, You wake up to what's within you, right, you wake up to what the possibilities are for yourself in the world. Is that?

Is that how you're thinking about this? Absolutely? Absolutely? In the last chapter, I quote James Balden twice, so I saw, yeah, And in one phase he says that in this country, and I'd say in most countries, words are used not to wake up the sleeper, but to cover his sleep. You know, Yeah, and he also said that not everything that's faced can be resolved, but that nothing can be

resolved that is not faced. So my words, and I think your words and the words of many of our colleagues are actually designed to help people wake up and and and to face what there is so that it can be resolved. That's really my work. That's really, I think the work of all of us that are really committed to healing in this world. Yeah, that's what I got to say about that. Absolutely. I'm going to end here with a quote for another another quote from you.

You say, we're blessed with a momentous opportunity shedding toxic myths of disconnection from ourselves, from one of other, and from the planet. We can bring what is normal and what is natural bit by bit closer together. Is a task for the ages, one that can redeem the past, inspire the present, and point to a brighter, healthier future.

It is our most daunting challenge and greatest possibility. I really loved your book, and I read all five hundred and seventy pages, big book, but I really loved it. And I really appreciate you coming and speaking with me on the podcast. I hope you didn't find my questions about your personal life intrusive. Oh listen, I'm very open about my personal life. I don't hide any aspect of it. I'm not ashamed of it. I've had my dysfunctions and

my addictions. I've had the ways that I've imposed my trauma and my own family, not deliberately, but not personal. That's the impact of trauma, and so I don't use that as an excuse. But I also don't hide anything, so nobody can ask me anything that any way bothers me, because my story is everybody's story, and just as if you, Elsa's story is my story as well. So what's they're doing? It? Absolutely? And I also hope I was able to show some

more of your humanity as well. Today satisfying discussion. I really appreciate it. Thank you, Thank you, thanks for listening to this episode of The Psychology Podcast. If you'd like to react in some way to something you heard, I encourage you to join in the discussion at Thusycology podcast dot com. We're on our YouTube page, The Psychology Podcast.

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