Next Decoding Material: Gabor Maté
Added 2024-07-19 23:37:08 +0000 UTCWe are taking a break from Dr. K to look at another popular, long requested, and crucially non-streamed personality: Gabor Maté. Want to keep this one focused but if you think this is other material or facts we should know please leave in comments below. Should be out next week.
Comments
Hard to say based on this one conversation. But it’s a good question.
Linda Sears
2024-07-26 22:24:08 +0000 UTCDid he really think he recalled a memory from his infant stage at the start og this conversation, or was it what he now think he tought at that point of time?
Hanz Bauge
2024-07-26 11:47:43 +0000 UTCI have ADHD, I sat opposite a psychotherapist recently at a children’s birthday party. She started telling me that ADHD doesn’t really exist and that soon people would realise it was just a trauma response. I told her I’d never really experienced trauma so how did she explain my diagnosis to which she started talking about intergenerational trauma which I assumed referenced the passing down of trauma through dysfunctional family dynamics but then she started talking about epigenetics. I am not an expert in that area at all but I know enough to recognise the whiff of new age pseudoscience. This was my introduction to the work of Garbor Mate.
Sam Morris
2024-07-25 10:09:29 +0000 UTCWhat were your „wait, what” moments?
aneladgam_varelse
2024-07-24 21:27:12 +0000 UTCMate is definitely one of the gurus I have fallen for in the past, until I gradually had a few “wait, what?” moments. He definitely has the feel of someone who really knows what they are talking about and then makes leaps to some pretty bizarre conclusions.
Intergalactic Panda Wrangler
2024-07-24 21:08:40 +0000 UTCI think you are totally right here! I think there is a sort of coloquial use of the term ‘trauma’ to refer to almost any form of negative experience. For sure, those negative experiences can have huge and life changing detrimental effects and mental health implications, but that isn’t necessarily trauma and so shouldn’t be treated as such.
Intergalactic Panda Wrangler
2024-07-24 21:00:07 +0000 UTCYou’d be right to be sceptical because of the overwhelmingly large wave of evidence that proves unequivocally that ADHD is highly heritable. He talks all sorts of pseudoscientific junk in this area.
Sam Morris
2024-07-24 09:54:13 +0000 UTCGabor Mate may be well meaning but ultimately he’s quite harmful. His ideas about ADHD, particularly that it’s not heritable and so is curable, are in the gay cure arena for inspiring questionable practices. He has zero introspection about this as he spouts his spiritually tinged pseudoscience. People keep telling me that some of what he says is valuable but how can you trust a single thing from a man who’s wilfully swallowed and in turn vomits out such clap trap. I have strong feelings about this it seems.
Sam Morris
2024-07-23 23:05:30 +0000 UTC@aneladgam_varelse Comment above with book recs is for you.
Suzan Lemont
2024-07-22 20:55:28 +0000 UTCTrauma and Expressive Arts Therapy: Brain, Body, & Imagination in the Healing Process (Malchiodi) is a great resource, and I like Alan Wofelt's The PTSD Solution also. Cathy Malchiodi works with veterans and their families under contract with the department of defense (in the U.S.). Wofelt is a grief counselor.
Suzan Lemont
2024-07-22 20:52:30 +0000 UTC@catherine Esperanza Start here, if you're on FB. https://m.facebook.com/suzan.lemont.94/ I'm on IG and Threads too as pandoras_dot_dot_dot but don't use either much.
Suzan Lemont
2024-07-22 20:45:45 +0000 UTC@Suzan! Another kindred thinker! Would absolutely love to connect. And I know exactly what Russell Barkley video you are talking about, he claps back! So good, I appreciate that he says that Maté isn’t just wrong, he’s worst than wrong because he is making claims that just fly in the face of a large body of rigorous research on ADHD.
Catherine Esperanza
2024-07-22 16:34:47 +0000 UTC'a bit'
Christopher Kavanagh
2024-07-22 06:07:10 +0000 UTCIs it my childhood our yours?
Roscoe 112
2024-07-22 03:30:42 +0000 UTCAfter watching a part of the interview as an introduction to Mate, I have to admit that I find him riveting. I somewhat knew in advance that my early opinion would be very positive, so normally I would avoid watching an interview with someone like Mate. I know I am not equipped to make an informed, critical opinion about the information that is presented and it might influence me in erroneous ways. This is why I am so glad that DTG is covering him. I know that I'm going to learn and be challenged. So, thank you Matt and Chris!
Jean-François Melançon
2024-07-22 00:36:27 +0000 UTCHis son aaron maté is a bit of a tankie
Charlie Friedberg
2024-07-21 16:57:29 +0000 UTCCatherine Esperanza I would love to connect with you! I'm an expressive arts psychotherapist specialized in trauma and omg, everything you just said about EMDR, Mate, etc. has been my diatribe that few want to hear, for years now! There's a very good video of Russell Barkley addressing why Mate is SO WRONG about ADHD, and another video I stumbled across where a psychologist unpacks the whole EMDR story in a very balanced, articulate way (and comes to the same conclusions I have, which I admit makes me believe it because it validates my own thoughts/feelings). I'm on Linked In and have a professional FB profile. Live in Utrecht the Netherlands but don't feel obligated to connect. It's just nice to have kindred thinkers in my web of awareness/connectivity.
Suzan Lemont
2024-07-21 10:32:00 +0000 UTCThis Russell Brand interview is also interesting for to see their interactions (I think Mate is a softening influence on Brand's ego) and Mate's full opinion on JBP, to whom in some ways he is a polar opposite (that bit starts around 20m mark): https://rumble.com/v34mslc-gabor-mat-on-trauma-and-addiction.-plus-jordan-peterson-and-depression-stay.html
DJ Wearing
2024-07-21 09:10:59 +0000 UTCNot sure if Varoufakis has been considered before. I enjoyed his recent book — Technofeudalism.
Neil DH
2024-07-21 06:51:15 +0000 UTChttps://youtu.be/SU1ZarHa7O0?si=Zt0UJqR2EybqxhUo Here he is on Yanis Varoufakis’ podcast.
Neil DH
2024-07-21 06:50:19 +0000 UTCDamn. The more you know!
Will
2024-07-20 23:53:45 +0000 UTCI recommend his interview on James O'Brien's podcast. I've listened to many of his interviews but this one has a lot of background details that I've not heard elsewhere, especially about his career before becoming a famous author.
DJ Wearing
2024-07-20 21:24:25 +0000 UTCHe is definitely better than Dr. K, which is a relief. His view that childhood traumas have effects that therapy can help with isn’t controversial. But I am skeptical of his claims that conditions like arthritis or ADHD are caused by unresolved trauma.
Linda Sears
2024-07-20 21:06:11 +0000 UTCThanks!!! Preferably book and focusing more on the disorder, unless treatment for this kind of population is significantly different than general approach (about which I could learn from sources mentioned in your first comment) - then I want both
aneladgam_varelse
2024-07-20 20:26:37 +0000 UTCYes absolutely! What are you wanting in particular? A book, journal article, etc.? And focusing more on PTSD the disorder for veterans or on PTSD treatment for veterans?
Catherine Esperanza
2024-07-20 20:13:26 +0000 UTCNot such a big fan of Aaron...
Christopher Kavanagh
2024-07-20 20:07:06 +0000 UTCNo worries at all!
Christopher Kavanagh
2024-07-20 20:05:56 +0000 UTC@catherine if this is not big problem for you, can you recommend something on ptsd as present in war veterans and/or soldiers/police/firefighters? I don’t need it for any other reason than my own curiosity
aneladgam_varelse
2024-07-20 19:28:18 +0000 UTCThanks for the list!
aneladgam_varelse
2024-07-20 19:08:59 +0000 UTCGreat question about good evidence-based trauma books! I took me a while to respond because sadly there is wayyyy more pseudoscientific junk out there than evidence-based books on trauma that a layperson might want to read. So in terms of self-help books, probably “Getting Unstuck from PTSD: The Cognitive Behavioral Therapy to Guide Your Recovery” since it is based on CPT, which is considered one of the gold-standard, evidence-based PTSD treatments. In terms of more academic-y books, if you aren’t opposed to reading a treatment manual, I would recommend “Treating Trauma in Dialectical Behavior Therapy: The DBT Prolonged Exposure Protocol (DBT PE).” Prolonged Exposure is the other gold-standard evidence-based PTSD program. I would recommend this book over other purely Prolonged Exposure manuals because most have not been updated with the more recent theory of how maximize exposure therapy (Inhibited Learning Theory instead of Habituation). Also the author Melanie Harned does not play when it comes to science and research, she has zero patience for pseudoscience and is all about the evidence base. So I’d say her work is pretty trustworthy. I’d also recommend this book over the Trauma Focused Cognitive Behavioral Therapy books out there (which is the gold-standard evidence-based treatment for treating PTSD in children) because similarly those books are not updated with our more updated understanding of how exposure therapy works. I also just don’t think those treatment manuals really hit home hard enough on the mechanisms of change of PTSD treatment (primarily targeting maladaptive avoidance of thoughts, memories, objects, emotions, etc. using exposure to memories, exposure to external trauma triggers, and exposure to emotions). As a result, clinicians in practice sometimes end up skipping the exposure part of treatment, which is leaving out one of the primary mechanisms of change for PTSD treatment. Chorpita (a big name in dissemination and implementation of evidence-based treatments did a study on this) and found in his sample that 14-22% of trauma-exposed youth received exposure. You might say, “well, probably not all those kids had PTSD, so maybe they didn’t need exposure therapy.” Except the weird finding was that “a PTSD diagnosis predicted evidence-based practice in the negative direction for youth receiving outpatient services, such that youth with PTSD were administered fewer practice elements from the evidence base for trauma.”
Catherine Esperanza
2024-07-20 18:25:14 +0000 UTCAww, That’s very kind of you to say! I’m not sure if you have listened to the Sold A Story podcast series about the “reading wars” and how teachers were taught how to teach reading based on ineffective, non-scientific strategies (like Whole Language Learning) rather than strategies based on the science of reading (phonics). Many teachers were sold this story that phonics was the wrong way to teach reading, it’s boring, blah blah, and the revolutionary approach of Whole Language Learning would bring back the joy into reading (except it’s pretty freakin hard to learn to read that way, which then makes reading pretty darn miserable if you can’t read well) Anyways, my dream is to have a podcast series that is similar to Sold a Story. That goes into how trauma therapists and the public have been sold this story that is really pseudoscience about trauma using scientific-sounding language and misinformation about and misrepresentations of evidence-based PTSD treatments (like their claim that “top-down” therapy doesn’t work (what they call evidence-based therapies like CBT) because it doesn’t treat the trauma stored in your body).
Catherine Esperanza
2024-07-20 17:45:58 +0000 UTCAnd Chris and Matt, if you are reading this, I appreciate your content so much. Nothing could replace the excellent work y’all do.
Catherine Esperanza
2024-07-20 16:55:54 +0000 UTCYou’re not alone! I’d seen his face before but didn’t know his name or what he did.
Amy
2024-07-20 16:44:24 +0000 UTCI am so glad to hear that in your case hearing about PAS was pivotal in understanding your experience for what it was. It is definitely a huge pickle. I think we would benefit from some rigorous research of the abusive behavioral patterns that we actually see in courts like your ex-wife’s and my father’s, so we can better assess and identify them. Like you said, it is terrifying to go into a custody court case knowing that abusive people can be very good at using the court to engage in further abuse (Depp v. Heard being a recent example). We would probably benefit from describing those behaviors using a term other than PAS because it just feeds into the pickle to use a term that was coined by a child sexual abuse apologist who wasn’t relying on science and wasn’t really talking about the real type of parental alienation that folks that you and your children experienced. And thank you for the kudos :) And my apologies to Chris and Matt for taking us wayyyyy off topic on this post about Maté, oops.
Catherine Esperanza
2024-07-20 16:38:24 +0000 UTCAbout twelve years ago when my son cut off contact with me, I started “doing my own research” to have some context for understanding what was going on. I found a number of online forums (sorry can’t remember which) that addressed and explained PAS, and I have to say, it was one of the pivotal elements in developing an understanding that I was the victim of an abusive spouse. A few years later I went back to check in on those forums and they had devolved into Men’s Rights Activist misogynist bullshit factories, so, I’m not surprised at all to read here about Garner’s toxic ideas. The discussion about PAS sits an uncomfortable intersection of psychology, law, and parental and gender-role folklore. In my particular case, the behavior of my ex has been so egregious to so many people over so long a time that most of the people who know her well understand what she is, though all of us still struggle with the aftermath in our own ways. So kudos to you Catherine for being in the trenches of figuring out how to deal with all of this with evidence and solid clinical practice. It’s sorely needed. In my particular case I was absolutely terrified at the prospect of initiating a custody battle, in large part because of my fear of her ability to manipulate a judge into seeing me as a typical (i.e. male) child-abuser, attempting to use the court to gain further access to my victim, exactly as you describe the situation with your father. It's a real pickle- haw can you define PAS in a way that it could be helpful to someone in my position, but not helpful to someone in your father’s.
Scott Hilton
2024-07-20 16:00:54 +0000 UTCJust to be clear, my intention is not to invalidate your and your family’s experience! (My apologies if it came off that way). My point in summary is the term “Parental Alienation Syndrome” as it was originally defined does not have science-backing and does not mean what it sounds like it does (aka the horrible abuse that you and your children experienced).
Catherine Esperanza
2024-07-20 15:34:04 +0000 UTCMy toxic trait is that although they are all a bit (to put it mildly) loopy I quite like the Mate's as people/ think they are mostly well meaning and nice, albeit wrong on so many things haha. Daniel the most as it's just impossible to dislike someone whose entire life revolves around musical theatre 🙃
Anna J
2024-07-20 15:22:15 +0000 UTCHey all, I'm the husband of Linda Sears, she told me about this thread and thought I'd jump in.
Scott Hilton
2024-07-20 15:22:14 +0000 UTCHonestly forget Chris and Matt you need to do a podcast on this topic! Maybe an entire series where you take on a psych adjacent quack / episode. I'm so keen haha.
Anna J
2024-07-20 15:18:46 +0000 UTCUff that is such a horrible experience to go through. As you and Aneladgam have mentioned and experienced, there is definitely is some sort of abusive behavioral pattern where parents use courts to separate children from the other parent for abusive rather than protective reasons. And I agree with you that having good research-backed assessment tools to identity when it is happening and rigorous research on that behavioral pattern are needed to protect children and adults experiencing that form of abuse. I think even though the term Parental Alienation make sense to use a behavioral descriptor for what people like your husband’s ex-wife are doing, the term itself has so much frickin baggage. So it’s not that we should then just not address the issue of these parent’s behavior, I think it would benefit from being behaviorally described using terms other than parental alienation since the original use of the term parental alienation was intended to mean something different than what your husband experienced. There may be a different term that is used by good-faith researchers in rigorous research on this stuff, something I should probably look more into!
Catherine Esperanza
2024-07-20 15:14:38 +0000 UTCThis is all very interesting to me because my husband has experienced his ex-wife alienating him from his son to the point where they were not in contact for two years. Her behavior over decades is very consistent with a person with a malignant narcissistic personality, who uses psychological abuse to drive wedges between people and “mess” with their heads by getting them to think they are mentally unwell and that she can cure them, which means making her into their savior/guru. She is also a licensed family and marriage therapist, so she knows all the right tools and words to use to get what she wants. I could write a book about all the damage she has done to her mother, sister, three kids, three ex-husbands, two daughter’s in-laws, friends, in-laws of her husbands, their new partners, etc (many of us have been in therapy as a result). She also professes to be a feminist, which ticks me off to no end since I am a feminist. It sounds like Richard Garner was part of the men’s rights movement, which is very bad. I wish there was a way to acknowledge the very real issue of parental alienation while decoupling it from the ideas of a sexist abuse defender. As a young child, I was sexually abused by an older family member, so Garner’s ideas are sickening to me.
Linda Sears
2024-07-20 15:00:52 +0000 UTCYeah, there has been an intentional move away from saying “parental alienation syndrome,” and instead using “parental alienation” to mean the exact same thing but avoid the issue of “well, no, it’s not a scientifically- validated syndrome.” Which is why it’s kinda tricky to use the term “parental alienation” as a behavioral descriptor because it’s unclear whether someone is using the term in the sense that Richard Garner intended or as a strictly behavioral description.
Catherine Esperanza
2024-07-20 13:21:56 +0000 UTCObviously, I don’t see any issue in saying, “XYZ parent is engaging in XYZ behaviors with the likely function to gain full custody.” The issue is using a non-scientifically-validated concept with really problematic origins to back up that behavioral pattern. And then to recommend a non-evidence-based treatment as a result (like courts recommending or requiring camps where the kids and the “alienated parent” go to re-connect and the kids are not allowed to contact the other parent). Also, if you look at what Richard Garner is saying what Parental Alienation Syndrome is (vs what one would assume it means), it is highly problematic and essentially promotes child sexual abuse. One of his points about PAS (mentioned in the link I posted earlier) is essentially that mothers are just overreactive about their husbands engaging in sexual acts with their children because mothers and society broadly just don’t understand how common and natural it is for adults to engage in sexual behaviors with children. If this was normalized and better understood by mothers, then they won’t try to “alienate” their children from the father who sexually molested them.
Catherine Esperanza
2024-07-20 13:15:41 +0000 UTCThanks for this comment, I had no idea about very dark origin of the concept. Tbh I don’t see “parental alienation syndrome” as official syndrome used by courts (Poland, mostly Warsaw), only something like “under mother custody child is subjected to parental alienation” - more descriptive statement. However courts try to prevent parental alienation and by many this move is very negatively perceived, because it’s supposedly anti-women.
aneladgam_varelse
2024-07-20 13:04:23 +0000 UTCIf I am understanding you correctly, Catherine, you are asserting that parental alienation syndrome is not a factor that should be used in court cases because it hasn’t been verified as an actual syndrome?
Linda Sears
2024-07-20 13:04:16 +0000 UTCLink for all lazy podcast listeners: https://podcasts.apple.com/de/podcast/the-diary-of-a-ceo-with-steven-bartlett/id1291423644
mobitobi
2024-07-20 12:31:34 +0000 UTCWow, you totally nailed it with your hunch that EMDR eye movements sounded like NLP! You’re absolutely right that EMDR meets criteria to be considered an effective, evidence-based treatment for PTSD. But that is not evidence that the mechanism of change is the eye movements. And in fact, research has just not shown that the eye movements are adding anything to treatment outcomes. And if they were, we would also expect to see EMDR outperform other evidence-based PTSD treatments that do not include eye movements (Cognitive Processing Therapy, Prolonged Exposure, and TF-CBT for children). But it doesn’t in meta-analyses. Thus, the mechanism of change in EMDR and non-eye-movement evidence-based treatments is likely the exposure therapy element. Dr. David Tolin does a nice job talking about this in a talk on Pseudoscience in Trauma Treatments: https://youtu.be/chb5hF-ymXo?si=SKwKy4vRsFrevrcB
Catherine Esperanza
2024-07-20 12:07:42 +0000 UTCOf course there are going to be parents who use their children as pawns and try to coach their children and whatnot. Of course narcissistic mothers exist. My issue is more so that “parental alienation syndrome” does not have a strong evidence base; yet, it is used in family courts as if it is a well-researched, well-established syndrome. Also, Richard Garner who developed the idea of Parental Alienation Syndrome had some weird reasons for why kids should not be “estranged” from sexually abusive fathers, such as it’s commonly children who “seduce” their fathers and then when the behavior is found out, the children blame the behavior on their father, and mothers needs to have more sex with their husbands so that they don’t seek out sex from their daughters. Really his whole issue with parental estrangement comes down to his belief that we live in a “society an exaggeratedly punitive and moralistic attitude about adult-child sexual encounters” so sexually abusive fathers don’t deserve to be estranged because of their sexual abuse of their child. Here’s a compilation of some of the aforementioned quotes: https://leadershipcouncil.org/richard-gardners-opinions/ (just for the record, I’m not endorsing this organization, only sharing the page because it compiled a number of his quotes into one place) Do mothers engage in the behaviors you mentioned? Absolutely. Do over 90% of custody conflict have manifestations of Parental Alienation Syndrome usually by the mother, per Richard Garner? That seems way too high without some rigorous research to back that up. Should “parental alienation syndrome” be used in courts and by psychologist expert witnesses as if it is a well-established, evidence-based concept? Nope. If mothers are engaging in the patterns of behavior you mentioned, that is important to acknowledge in court, and I think relying on pseudoscientific syndrome with problematic origins to describe that behavior is not the most ideal way to go about it.
Catherine Esperanza
2024-07-20 11:47:47 +0000 UTCre: parental alienation So I have 5 years of practice in family law (not exclusively, but it’s like 1/3 of my work) and I believe in parental alienation. For starters, I want to acknowledge that 1) abusive parents absolutely exist 2) it’s actually very hard to paint accurate picture of abuse and family dynamic, it requires a lot of work 3) people good at psychological abuse are also good at manipulation. As a result, courts don’t see psychological abuse for what it is and concept of parental alienation can be used by abusers to keep children and by proxy ex partner under control. It happens and it sucks - and I’m sorry that you were affected by that @Catherine, courts should be most diligent in family law. BUT sometimes narcissism on part of the mother is at play. Mother sees her children as extension of herself and if for her relationship with children’s father is done, then for children should be too. Or mother thinks she has the rights to decide about everything, because she tends to think of herself as above the law and others. Or mother wants to start a new relationship or new just life and doesn’t want to include her ex partner in any way, erasing him completely. Anxiety is the other big reason: mothers are scare to leave the children with their father, not because the father is abusive, but because he surely can’t take care of children as well as mother can. It also happens! Really! Then the court should do something to prevent unnecessary estrangement.
aneladgam_varelse
2024-07-20 09:40:24 +0000 UTCOmfg, I always felt like EMDR sounds like NLP!!! Initially I was highly suspicious of EMDR, but couldn’t find debunk via google, friends studying psychology/working as therapist said it’s fine, I encountered testimonies how it was game changer for someone’s ptsd… So I dropped scepticism and my new reasoning was: if EMDR is legit, then maybe NLP has a point with eye movement too.
aneladgam_varelse
2024-07-20 09:06:03 +0000 UTCWhat a peculiar talking cadence.
mobitobi
2024-07-20 07:50:05 +0000 UTCCan you recommend some mainstream trauma textbooks? Not mainstream as in NYT-Bestseller, but mainstream in the professional circles.
mobitobi
2024-07-20 07:48:59 +0000 UTCThank you Catherine I feel like I could pick your brain for hours 😊 I will check out that blog post - I did some genetics in undergrad but that was like... well over a decade ago now eek and all I remember about epigenetics is some vague stuff about imprinting and ligers and some boring stuff about acetylation and methylation of DNA and histones 🥲 even if I did recall it better I imagine its quite out of date lol. I was wondering too, as a sort of antidote to Mate (lol), if you could recommend any good evidence based material on childhood / family trauma, how to conceptualise / formulate, evidence based treatments etc? A good textbook or even a good review article? Being reminded of Mate and talking to you and remembering how much I hate Coleman has reignited my interest in the topic, and I don't want to get sucked in by things like the body keeps the score again :/
Anna J
2024-07-20 06:11:22 +0000 UTCAw that is very kind of you to say. Chris and Matt are much more knowledgeable 😆 I only hope to one day reach their level of science communication and clear decoding of guru tactics. Your skepticism about the EMDR eye movements was spot-on, you have clearly honed your BS detector. On the surface, especially because of our penchants for neuromania, the explanation of the eye movements and bilateral stimulation sounds like “hm, maybe there could be something there that we just don’t know yet.” However, looking at the origins of where the idea for the eye movements in EMDR likely came from, the idea for the eye movements never even came from any solid neurological foundation to begin with. Instead, it most likely came from Fracine Shapiro’s time studying and training others in NLP, and the eye movement stuff on NLP is so obviously pseudoscience that it’s laughable. If you want to see how laughable it is, you can go to page 26 on this pdf and read an article by Fracine Shapiro herself on the eye movement stuff in NLP in the Holistic Life Magazine (yup, already a red flag): https://www.nlp.ch/pdfdocs/Historie_EMDR_Wingwave.pdf TLDR: you can tell if people’s “dominant modality” is kinesthetic, auditory, or visual based on whether they look to the top, middle or bottom of the eyes. And then based off of your assessment, you should use language like “that sounds good,” if their dominant modality is auditory. Well, all of that is super easy to disprove because “learning styles” are not a real thing. As the late Scott Lilienfeld (a prominent leader in debunking psychology pseudoscience) and his colleagues quoted , the eye movement and bilateral stimulation and all that “is the use of scientific-sounding terms to give EMDR the veneer of science, but not the substance.” The other issue is that any time the results of a dismantling study suggest that the inclusion of the eye movements during trauma narration (exposure therapy) are not leading to additional benefits in outcomes, Shapiro or her colleagues have changed their explanation for what is going on. When a study (Pittman et al., 1996) showed no difference in outcomes between people in two groups: doing eye movements vs holding a fixed gaze (no eye movements) during trauma narration, Shapiro said, It’s because holding a fixed gaze also requires bilateral muscle stimulation! As Scott Lilenfeld et al, eloquently explained, Shapiro’s argument “illustrates the invocation of an ad hoc hypothesis that makes the theoretical rationale for lateral stimulation in EMDR difficult, if not impossible, to falsify.”
Catherine Esperanza
2024-07-20 05:15:13 +0000 UTCI could not agree more! Very very grateful that you two are doing an episode on Maté
Catherine Esperanza
2024-07-20 04:50:33 +0000 UTCLol that just says it all, doesn’t it? Haha
Catherine Esperanza
2024-07-20 04:49:50 +0000 UTCDaniel Mate, who co-wrote his Dad’s last book, calls himself a ‘mental chiropractor’.
john statham
2024-07-20 04:25:25 +0000 UTCOmg I'm SO glad you are doing this! Especially around his commentary around ADD, and addiction. As someone who worked as a psychotherapist many years, hearing this quality of discourse was SO common. And many sound sensible things just blended in with wild mis-statements (that's not quite the word but I'm in the US and drinking tequila because of the election). Such a case of getting outside your lane.
Sam D.
2024-07-20 03:38:21 +0000 UTCOh, also to your point about older doctors tending to have a misunderstanding of epigenetics. In my experience, lots of younger clinicians are super into (what they think is) epigenetics too because a misrepresentation of epigenetics has gotten a huge boost through poor journalism on poorly done scientific studies of epigenetics like the Yehuda study and books like Maté’s and Mark Wolyn’s “It didn't start with you” (I sat down with a doctoral-level chemical engineer who does genetics research and asked him to review all the parts about epigenetics in that book with me and basically 95+% of that book’s explanation of Epigenetics is inaccurate). A provider in my clinic who is younger than Mate did a seminar on inter generational trauma that hinged largely on an inaccurate understanding of epigenetics (mainly stepping out wayyyyyy farther than where the research is at on the possibility of transgenerational epigenetic inheritance, and if it is possible, how the heck does this even happen. This is a blog post I like that goes into this issue: http://www.wiringthebrain.com/2018/07/calibrating-scientific-skepticism-wider.html?m=1 (and yes I know that blog posts are not a credible source of information, so of course take it with a grain of salt and a large dose of critical thinking and skepticism)
Catherine Esperanza
2024-07-20 03:34:48 +0000 UTCThat's all so interesting! Re the EMDR I only have extremely, extremely surface level awareness of it but always thought the eye movement component sounded odd and kooky as I couldn't convince myself that there would be any plausible mechanism there? I'll take that as me being proven right and not just a fluke lol. Seriously though you are so knowledgeable in this area and you communicate so clearly / are engaging - DTG need you as a consultant on this episode 🙂
Anna J
2024-07-20 03:23:48 +0000 UTCThank you for your kind words! For what it’s worth, evidence-based approaches to PTSD tend to work, so at this point in my life, it’s very easy for me to talk about my childhood. Obviously, no child should have to experience abuse, and it’s not something that bothers me anymore, it’s just another part of my life story just like any other part. We are very similar lol, I keep a “shit list” of all the quacks I come across. The parental alienation stuff is basically the same as the way you explained parental estrangement, the non-abusive parent “brainwashing” the kids into thinking the (actually abusive) parent is abusive. I didn’t know that about his daughter and I’m so not surprised hH
Catherine Esperanza
2024-07-20 02:57:23 +0000 UTCOh yeah, these folks are all somehow linked. The more I dig, the more I find out how interconnected all these quacks are. Like I recently discovered that Fracine Shapiro (developer of EMDR, which is evidence-based but has zero evidence that the eye movement add anything to the treatment and meta-analyses tend to suggest that Cognitive Processing Therapy and Prolonged Exposure are more effective anyways) was first big in the Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) (which is another pseudoscientific approach) and was an NLP trainer and that’s likely where she actually got the idea to do the eye movement stuff. That’s a good point about the potential invalidating impact of “everything is trauma.” The other issue is that a) research shows that not everyone who experiences a DSM Criterion A trauma will develop PTSD. So trauma is not automatically going to cause a mental health disorder and lead to needing trauma treatment. B) Treating PTSD does not treat everything, it only treats PTSD and other symptoms that are being maintained by exposure to a traumatic event. I frequently say that, “evidence-based trauma treatment is great at what it does, treating PTSD. It’s not great at treating things it’s not designed to treat like ADHD, Substance Use Disorder, etc.” i have been in classes where grad students have said, “so basically it all comes back to trauma.” When we look at things that way, then we incorrectly assume, “well if trauma causes everything, then PTSD treatment is the solution for everything.”
Catherine Esperanza
2024-07-20 02:48:04 +0000 UTCI'm sorry you went through that with your dad 😥 for what it's worth I think it's fairly wonderful that you've gone on to be a clinical psychologist and train in trauma, I don't want to assume that there's necessarily a connection there but it seems like you've alchemised some significant childhood adversity into something meaningful and productive! Yeah I.. cannot stand Coleman lol. I haven't read his work on parental alienation though, I'll have to check that out (as a dedicated hater I like to keep tabs on all my "enemies" lol), I'm more familiar w his work on estrangement more broadly. He's almost the anti-Mate when it comes to childhood trauma lol, ie estrangement usually isn't due to REAL trauma, kids these days have just been brainwashed into thinking imperfect but not abusive parenting is traumatic etc. I did not fall out of my chair in surprise when I read his own daughter went NC w him for a few years... He's such an apologist, and I find his constant "both sides" bullshit when it comes to adult children who were the victims of child abuse to be so gross (and obv very lucrative given his client base lol) and also so unfounded in terms of theoretical basis, as if children, esp young children, have equal agency to their parents. Some of his interviews send me into a rage lol. Eg I've heard him "just asking questions" / subtly suggest maybe it would be virtuous and moral for victims of significant child abuse (including CSA) to "forgive", and imply that an inability to do this is driven by nefarious interests like victimisation complexes, "society" etc. It's always accompanied by a lot of tactical disclaimers, but it's fairly obvious what he's driving at.
Anna J
2024-07-20 02:40:44 +0000 UTCI haven’t read that article yet, but I also STRONGLY dislike Coleman because he is a huge advocate of “parental alienation,” which is a giant load of pseudoscientific BS. I do have to admit that I am biased because my own family was impacted by courts and psychologists claiming “parental alienation,” which was used in my custody case to claim that my mother was trying to alienate her children (me and my siblings) from my (very abusive) father. My father ended up with 50/50 custody, so I had to continue to live with a father who had previously engaged in some pretty severe abuse against me.
Catherine Esperanza
2024-07-20 02:10:40 +0000 UTCIt would not surprise you to hear that Dr. K loves “The Body Keeps the Score” and has mentioned it on his streams 🙃. But oh my goodness, the “everything-is-caused-by-trauma” belief spearheaded by Mate has literally infected our field. The amount of times that I get clients who have gone through the intake process and were referred for trauma treatment because there is some trauma history (or something that could potentially be traumatizing), and then after some pretty basic assessment, it’s clear that what is driving their symptoms is not trauma-related and thus trauma treatment is irrelevant and unhelpful in treating what they need treated 😭 (and I’m saying this as a trauma therapist)
Catherine Esperanza
2024-07-20 02:02:46 +0000 UTCOh goodness, that’s a hard one. I would say Van Der Kolk is worse because he has had a long legacy of promoting pseudoscience in psychology and yet he continues to have an undue influence on trauma therapists and the public. As I mentioned, I’m in a clinic that supposedly only provides evidence-based trauma treatment, yet multiple clinicians including the social work training director from my clinic go every year to his conference where he platforms every trauma quack on the block and promotes pseudoscientific treatments (Somatic Experiencing), treatments with very weak, limited evidence (Internal Family Systems), and treatments that work but not for the reasons he and others claim they do (EMDR). What many people don’t know is that, in the 90’s, van der Kolk was a leader of the repressed memory syndrome movement and served as an expert witness on a number of cases. Of course, we now know that the repressed/recovered memory stuff was a giant load of BS, but somehow van der Kolk has not only been able to escape with his career intact, he has since become “a leading trauma expert” (he’s not) and had a NYT #1 top 10 bestseller every year since the pandemic.
Catherine Esperanza
2024-07-20 01:55:29 +0000 UTCI read van der Kolk's book a while ago when I was probably less skeptical about this kind of thing, is he as bad as Mate?
Will
2024-07-20 01:41:03 +0000 UTCOoo, we have a lot of overlap! Don’t forget, he’s also an “expert” in addiction too 😉 He may be trained as a GP, but that didn’t stop him from developing his own therapy “Compassionate Inquiry,” which has ZERO research as far as I can tell and is clearly based on pseudoscientific beliefs about trauma and trauma treatment. He says his therapy “uncovers and releases the layers of childhood trauma, constriction and suppressed emotion embedded in the body, that are at the root of mental and physical illness and addiction.”
Catherine Esperanza
2024-07-20 01:40:28 +0000 UTCHands up who wants to see 3 hour debate between Mate and Dr K on whether everything hinges on trauma or dosha type 🥸🤓
Anna J
2024-07-20 01:18:40 +0000 UTCAgree with all your comments on Mate! Also hi I also have ADHD and a history of child abuse, and am also in healthcare haha 👋 I was a psych registrar for a bit (one of the three specialities I have trained in so far 🫠🫠, love my ADHD haha). I've said this before but I think two big issues w him are: A. Mate's own history of (real) trauma, I suspect, have caused him to see everything through that lens*. He also strikes me as scoring highly wrt empathy / neuroses... I think that also contributes? Maybe? Idk. B. As trauma and ADHD are two huge and crazy complex areas they are, imo, just probably just outside of Mate's scope of practice as a GP / family physician. I'm not trying to denigrate GPs or say you have to be a subspecialist in an area to have an opinion, but when you go against scientific / medical consensus like Mate often does you probably want to do so from a position of quite a lot of training and experience in that specific area, right? I think so anyway. His understanding of epigenetics is also so typical of older doctors haha (don't come @ me boomers pls) *A lot of stuff, and certainly a lot of the more serious presentations that land people in inpatient units, IS trauma or at least heavily modulated by it. If there were no "bad parents" then the psych ward occupancy would half overnight. But there's so much more to it - temperament, genetic loading, unknown factors etc etc. And yeah Mate doesn't (from what I've seen) acknowledge that enough. I'd be interested to hear any other opinions of yours given your experience / knowledge 😊
Anna J
2024-07-20 01:15:25 +0000 UTCNice, glad you guys are covering him. I think I suggested Garbor Mate a while back!
Justin F
2024-07-20 00:26:07 +0000 UTC(For context, I’m in my last year of a school psychology doctoral program with a strong focus on evidence-based practice and research. I’m doing my internship/residency in a child trauma clinic, providing evidence-based therapy. (I see a lot of pseudoscientific influence from van der Kolk and Maté in a Clinic that supposedly provides evidence-based services.) I’ve done behavioral interventions for caregivers and their kids with ADHD. And for the people who say “well you don’t get it unless you’ve experienced it,” I have ADHD myself and experienced significant childhood abuse. And go figure, just like the research indicates, treating PTSD didn’t treat my ADHD, I still have adult ADHD. Sure, experiencing early childhood abuse likely affected my brain development leading to the executive functioning deficits seen in ADHD (aside from the genetic risk from my mother), but treating the PTSD didn’t fix my ADHD haha.)
Catherine Esperanza
2024-07-20 00:05:35 +0000 UTCHe was also on Joe Rogan’s podcast too around the same time as his DOAC interview (where he mentions that “ADHD is neither a disease nor it is heritable”
Catherine Esperanza
2024-07-19 23:56:43 +0000 UTCYes!!!! Thank you so much for covering this guy. I cannot express how often I hear other therapists and laypeople recommend his books or believe pseudoscientific things because of him (namely that ADHD is a trauma response, not a disorder with a strong genetic risk factor, so you need to heal the trauma in order to treat ADHD). Meanwhile he loves epigenetics, but has no idea how they actually work and spreads a ton of misinformation about epigenetics that I also hear from other therapists. Russell Barkley who is actually a rigorous ADHD researcher (now retired) has a video on Gabor Mate and his comments on that video also provide some good information too: https://youtu.be/bO19LWJ0ZnM?feature=shared
Catherine Esperanza
2024-07-19 23:55:01 +0000 UTCI’m embarrassed to admit If never heard of this Guru. I’ll give this is listen. Am in for a treat?
Hasan Khan
2024-07-19 23:40:02 +0000 UTC
