Compassion In Action

https://youtu.be/5c9ENKpK1Fk

Bessel van der Kolk, M.D., is the President of the Trauma Research Foundation, Professor of Psychiatry at Boston University Medical School and author of NYTimes Bestseller “The Body Keeps The Score: Brain, Mind and Body in the Healing of Trauma.

www.besselvanderkolk.com

After a twenty-year career in family practice, Dr. Gabor Maté began working in Vancouver’s Eastside area with patients who were challenged by addiction and mental illness. Dr. Maté is the best-selling author of four books published in over twenty-five languages, including In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts: Close Encounters with Addiction, When the Body Says No: The Cost of Hidden Stress, Scattered Minds: The Origins and Healing of Attention Deficit Disorder and, along with Dr. Gordon Neufeld, Hold On To Your Kids: Why Parents Need to Matter More Than Peers.

Dr. Maté is an internationally renowned speaker, highly sought after for his expertise on addiction, trauma, childhood development and the relationship between stress and illness. He is currently writing his next book entitled The Myth of Normal: Illness and Health in an Insane Culture, due out in late 2021.

Dr. Maté developed a new therapeutic approach called Compassionate Inquiry which is now being studied by hundreds of therapists, physicians and counselors in their practices.

2:32 – The system is working the way it was designed to. When They See Us – TV series discussed.

3:50 – Quote from Gabor Maté’s book and Fritzi’s 8 ACEs.

4:54 – Promiscuity, workaholics – the need to be lovable and valuable. Addiction patterns serve a purpose.

6:30 – Society belittles people for their trauma coping behaviors.

7:27 – Manifestations of trauma (violence, obesity examples) – society’s attitude and self judgement.

8:17 – What if instead, everyone from schools to courts took trauma into account?

8:50 – People in leadership roles are in fight or flight when making decisions about our lives.

9:08 – Leaders (like Presidents) and their traumatized behaviors.

10:42 – Lawmakers have no problem supporting wars, causes of poverty.

11:10 – Traumatized people in positions of power.

12:15 – Comparing President Carter with Presidents JFK and Clinton.

14:52 – The system is running as it was designed to.

15:29 – Traumatized people who volunteer for the military – PTSD and addiction.

17:30 – Former Veteran in prison.

18:02 – Society creates trauma in the first place then turns traumatized into enemies.

18:40 – Protecting society from violent criminals doesn’t mean we need to put them in prison in its current format.

19:50 – False equivalence between current prison system and protecting society.

20:11 – How the system has failed.

20:52 – We are only tough on lower class crime.

21:44 – Accountability and the hypocrisy of the prison system.

22:10 – Prisoners charged money to call families or buy enough food.

24:24 – Correctional Officers are also highly traumatized.

25:30 – Many professions have tremendous stress, but no one helps the employees.

26:23 – Systemic ignorance of trauma and stress.

27:16 – Self-care while under stress – Gabor describes his ordeal as an expert witness for the courts system. Courts don’t care about the truth, only who wins.

32:19 – How can the average person deal with assaults and hostility within the courtroom?

33:37 – Court appointment physicians thought the accused had a happy childhood. Gabor Mate’ discovered he in fact did not.

35:55 – Addicts are not making a conscious choice – there is a good reason behind the behavior.

37:11 – Addiction behaviors make people feel like a human being, alive and vital.

38:55 – Protective shutting down of emotion by the brain during childhood trauma.

39:20 – Medical professionals including a famous Psychiatrist who don’t understand trauma (ACEs).

41:00 – Things are starting to slowly change for the better.

41:36 – Trauma education is needed so that we can stop hurting our children.

42:35 – Prevention of trauma should begin with prenatal care.

43:15 – Quote from Joseph Campbell

44:09 – How bringing compassion to those who feel they don’t deserve it (in prison) makes incredible difference.

45:19 – Mentally insane woman who was executed.

46:50- Wesley Purkey – ACE score of 10 also executed.

47:35 – The heartbreak of losing people we care about at CPP.

48:24 – Self-care is essential to continue the work of changing the system.

49:00 – Rapists were raped, pedophiles were raped as children.

49:40 – Marshall Rosenberg amazing quote after visiting a convicted pedophile/murderer.

50:46 – Understanding is not excusing.

51:42 – Edith Eger, Hungarian psychotherapist who was in Auschwitz.

53:11 – Do we want to be conscious and aware or act from vengeance and unresolved anger?

53:53 – Great spiritual teachers like Buddha and Jesus.

55:15 – When They See Us – Netflix series.

56:01 – Why does the media not seek the truth?

58:00 – CPP creating awareness of Do No Harm.

58:31 – Norway prison model.

59:04 – The Presence Process by Michael Brown sent to prisons.

59:58 – Compassion Inquiry training.

1:00:46 – Very few of us are wholly integrated.

1:01:55 – Making conscious choices and apologizing when wrong.

1:03:20 – The term “Digging In” when feeling under attack.

1:04:37 – People not wearing masks thinking they’re being manipulated or bullied.

1:07:00 – Value is in the work itself when it comes to changing the system.

1:10:00 – Prisons are the most challenging manifestations of society’s trauma, but there is a ripple effect from helping someone.

Dr. Perry is the Principal of the Neurosequential Network, Senior Fellow of The ChildTrauma Academy and a Professor (Adjunct) in the Departments of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the Feinberg School of Medicine at Northwestern University in Chicago and the School of Allied Health, College of Science, Health and Engineering, La Trobe University, Melbourne, Victoria Australia.

Over the last thirty years, Dr. Perry has been an active teacher, clinician and researcher in children’s mental health and the neurosciences holding a variety of academic positions. His work on the impact of abuse, neglect and trauma on the developing brain has impacted clinical practice, programs and policy across the world.

Dr. Perry is the author, with Maia Szalavitz, of The Boy Who Was Raised As A Dog, a bestselling book based on his work with maltreated children and Born For Love: Why Empathy is Essential and Endangered. Dr. Perry’s most recent book, What Happened to You? Conversations on Trauma, Resilience, and Healing, co-authored with Oprah Winfrey was released in 2021.

In this interview we discuss:

https://youtu.be/PoFxrcrLmpY

https://youtu.be/oQrWcOLF27M

Stephen W. Porges, Ph.D. is Distinguished University Scientist at Indiana University where he is the founding director of the Traumatic Stress Research Consortium. He is Professor of Psychiatry at the University of North Carolina, and Professor Emeritus at both the University of Illinois at Chicago and the University of Maryland. He served as president of the Society for Psychophysiological Research and the Federation of Associations in Behavioral & Brain Sciences and is a former recipient of a National Institute of Mental Health Research Scientist Development Award. 

 In 1994 he proposed the Polyvagal Theory, a theory that links the evolution of the mammalian autonomic nervous system to social behavior and emphasizes the importance of physiological state in the expression of behavioral problems and psychiatric disorders. The theory is leading to innovative treatments based on insights into the mechanisms mediating symptoms observed in several behavioral, psychiatric, and physical disorders. 

He is the author of The Polyvagal Theory: Neurophysiological foundations of Emotions, Attachment, Communication, and Self-regulation (Norton, 2011), The Pocket Guide to the Polyvagal Theory: The Transformative Power of Feeling Safe, (Norton, 2017) and co-editor of Clinical Applications of the Polyvagal Theory: The Emergence of Polyvagal-Informed Therapies (Norton, 2018). He is the creator of a music-based intervention, the Safe and Sound Protocol ™ , which currently is used by more than 1400 therapists to improve spontaneous social engagement, to reduce hearing sensitivities, to improve language processing and state regulation.

https://youtu.be/r0XdYIqdmf8

Dr. Levine is the founder of the Somatic Experience Trauma Institute. He’s worked in the field of stress and trauma for over 40 years. He is the developer of the Somatic Experiencing Method. He’s written several books on trauma, including Trauma and Memory, In An Unspoken Voice and Waking the Tiger.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7-VAUnGV1Vs&t=4s

Dr. Vincent J Felitti, MD from Kaiser Permanente is the co-principal investigator, along with Robert F. Anda MD from the CDC, of the Adverse Childhood Experiences research study.

The ACE study changed the way we understand the impact and predisposing influence childhood trauma has on adult health issues. It helped bring to the forefront the realization that we aren’t bad people but, rather, bad things have happened to us which have subsequently impacted our physical, mental and emotional wellbeing.

Dr. Felitti graduated from John Hopkins Medical School, starting his medical career as an infectious disease physician in 1968. Dr. Felitti founded the Department of Preventive Medicine at Kaiser Permanente San Diego and held the position of Chief of Preventive Medicine in 2001. He is a Clinical Professor of Medicine at University of California and a Fellow at the American College of Physicians.

2:05 – Origins of the ACE survey

3:23 – Obesity program uncovers hidden childhood trauma and sexual abuse

4:35 – Major study of 26,000 adults CDC and Kaiser Permanente

5:00 – 10 most common ACES selected that kept coming up with obese patients in weight loss program

5:50 – Initial sample was biased (74% white, middle class)

6:09 – 5% of people in initial study had family member go to prison

7:09 – Of 1000-person sample of those enrolled in obesity program, 55% experienced childhood sexual abuse

8:20 – Female prison population, nearly 100% experienced past sexual abuse

8:41 – ACE survey includes “often or very often” meaning repetitive emotional abuse

9:25 – Parents telling children to keep quiet about abuse, or not believing them, equates to parental neglect (adds another ACE)

10:15 – Unpredictable abuse leads to hypervigilance

11:04 – Domestic violence

12:38 – 440,000 patients over several years were surveyed by integrating ACE questions into medical history questionnaires

13:30 – Mathematician analyzed whether or not the ACE study had any effect on subsequent healthcare of patients

14:00 — ACE survey results in amazing reductions in medical visits within following 12 months

14:25 – Vermont legislature invited Dr. Felitti to present, including ACE information in their state-run programs. Now 22 more states have passed similar legislation.

16:26 – Example of high cholesterol – is it genetics? ACEs?

17:24 – ACEs affect health in three categories including coping (crystal meth is street version of meth antidepressant from 1940s)

19:19 – One of Dr. Felitti’s more memorable patients – obese, heavy smoker, history of childhood molestation

22:46 – Neurochemical depression – life experiences cause chemical changes

23:37 – Prevalence of anxiety in society and 64% of Americans with at least 1 ACE

25:50 – Should we do ACE with the census?

26:55 – Patients appreciated medical staff acknowledging their “dark secrets” and still making them feel accepted

28:39 – Cities have published ACE survey in their newspapers

29:28 – School play idea – address abuse via fictional character development

31:45 – Awareness is key, rage is not who we are

32:37 – ACE awareness in prisons

32:55 – Why doesn’t the media address the childhoods of murderers? Wesley Purkey had an ACE score of 10. We executed him.

35:23 – 2000 ACE surveys have gone out to prisons

36:27 – 4 or more ACEs, seven times more likely to go to prison

36:54 – 3 pathways ACEs lead to disease: Coping mechanisms, toxic stress (brain chemistry) and epigenetics (influences on gene function)

41:58 – autoimmune issues associated with ACEs

42:24 – toxic stress and brain releases pro-inflammatory chemicals

44:45 – Need to improve parenting across the nation

45:57 – COVID and suppressed immune system

47:24 – lifelong fight or flight following child abuse

49:36 – ACEs can take years off of a person’s life

50:15 – Addiction behavior; short term benefits versus future health problems

51:30 – What helps people to heal?

55:15 – Universal understanding, lifting of shame

56:10 – Trauma-informed programs for prisons

58:56 – Role of autobiographical writing in healing of ACEs

1:01:29 – How to create a trauma-informed society

1:03:14 – Dr. Nadine Burke Harris, pediatrician who became California’s Surgeon General after integrating ACEs into her practice

1:05:58 – 27 more states needed to integrate ACE information into their operations

1:08:05 – 2.2 million people in prison

1:09:29 – Physicians need to have ability to see full picture of patient’s health, including past childhood trauma

1:11:47 – Benefits of hypnotherapy – American Society of Clinical Hypnosis

1:20:05 – Solutions (alcohol, workaholic, smoking etc.) all to mask real feelings

1:21:35 – 2021 will be the year America becomes trauma-informed.

1:21:58 – For more information, Google or YouTube Adverse Childhood Experiences Study