Prisoners of Childhood is written by a Swiss German Jewish psychotherapist named Alice Miller.&nbsp;It was the first book that helped Gabor Mate get clear directions in his future work about trauma:<ul><li>stuff happens to us as children, negative things happen</li><li>we adapt to those things by taking on certain defensive ways of being</li><li>we live the rest of our lives from those defensive modes</li><li>we’re not actually experiencing the present but constantly reliving the past from a perspective that we acquired when we were helpless and vulnerable children.</li></ul>

Prisoners of Childhood  

Gifted child or the sensitive child: the more sensitive he or she is the more he feels the pain and stress of the environment:<ul><li>sensitivity magnifies the pain that we have</li><li>sensitivity leads to more creativity: there’s a really link between creativity and sensitivity, and creativity and sensitivity and suffering, at the same time.</li></ul>

Sensitivity vs Creativity vs Suffering

<ul><li>How we see the world determines the world that we live in. The Buddha was a great psychologist in that he recognized that our perceptions shaped the world that we live in.</li><li>What he didn’t say, and that’s where modern psychology comes in, is that before, with our mind, we create our world, the world creates our minds.</li><li>Buddha's mother died before he was a week old. So, he’s lost his most important relationship and his life began with suffering.&nbsp;</li><li>He spent all of his life trying to find the nature of suffering and how to transcend suffering and how to get beyond it.&nbsp;</li></ul>

Buddhism vs Modern Psychology

Addiction manifests in any behavior that a person enjoys, finds relief in, and therefore, craves in the short term but suffers negative consequences in the long term, and doesn’t give up despite the negative consequences.Addiction is about behavior not about the substances.&nbsp;It could be related to:<ul><li>cocaine, crystal meth, heroin,&nbsp;</li><li>fentanyl, marijuana, nicotine, alcohol</li><li>sex, gambling, internet, relationships, shopping, eating, extreme sports, working out, pornography...</li></ul>Addiction is not:<ul><li>genetic disorder</li><li>primary brain disorder</li><li>is not a choice</li></ul>Instead of asking why the addiction, why the pain.

Dr. Gabor Maté about Addiction

Adverse childhood experience:&nbsp;<ul><li>physical or sexual or emotional abuse, a divorce, a parent being jailed, violence in the family, a parent being evicted, a parent being mentally ill, a parent dying.</li></ul>For each of these adverse childhood experiences, the risk of:<ul><li>addiction goes up exponentially</li><li>autoimmune disease goes up</li><li>depression, ADHD and relationship problems, goes up</li></ul>

The relationship between childhood adversity and adult outcomes

A trauma isn't:<ul><li>A divorce when you were small, and your parents fighting</li><li>Your mother’s depression</li><li>Your father’s alcoholism&nbsp;</li><li>Your parents’ argumentation&nbsp;</li><li>Physical or sexual abuse or something else</li></ul>The trauma is what happens inside of you as result of these traumatic events.You get disconnected from your emotions, and you get disconnected from your body, and you have difficulty being in the present moment.&nbsp;You develop a negative view of your world and a negative view of yourself and a defensive view of other people.&nbsp;

What Trauma Is And Is Not

The trauma of omission where the parents, not that they didn’t love you, not that they didn’t do their best, but they were too stressed, traumatized, distracted themselves.

The trauma of omission

Please enjoy this transcript of my interview with Dr. Gabor Maté, a physician who specializes in neurology, psychiatry, and psychology. Transcripts may contain a few typos—with some episodes lasting 2+ hours, it’s difficult to catch some minor errors.

trauma

Prisoners of Childhood

The Tim Ferriss & Dr. Gabor Maté about addiction