In this meeting of the minds discussion, we’re joined by three of the world’s leading experts on addiction: Dr. Gabor Maté, Dr. Richard Schwartz, and Professor Marc Lewis.

Although their backgrounds vary widely, with Gabor initially training as a medical doctor, Richard as a family therapist and Marc as a developmental psychologist and neuroscientist, all three of them have reached similar conclusions in their understanding of, and approach to treating addiction.

In a lively and wide-ranging discussion, we explore:

- Why do we need to approach problems with addiction not by asking: "what's wrong with it?", but instead by asking, “what's right with it?"

- Why both the ‘self-indulgent’ and ‘disease’ models of addiction are both fundamentally flawed and harmful (from a scientific point of view)

- The root causes

- How the internal family systems (IFS) model can improve our understanding of the mechanisms underlying addiction

- How Gabor Maté’s Compassionate Inquiry approach can help heal addictions by simply asking the right questions from a place of compassion and genuine curiosity

- Why IFS therapy may be one of the most effective approaches out there for working with addictions.

And more.

You can learn more about each speaker’s work via the selected links from this episode.

Links:

Marc’s website: https://memoirsofanaddictedbrain.com

Marc’s blog post series on using IFS to treat addiction: https://www.memoirsofanaddictedbrain.com/connect/redressing-addiction-internal-family-systems-therapy/

Memoirs of an Addicted Brain - Prof Marc Lewis: https://amzn.to/2ZGBjy5

The Biology of Desire - Prof Marc Lewis: https://amzn.to/3aBhVsB

Gabor’s Compassionate Inquiry Training: https://compassionateinquiry.com/online-training/

In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts - Dr. Gabor Maté: https://amzn.to/3ajx3JV

The Wisdom of Trauma Documentary: https://wisdomoftrauma.com/

Gabor’s website: www.drgabormate.com.

IFS Institute Website: https://ifs-institute.com/

IFS Institute Online Circle: https://bit.ly/ifs-online-circle

IFS Annual Conference: https://ifs-institute.com/annual-conference

Greater than the Sum of Our Parts - Dr. Richard Schwartz: https://amzn.to/3lnJNFJ

The Body Keeps the Score - Bessel van der Kolk: https://amzn.to/3oGf20Z

What Happened to You - Oprah Winfrey & Dr. Bruce Perry: https://amzn.to/2YwcNSC

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