VIDEOS ON MINDBODY AND CHILDHOOD STRESSES

Dr. Gabor Mate, an Hungarian-born physician in Vancouver, Canada, known for his study and treatment of addiction and also ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder), believes in the connection between the mind and body to cause us pain or good health. Much of his work focuses on how events in our childhood influence our mental and physical health as adults which TMS researchers call the “Inner Child.”

He is a Holcaust survivor from his childhood when his parents were imprisoned and his grandparents killed. He has become a medical doctor, newspaper health columnist, health speaker and seminar leader, and the author of four books on Mindbody subjects such as ADD, stress, developmental psychology, and addiction.

Dr. Mate has several videos on YouTube that can be very helpful to us at TMSWiki.com. Especially of interest is a 2-part video based on his book, When the Body Says No: Understanding the Stress-Disease Connection.

He says that the theory that the mind and immune system work together to cause ailments from arthritis to cancer goes back to ancient China and India. Also, that Socrates knew that the mind and body cannot be separated regarding pain.

In Part One of the video,

Dr. Mate says: “The emotional centers of the brain which regulate or behavior and responses and reactions are physiologically connected with the immune system, the nervous system, and the hormonal apparatus. They are systems wired together by chemical messengers so what happens emotionally has an impact onus physically.”

In Part Two of the video,

Dr. Mate explains how childhood stresses affect our unconscious mind and, when repressed, create anger which leads to inner rage and surfaces as pain. He says babies in the womb can be stressed because a mother’s anxieties from poverty, divorce, alcohol addiction and other stresses in herself that she may have suffered personally or inherited.

When I had severe back and side pain a few years ago I emailed Steve Ozanich about my childhood and he said my stresses back then, more than 80 years ago, were a “perfect storm” of TMS. It took me a while to journal about the repressed emotions I had from early years in a family of divorce, poverty, alcohol addiction, and parental anger, and recognizing all that and forgiving my parents and myself led to healing me.

We think you will find these two short videos of great help, especially in reinforcing your belief that your pain is very likely caused by repressed emotions you may not be aware of but go as far back as your birth and early years. We will be posting more threads of Dr. Mate’s videos in the near future and hope you will look for them in the General Discussion Subforum.

 

400% increase in married women dying that didn't get to express their emotions and the study disappeared without a trace. Wow! -- Gabor Mate is really on top of His Game. The Bermuda triangle. "We have the Research we just don't pay it any attention" he said. Wow! I'm glad we understand what's happening from great people like Mate that stands outside the status quo.

He lets you know how serious this is. "The immune system is the floating brain". So true. Awesome, Life is Relationship.

 

Wow in the second video he talks about children with addicted parents have a 4600 percent chance of getting addicted to hard drugs as a child with no such experience. This is some great stuff. It tells me how important it is that we be educated about our repressed emotions big time cause at birth we don't know how our mindbody will be but with the right knowledge training we can all meet on level ground.

 

It's during those first 26 months of brain development outside the womb that a kid's brain develops for better or worse. Better if he's not stressed and/or in an emotionally conflicted environment where he gets locked in a fight/flight/freeze trauma response. Proper bonding between mother and child is so important during that stage too as far as proper brain development is concerned. Scary when you read about the early childhoods of Dr Mate's addicted patients in Realm of the Hungry Ghosts (2011). You can sure see how some of them were dealt a bad hand from the start. Luckily, thanks to brain endoplasticity, it is possible to rework an addicts neural pathways, but still a very, very difficult thing to accomplish unless the addict really wants to change. Trouble is, some of them don't. My parents may have had big fights in front of me, but at least they both had high expectations about my future.

 

Bruce you sound better than Mate. You know your stuff. That is a sad thought to ponder cause most men dont get full brain activity in iintution before they are 40. It sounds like a bad hand indeed. The key is do they want change. The silver spoon is to be born with wonderful parents in a good neihborhood

 

Sad how badly some people treat their children when you stop to consider what a beautiful place we all live in:

 

Gabor Maté on an internet radio run by Stefan Molyneaux who is a Libertarian commentator.

 

A nice summary of Dr. Maté's theories as presented In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts. A true block buster book that everyone should read. Thanks for sharing CelticSkeptic.

On a similar note, I noticed the other day how much all experience in our environments is programmed, which, it seems to me, is also at the root of addiction. Here's an example: Whenever I drive back to my late parents' house (which I inherited 10 years ago), get out of my car, and put the key in the door knob, I notice that I instantly have to urinate. I mused on what process of conditioning caused this behavior. Well, when I was in high school and rode the bus to the base of the big hill leading a mile up to the house, I would have to "hold it" from the time I left high school, rode the bus, and hiked up the hill. In other words, that experience was still programmed into my consciousness from 40 years ago! Sticking the key in the door knob functioned as a psychological triggering event. Well, that's just a very small programmed behavior that I've become consciously aware of though self-analysis years later. But think of all the other stuff in your life that is similarly programmed that you're unaware of. Just think of an addict who finds solace playing with the syringe before injecting himself with heroin. The whole routine must be ingrained in their unconscious mind until it becomes second-nature, especially when you factor in the escape from unconscious pain that the drug provides. Dr. Maté's conclusion that an addict is just trying to function as a human being is an amazing insight.

 

I also like Dr. Maté's amazing perception that politicians who punish vulnerable populations by denying them essential services are actually trying to evade their own sense of vulnerability. The traumatized hurting the traumatized, and so the great tragedy of human existence perpetuates itself over and over ad infinitum ad nauseum. I think, to paraphrase him rather badly, that W.B. Yeats once observed how wisdom begins when you begin to see all human existence as essentially tragic! Dr. Maté certainly has that kind of tragic vision. And his new book is a collaboration with Peter Levine (Waking the Tiger). I can hardly wait till it's out in 2017.

 

look at Hitler. he was beaten senseless by his father on numerous occasions. Closer to home it was revealed by Gerry Adams (after his brother was convicted of raping his own daughter) that his father abused them all. His critics would say that would be a factor in his psychology and devoting himself to militancy and by extension murder. It was fairly big news here.
I once thought that a slap here and there would be fine and it would 'harden you up' but now I'm firmly against hitting children in any way shape or form.
even if the kid doesn't take it badly there is a powerful underlying message being sent.

 

Yes, and Hitler's mother protected him from his tyrannical father. When his mother died of cancer under the care of a Jewish physician, the young Hitler flipped out completely. Interesting case study of agressor and victim that Hitler guy! Think about him having videos made of the hanging of the July 20th plotters on OKW for his "personal viewing pleasure"! A real sadist to be sure (but the trenches of WWI taught him to be that way).

Love this quote from the Mate-Molyneux dialog: "There are basically two responses to suffering. One is to become hard and invulnerable, and then you're going to inflict suffering on others. And the other is to work it through somehow and decide not to inflict it on others." ... "I think the key is 'are you willing to accept and work through your own suffering?'".

Says so much, no?

But how do you ultimately disentangle victims from aggressors as they go at each other? The Battle of Kursk, July 1943: