I've proven how helpful EMDR can be for

pgsc and depression why and how well

trauma is a be living and whatever

you're feeling is real as opposed to

feeling like a memory but in our

research you discovered that if you move

your eyes back and forth as you recall a

traumatic experience your brain is able

to say this is what happened to me in

the past and 78% of the people we

studied who had adult in time were

completely cured can you do it on me

good what do you you see vessel Vander

kulk has been described as maybe the

most most influential psychiatrist of

the 21st century and for over 40 years

his clinical research has revolutionized

how we understand trauma and its impact

on our brain and body your Early

Childhood experiences create who you are

and how many of the people that you

treated in your practice have childhood

trauma about 90% And it's very difficult

to change are they changeable yes that

is the great news but the problem is the

focus is not on helping people the

focuses on funding successful Financial

organizations and even though was the

first person who started yoga for pdsd

which was very effective and then

there's psych development and neuro

feedback Weir our results were stunning

people are so conformists we already

know the ansers let not explore anything

new but let's do the science and see how

itse works if for home and what about

psychedelic therapy It's very effective

have you ever done a psychedelic truck

yeah of course what did you learn that

my quest for Al understanding trauma had

to do with my own childhood trauma all

the pain your suffering earlier on I

asked if people could heal from their

trauma have you healed from yours

this has always blown my mind a little

bit 53% of you that listen to the show

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continue to do what we do thank you so

much

Dr Bessel

vanderock you've been described as maybe

the most influential psychiatrist of the

21st century by the financial

times what is the mission you've spent

your life

pursuing I have been interested in how

people survive extreme

situations how people

can uh overcome the history of people

doing terrible things to each other and

how we can create a better world in that

regard actually so so the the mission

has been rather social but the

investigation has be very much based on

what we learning about brain science

what we learning about psychological

functioning etc etc and this word trauma

seems to be Central to your work and

when I looked before this conversation

at the rise in the use of this word

online and people searching this word

it's pretty staggering what I found

there's this graph that shows a huge

jump and people using the word trauma

what is your view on the subject matter

of trauma specifically how we've

misunderstood what it

is well there has been Evolution which

is quite striking and when I when I

first started to study trauma I was on

the research floor at

Harvard um and my colleagues said why

are you studying trauma Bessel when you

croak nobody ever talk about trauma

again like it is a completely alien

subject um and now everybody talks

everything is a trauma and so from being

non-existent has become a total

explanatory mode as so we have gone as

we always do from one extreme to the

other and my primary interest these days

is not so much into trauma trauma

started it but somewhere along the line

I got to realize that trauma is to a

large degree a breakdown of connection

between human beings and synchronicity

between other human beings and these

days I'm much more focused on how we can

help people establish a relationship to

themselves and to the people around them

when people are suffering from some kind

of psychological disorder whether it's

depression anxiety um

PTSD what is it that you disagree with

with with the traditional view of how to

treat them people are being taught

methods that they say can cure people in

eight sessions which they count and so

there still is there's what people learn

in school these days although no good CL

I know actually practices that is to

help people thinking out to straighten

out people's thinking and to make them

not think these crazy thoughts like and

um that really is no evidence that can

do that is that cognitive behavioral

therapy yeah yeah yeah cognitive

restructuring s of thing or you get

people better by blasting them with

trauma and then before long they get

desensitized with trauma and they see

both of these methods are just they

don't get it that completely doesn't get

the issue at hand actually why I cannot

talk into being a reasonable person

people are not reasonable people and

Trauma is as unreasonable as she can be

that's really at the core

if you understand trauma is that your

brain and perceptual system gets rewired

so you see

things almost entirely through the life

the past experience rather than current

experience okay so if I've if I'm

traumatized talking about my trauma

doesn't necessarily fix my trauma trauma

is a speechless experience so we did the

first neuroimaging study about people

reliving their trauma and we saw that

the entire cognitive part of the brain

disappears that when you're in your

trauma you're just one ball of emotion

and there's no thinking so you're you're

confused you're befuddled it is uh as

Shakespeare says you you suffer from

speechless Terror you become dumbfounded

so the whole traumatic experience is

just beyond belief and so you stay in a

state of confusion and agitation and

then finding language for yourself in

this point is terribly important to help

you to begin to organize your

relationship to yourself it's not enough

but it's but language and the finding

your in experience is terribly important

the word tumor as you say has been

thrown around a lot um and it's become a

bit of a cultural joke to some people

when you say you know something happens

to you you go oh I feel triggered um I'm

traumatized Etc what actually does count

as trauma trauma really is an

overwhelming experience of oh my

god when something happens and you're

completely

helpless and there's nothing in you that

knows how to deal with it people talk a

lot about small tea trauma and Big T

trauma fan of that okay so explain why

not uh well

this you need to be more accurate the

but but the small t t is is very real

trauma when your environment about you

doesn't acknowledge Your Existence most

people for example after natural

disasters do very well because people

get together after natural disas I've

seen it we have a cabin in Northern

fromal we have had terrible floods the

neighbors get together they help each

other and you get a sense of cohesion

actually and a sense of meaning we're

doing this together the small T traumas

have to do with um not acknowledging

that what's going on with you

saying to kids stop crying I'll give you

something to cry about no you don't

matter no actually your dad is a drunk

because you are such a difficult kid

that your father was doing okay until

you came into this family and you must

were too much for him and you caus him

to be the person that to is so it's I

think that's people may small te trauma

it's relational trauma which is a very

big deal for most of the people I get to

see in my

practice most people come in not because

of big te traumas it is because nobody

saw me nobody heard me um I was

relevant um we always had to take care

of my mom or my dad uh but there was no

room for us so if you get fired from

your job and it's a traumatic event yeah

um for you because you you get I don't

know you get you lose your friends you

lose the job your parents are

embarrassed about you can that become

trauma something like that yes you could

depending on how you define and for some

people it does and for some people it

doesn't you know um depends again on the

context uh for some people you get fired

you go like well I didn't like those

[ __ ] anyway or um I I asked this

because I'm I'm wondering if there's a

lot of people listening now that I'm

trying to understand if they small

experience which other people think is

Trivial actually could have resulted in

some kind of deeper trauma response

absolutely at the end the issue is the

perception your perception your

perception the issue is not the event

itself you and I may have the same

events happening and for me it reminds

me about my brother torturing me or it

reminds me about my mom being sick and

not paying attention to you or whatever

and for me it becomes a very big deal

and for you it goes like yeah you know

but I have so many talents why not try

something else and can you give me an

overview of the work you've done in your

life that have fed into all of the

knowledge and information that you have

just for anyone that might not know who

you are yeah what is that sort of body

of work I had a very good psychiatric

training um in one of the Harvard

hospitals and then I was I been the last

state mental hospital in Boston which is

also interesting um I it was this

Sanctuary for very disturbed people and

so that instiution gets closed I go work

at the Veterans Administration hospital

um I met these guys who were people who

I looked up to they were good athletes

competent people helicopter Pilots all

my age and these guys had broken apart

and they had fallen apart they go oh and

they reminded me of some of my relatives

who I grew up with who also had been

concentration surv and Japanese Camp

survivors and then I learned much else

after that but that really opened up my

eyes to that that people can be broken

by life experiences and that really

intrigued me tremendously this is

Central to your story is this early

experience you said earlier that you you

were born in 1943 1943 very important

when you're born has a huge inflict on

who you become so my earliest imprint is

of my father at some point was detained

by the Germans he was not in cration

Camp but he was supposed to go off there

my mom is by herself raising small kids

in hiding right next to the place where

the Nazis are launching their Rockets to

go to London so half of the Rockets fell

into our backyard and you I have no

conscious imprint of that but uh I grew

up like a kid going up in Ukraine today

um and uh a lot of kids my age died I

was a very sickly child there was a low

of hunger and misery half my generation

died of starvation and so I grew up with

Incredible

preconscious imprint of what gets in

Ukraine and Gaza are going through right

now um and that must have left a trace

in my curiosity and my being including a

trace of having a body that was very

sickly you were born in 1943 in see

occupied Netherlands Netherlands okay

and you the middle children of five

that's right y you were very sick as a

child yeah what were your parents like

in terms of love affection all those

kinds of things my mother was more or

less broken by the pandemic of 1919 in

which her father developed parkinsonism

and became one of those all of sax type

people so my mother was a very frozen

person um which had a very impact on me

my father was very conscientious

loving you described your mother as

being a frozen person yeah and it had an

impact on you yeah having a frozen

mother has an impact on you what was

that impact the impact is that if you

have a mother who is not available to

love you and care for you that that

becomes part of your perception of the

world and that means that uh there's a

lot of work to be done about learning

about affection and intimacy and uh

closeness and vulnerability and all

those sort things yeah yeah your mother

would faint whenever Bessel would ask

her what her life was like when she was

a little girl no no I asked her only

once um I was already a junior professor

at Harvard had two kids and my parents

came to visit me and here's an example

of but parents I had I left at age 18

for the us because I wanted so distance

between me and my

parents 10 15 years later quite a few I

wrote to my parents said it's customary

for parents to come and visit their

children sometimes we should be

interested in coming to visit me that

never crossed our

mind and so they came and we actually

had a very blessing time very civilized

and so in the last day my parents were

visiting us I said to my parents you

know you probably don't really know what

I do for a living but a lot of my work

has to do with

incest

and I wonder where does that come from

and I turned towards my mom and I said

you know I wonder if something happened

to you that I picked up that you were

were you ever sexually abused and my mom

fainted fell off her chair and my father

said look what you did to your mother

and my dead wife and her my father

carried my mother into a rebell so I

don't know if my mother was sexually

abused she just fainted when I asked the

question yeah but that's how it goes H

you barely get a straight answer to any

of these things you said that child

abuse and neglect is the single most

preventable cause of mental illness the

single most common cause of drug and

alcohol abuse and a significant

contributor to leading causes of death

such as diabetes heart disease cancer

stroke and suicide that's true and in

your book you say that ating child abuse

in America would reduce the overall rate

of depression by more than half

alcoholism by 2/3 and suicide drug use

and domestic violence by three quarters

yeah that doesn't come from me there a

data from this very big CDC study uh

done by Vincent fer and so these a DAT

on 25 25,000 people yeah yeah people

have got increasingly interested in

their Early Childhood experiences as a

lens to understand who they are as

adults yeah is that overblown or is it

important to understand it's not

overblown to be curious about how you

became who you became and what the

internal ingredients of your cake are I

think that's very good for people to be

aware of how they be how they have come

become the creatures who they are I

think being curious about yourself is

very

necessary uh also to be curious in order

to be curious of other people when you

said about your mother and the incest

thing yeah

you'd realized as an adult much of your

work focused on incest and then you

turned to your mother and asked her if

there was an experience she had had and

She

fainted do you believe that there's a

part of you that knew no but I don't

know if my mother was incested I know

that my mother was very uptight about

sex and I wonder what happened to her

and her fainting INB means that I

triggered something but I don't know

what I triggered I would not jump to

conclusions that my mother was in victim

something happened to her but I don't

know what it is okay but the indicator

was that she was always uptight about

sex it wasn't that unbelievably UPS

about sex terrified about

sex

Y how many of the people that you

treated in your practice have you could

you trace their adult dysfunction back

to An Early Childhood

experience pretty much 90% let's say

yeah 90% but you know that's that's me

how I mean people with Autism or people

with

OCD don't come to see me MH that's so I

I have a very narrow filter in the way

of who comes to see me and what's the

Crux of what happened to them as a child

if you had to simplify it the Crux is uh

not being acknowledged and honored and

for who they were as kids that's the big

thing is you

uh they were unseen and people did

Terrible Things to them and nobody

seemed to bother to protect them when

you say Terrible Things Terrible Things

is being beaten up being sexually

molested having their bones broken what

if it was just

words also

words one of my patients mother said for

all the time oh you will never have

friends if people really get to know you

they will all reject you because it's Dr

ter PR that's pretty that's pretty good

who said

that well mother of Wonder people3 but

it would not be an unusual thing to say

people do terrible things to kids

intentionally and

unintentionally um automatically

automatically yeah is that hurt people

hurting people yeah no you see it in

supermarkets and parking L and stuff

like that yeah what' you see you see

people abusing their kids seeing

terrible things their

kids I guess it's difficult for parents

because they sometimes think well I've

got to raise a child that's not

dysfunctional so I've going to have to

punish them and I've G to have to

discipline them as a way to make sure

that they grow up to be healthy and

well-rounded yeah that's an interesting

cultural issue that um that is sort of

how my parents and grandparents

generation saw their kids and then

people who grew up in northern Europe

completely changed their attitude now

you go to jail if you hit your kids in

in Sweden for example I think me in

Holland also not in the US so people

have really changed their mind but in

the US when they talk about the the

downside of of physical punishment of

their kids often times particularly

black people will say I want to raise my

children knowing about right and wrong

and the Bible says I need to punish my

children and that's what I'm doing and

you should not subvert the teachings of

my children

church and they don't argue with that

because um at least not straight on I

grew up in a household where I was

punished physically in pretty

significant ways ways that I probably

could share because it's just quite you

know significant quite

horrendous and they are horrendous

stories actually yeah I was born in

Africa so I've got a African mother and

an English father

um it's funny because I look back on it

and I go and this is just me

rationalizing and hindsight I go I'm

happy that I had a home where there was

discipline because if I didn't have that

home then I wouldn't maybe have left the

city we're one of the few families that

actually left the city the small fairly

small town relatively small town to some

of the towns I live in now and went and

did a lot of things with my life and I

was I didn't get caught up in drugs like

some of my friends I I wasn't

dysfunctional and my mother couldn't

read or write as well so I feel somewhat

thankful but I'm doing I'm like

rationalizing in hindsight because it

somewhat ended up okay in certain

measures of my life in other areas of my

life there's dysfunction you know and

your perception may change really my

perception about my life and who I

became has has quite changed quite a bit

over time as as layers come open but

what you talk about that things were

predictable is very important my parents

also were

predictable which is enormously helpful

for at least you to anticipate to know

what you are supposed to do etc etc

chaos is a terrible thing I think that

point is really interesting because

although there was I was physically

punished a lot yeah um it was

predictable yeah so I knew that if I I

understood why I was being punished so I

kicked I was playing football in the

house and broke ornaments yeah or

something like that it was never

unpredictable right but something comes

to my mind as you're talking is that

same visit that my parents finally came

I had a three-year-old daughter at the

time we staying at the house and put my

parents on the first floor right next to

the main bathroom and then my

three-year-old daughter went to that

bathroom that was next to my parents

bedroom and my mother came out and

yelled at me said how dare she use our

bathroom you should punish

her and I almost did I had an immediate

impulse arm I should punish my my

three-year-old doing and I started to

walk to her and go oh my God I'm about I

feel like crying oh my God I feel I'm

about to reenact what my parents did to

me and I made a physician no Mom she is

allowed to use his bathroom and I said

the limit on my mom which is one a

transformative experience for me to

actually realize that I'm about to

repeat what was done to me which people

do routinely and I was about to beat my

daughter and I said

that's the end of the

story yeah it still causes you a lot of

emotion it's actually I'm surprised how

much emotion comes up talking about it

yeah yeah why do you think it it's so so

much emotion comes up when you talk

about that good question

um it's interesting

question

um because it allowed me to have a life

you know much of life is automatic but

you can make a choice to do things

differently you start owning yourself

and that's the moment I started to

own I'm responsible for my kids I'm

going to do follow what I think is right

it's really a moment of Liberation but

also a moment of

Separation like I will not be like

you it's tremendously hard to do that

because it's going against your right

and I think that's a big thing for all

of us to because we want to Bel long we

want to be member of a tribe and if you

do things

differently you lose your

tribe and you become a lonely Trav so

this is incredibly complex because uh

people want to be part of a tribe we

cannot do without a tribe and so the act

of actually leaving your tribe is a is a

very very

major pilgrimage make

yeah there's parts of me that manifest

sometimes and I understand that this is

the behavior that I would leared yeah

and I I think there's part of me that's

worried actually because I learn I grew

up in a home where phys you know

physical discipline was the response to

most kind of forms of unwanted behavior

that I'm worried that if I become a dad

that'll be my natural probably will be

yeah I don't want it to be you don't

have to follow it yeah your kid will

drive you crazy because kids do yeah and

at that point I think having kids is one

of the great learning experience in life

you

know we

all none of us knows but what we're

doing and then the kids teach us how

to to be very important teachers for how

do you deal with this because it's very

challenging yeah what did you learn from

y children oh I learned a lot from my

kids uh for one thing so my my first

born was a is a was uh just easy and

loving and luminous and pretty and

girly

uh and she now is gender ambiguous and

just divorced her husband to be with the

woman so that was completely transformed

in her case and to see go through that

Journey with her like wow wow wow wow

and my son was a neuro atypical child

very out of control much of the time um

many physical

reactions very bright

but

reactive staying in

bed only playing computer games and he

has grown up to be one of the most

loving

thoughtful adult parents

you can hope to meet so both my kids

have become become very different people

who I thought they were but they have a

very good relationship with both of them

even though I really don't quite

understand either of

them when we see dysfunctional behavior

in children I think one of the natural

reactions is to give them some kind of

medication or to attach some label to

them and say that they're broken in this

way how do you feel about that well that

is what saved my son because I am a

psychiatrist and I

know about how these labels are little

crutches that never quite capture what

somebody is suffering from and people

started want to do my put my son on

medications because but I was a

psychopharmacologist I really studi

drugs and what I can and cannot do and

it was very clear that they were not

helping him and I didn't have to submit

to Authority as most parents would do

and say oh my doctor says this and this

and this I say I'm a doctor I know about

brains and I know about kids and I don't

know what the hell is going with my kids

but he doesn't have bipolar disorder and

he is not respond going to respond to

lithium and so my both my kids were

major Inspirations for really exploring

what was good for them and I'm

particularly grateful for my son who was

such a really very scary kid in many

ways that my wife whom I'm now divorced

from um she was really great also in

terms of exploring what might be helpful

and so what I really got to also be

aware of is the issue of privilege that

I made enough money um that we could

spend a lot of time trying to find

things that would help my son if we had

lived in the housing

project I some would have been a

terrible Misfit but because we had were

able to give him so much support and

Care by

exploration uh that he actually found a

way of rearranging his his his mental

state him I mean just on that point

there's a startat I read that children

from low-income families are four times

more likely as the privately insured to

receive antis psychotic medicines that's

right that's that's that's

true 400% more likely to receive antis

psychotic medications if you that's very

big issue it's not really my of

expertise uh but you know giving drugs

to kids is potentially very dangerous

because you interfere with natural

processes of grain growth brain growth

yeah so if you give people medication

that changes certain chemicals in their

brain at the development of phase it may

actually change the way that that brain

gets formed and may not allow as

happened to my son who was able to

compens for many things and his brain

was able to learn how to react

differently if you suppress all that

your brain may not learn these new

adaptations you think we should be

looking at Social conditions before we

look at Social conditions physical

conditions movement

touch uh synchrony

music um has so so in our

world we got stuck in Western people are

allowed to do things they can do one

thing is they can what they call take a

swig if you feel bad you take them

alcohol and that makes you feel better

so that's part of our respected

tradition is taking a chemical to change

the way you feel and anybody who says

you should take that chemical nobody

ever say you're

crazy and the other thing that Western

people are very good is ying so it let

talk talk talk talk talk talk talk talk

and understand things and then I like to

tell people's story that the first time

we happen to Beijing in

1992 and China was still very poor and

deprived and miserable and coming back

from the cultural revolution and nobody

could talk about anything no nothing

happened on the mar no nothing happened

no gentleman Square didn't happen it

didn't happen and China was filled with

every Park then as now is filled with

people doing chiong and taii and I go

down into the park and do CH chiong with

the Chinese what's that Chong is it the

the Chinese Chinese movement of and I do

that with and I go like oh my God that's

how they survive by making this CH taii

movements which if you do in Boston you

people say you're crazy but in China you

cannot talk you can calm that body down

by the way you move and I became very

interested in how cultures about the

world World actually have very different

ways of helping people to regulate their

physiology and their synchronicity I

want to talk about all of that

specifically this idea of movement and

the role it plays in healing um just to

close off on the part about childhood

trauma yeah what why is it so important

for a child to grow up with a secure

attachment to a caregiver you become how

people see you you become how people see

you yeah so if you're a kid and most

people

most kids the parents find being cute or

you at least a grandparent say oh you're

so cute you're so lovely you're so sweet

and no kid is able to say I'm just

average look at building kids in the

world and I'm not any cure anybody else

no when a kids gets old you're really

cute that is your reality and if a kids

gets told you're really ugly and nasty

and mean that is becomes identity that's

you really become how people treat you

early on in your life and that's a very

big Legacy that I as

a as a therapist deal with is these

imprints of early experience which are

very difficult to

change imprints of early experience are

they

changeable yes that is the great news

and also the amazing news that even

though we know how to do some of that

we're not going there so you can heal

from your childhood trauma absolutely

everyone uh um that's my assumption when

I see people in your experience You'

you've dealt with patients your whole

life um your whole professional life how

many of those patients do you think were

healable I really think that if given a

chance and giving the

resources you can pretty much do

something for

everybody one of the other but but but

the problem is again we go back to where

we started before the microphone was on

is that our Focus these days is on

productivity and behavioral change and

not in how do we find out how to help

you all the things that I describe in my

book almost most of the things that I

describe in my book as being helpful and

that was 10 years ago I know some other

things since that time uh are

unconventional methods that don't don't

do not get practiced in mainstream

psychology Psychiatry because they need

to be productive

and they need to be cheap and whether

you get better or not doesn't matter are

you

cheap is the main

motivation I think the profit motive is

killing good practice your your book was

very interesting because um when I read

the cover and then I watched a video you

had made talking about the sort of six

uh sort of treatments and stuff that

exist within the body things like yoga

um you talk about theater and acting and

how that helps you to to get out of your

trauma the body keeps the

score this was a a pretty radical

approach to thinking through trauma and

it became a meme which is an interesting

thing to see well I I I use it in my

like everyday language with my partner

yeah and I've heard other people say the

body keeps the score the body keeps the

score when we're talking about how our

body is holding on to those y traumatic

memories traumatic things that have

happened to us for someone who has never

read your book and doesn't even

understand the like base premise here

what is the like base premise of your of

the title there it's really that trauma

is a visceral experience what does

visceral mean in your body heartbreak

and G bench you stiffen up

you surrender you lose your power you

tighten up that's really where trauma is

lived I kind of see it as two approaches

you can either go let's try and change

the mind which will then change the body

Downstream or you can say let's change

the body which will then change the mind

right is that you could but I do a lot

of CBT with my wife let's say yeah I

point out her irrational behavior and

that she should really see things from a

different angle and I should really see

things correctly and I really have much

obessed with

that and I'm a bit surprised that

psychology does things that most spouses

have failed in using very well this

sematic approach I've only recently

heard this term from my partner and she

says It's amazing And she's told me she

told me to speak to you on this podcast

because she says you know you'll really

help to change her opinion on this what

is the sematic approach to Healing

sematic approach is to really experience

what your body

feels and also uh allowing your body to

do things that it has been afraid to do

and to

explore how your body moves to the world

in some ways why women just to seem to

be so much better than at this stuff

than men because they're doing like plat

sure plates yoga these are all things

dancing these are things typically women

do more than men yeah yeah yeah yeah and

it seems women are just more in touch

with it yeah I think it's a intriguing

question because it's not exclusively

women of course men have always done in

armies and basic training and the

military and what's intriguing to me is

that uh you know when people join the

military they often times they're not

very well put together people and they

go through basic training and they

really March together they sing with

people and they climb barricades and

they go through uh composite physical

experience with other people at the end

of 12 weeks they feel competent and they

feel connected and they have found a

Band of Brothers how do they do it not

by yaking but by having very deep shared

physical experiences one of the

interesting things that you write about

which I found particularly interesting

because I saw little flashes of myself

in the words is you said I found that

the more traumas your patients have in

their background the more creative and

successful they often become

often often and we don't know how often

that is but get to meet quite a few of

them yeah yeah it's the people who have

had to struggle who often see new

possibilities and have no choice but to

discover new options that's true that's

true yeah but you know but those are the

people who manag to get into my practice

and the people who don't find those

Solutions don't have the wherewithal and

the capacity to make it into therapy

with me they might be outside with a

drug addiction getting drugs lying on

the streets etc etc and to large degree

I see that as as an issue of accident

you know this past year I visited a

program in Los Angeles called um Homeboy

Industries is a it's a program for

formerly

incarcerated largely Latin men who had

no fathers who have been

criminals and it's a spectacular program

where they honor they say what do you

need how we can to care you how can we

make sa safe place for you and I saw a

real treatment there St Quinton Hospital

uh s wenton prison famous prison in

California is now trauma based I use my

book as a PO texor and they transforming

people's lives by acknowledging the

reality of what they dealt with helping

people to be part of the healing system

working in groups working with

movement um like it's in Quinton they

have dancing classes I go like yeah

moving together with other people gives

you a sense of connection sense of

pleasure uh they they're really

beginning to understand you can do it at

the Harvard Hospital you wouldn't do the

whole with people you would dance with

people I think there's a bit of a joke

in the investment Community um that

says you'll get better returns if you

invest in someone an entrepreneur or

founder that is a little bit traumatized

and I actually think I if I I don't want

to misquote her but I had Barbara

Cochran who's a shark on Shark Tank in

the USA here on the show and one of the

things she said to me was with all of

her Investments the ones that tend to do

the best are those that have a little

bit of a trauma in their past and she

says because when they call me with a

problem they call me with the solution

attached versus people who have never

had trauma they call me and just tell me

the problem so they'll call me and say

listen Barbara this has happened and

this is what we're going to do about it

and that was her you know she said it in

a slightly humorous way but I wondered

if you thought there's any truth in this

idea that yeah I think that's again a

selection bias of people she works with

I know certainly plenty of people have

had plenty of people working for me uh

who who really get paralyzed in the face

of of challenges and who don't have a

solution and become very dependent on

giving getting the action so I think she

has an bit of an unusual sample actually

because I wondered if if you've had an

an anomalous early upbringing does that

make you an anomalous adult is does it

increase the probability that you become

a anomalous slightly different

absolutely and that can go everywhere

you you develop a mind and brain to fit

with that particular situation and if

that particular situation doesn't help

you need to find new Solutions and so

trauma and abuse really forces you to

find try to find other Solutions but

many of them are not successful

you is trauma a story in your brain no

trauma is a perception in your brain a

percep what's the difference so the

issue is something happens and your

brain and mind takes it in and then

makes an adaptation to that particular

event that depends on how old you are in

the circumstances it's very different

for different people give me an example

of a perception if you would beat me up

right now I'd go this guy is crazy and I

can call people and ruin your reputation

Etc if you're three if I'm 3 years old

and you start hitting me as a kid I

don't know what the hell to do about it

and I will likely think as probably I

did something wrong that I caused the

guy to beat me up and I'm a terrible

person and no wonder that he beat me up

because I'm a horrible creature and

that's what almost everybody who I know

who was beaten as a child uh that's the

internal understanding of it not when

you're eight years old or 15 years old

but when you're very young that becomes

your

experience because you're still forming

your perception of the world yeah yeah

and your brain creates a map of the

world very in very deep ways and so you

experiences form an internal V of the

world that that makes you expect certain

things at certain times so if I walk

into a room and I see a person who looks

like my old Uncle who he has to play

with I start Sil ling up to you because

you on the Deep level might be of that

very nice uncle that I once had I don't

know that but my brain is set to

interpret the world in a particular way

so one of the things most uh profound uh

research experience I had was purely

accidental we started to do warshock

tests on people what's that in BL test

so you saw some formless ink picture and

we showed it to people and we saw that

people had completely different

interpretations of what they projected

on that ink BL test and that really

brought home to me that we all are Liv

living in different

worlds and that our like a lot of the

Vietnam veterans I saw saw bloody

corpses or mutilated bodies in those

cards people had never been in combat

didn't see that uh Vape victims saw torn

vaginas and torn bodies other people

didn't see this so once that becomes

lodged into your perceptual system you

continue to interpret the world in that

particular way having to do with what

you have gone through in the past and an

ink block test for anyone that doesn't

know is basically just a piece of paper

with

random yeah but it's been analyzed on

about 100,000 people over the years so

there are certain patterns you can

detect in it yeah yeah I've never done

an ink blot test I feel like I should do

one I learned as much from my ink blot

test as I learned from our brain Imaging

uh but the brain Imaging is respectable

and the mind has sort of disappeared but

for example in our psychedelic research

I still very much hope to do in Blau

test because as Michael pollen says how

to change your minds but we not

measuring how people change their minds

how many people do you think I mean this

is maybe a ridiculous question but how

many people what percentage of people do

you think have trauma in some form how

you define it uh you know the figures

are a quarter of people get physically

abused one out of five people get

sexually abused one of eight kids

Witnesses V has being their

parents

uh etc etc so you know if I sit in a

room you know it's it's not a binary

issue it's not I you traum you didn't

get traumatized

but when I talk to a room of

professionals which I do a lot

I assume that at least half of the group

viscerally knows what trauma means and

what is trauma doing to my brain you

said you've done a lot of neuroimaging

yeah scans um if you if if I was

traumatized and you scanned my brain is

there something you could see not

necessarily I can see how uh your brain

may be different from other people's

brains I may take a particular

population you can average it out and

you can say oh there's a little more

activation of the Bara to gray a little

bit less of the white insulin so you see

see certain patterns of connectivity in

the brain but to some degree you know I

I think we we learn a lot about the

brain but we don't know much about the

brain and I think people tend to

overstate how much the brain pictures

can teach us uh you know it's I love the

Hubble's telescope or the web telescope

you know it's our brain is like a

universe and our technology is very very

inadequate to really know about all the

unbelievably con complex Connection in

brainers but we have learned a few

things in the last 20 years so how how

does trauma affect the brain it affects

the brain that you tend

to there's there's one part of your

brain that I call the Cockroach Center

of your brain the per accur gray that

lights up itself underneath the

everybody knows the word migler these

days there a part of your brain that

tells you that you're in danger when you

traumatized you're likely that that

little part of your brain way back in

the your brain stem is firing all the

time all the time you go like I'm in

danger I'm in danger I'm in danger and

so that's where it starts in a very

Elementary sensory level you don't know

what the danger is but you just feel

that you should be scared and then

there's certain um Parts other parts of

your brain

for example your insula which makes the

connection with your physical Sensations

and your body awareness that for many

people get shut down because trauma

basically experience of trauma is a

visile experience of heartbreak and God

venge and if you have a lot of that you

can learn to shut that part of your

brain down so you don't feel your body

so much anymore I you don't feel your

body so much you don't feel very alive

either but you don't feel so scared all

the time but it's likely that you will

want to take some drugs to make yourself

feel alive sometimes um stuff like that

yeah so the part of my brain you said

just under the amig around the amydala

below them below the amydala people that

are traumatized they have some kind of

dysfunction in that typically well the

dysfunction is that it keeps firing

keeps firing and how does that make feel

and then the mea so so there's a

constant sense of of subliminal dread is

that anxiety

anxiety is already to hire mental

functioning okay it's more Elementary

yeah it's like your dog shaking

like yeah my daughter has adopted a dog

was time and two years later the dog

still walks to my house you've adopted a

dog in it shakes in your house still

yeah yeah but still never quite

comfortable um and that's how many time

you meet are never quite comfortable so

when someone says they're triggered now

trigger is an higher level thing okay so

then the next level is indeed the

trigger that is in part mediated by the

amula is your M if your smoke detector

that tends to become hyp sensitive so

that minor things get blown up and a

minor thing that you may say to me I

take is the most insulting thing in the

world and so you're constantly triggered

by things and that makes makes you feel

like you you are doing terrible things

to me and it's not like I'm hyp

sensitive uh and when you have an off

day uh that is your issue and not my

issue no when you have an off day I feel

your off day and we start getting into

trouble together I've got a picture here

of what the brain looks like when the

brain smoke detector yeah yeah um goes

off is that what it looks like on the

brain when that is one particular guy

and nobody is exactly the same as

everybody else can you explain this to

me but basically but what you see here

is this is a guy who is

reliving uh terrible car accident he was

involved it and what you see here is

that the right posterior part of the

brain there's temporal paral Junction on

the right side of the brain uh fires and

that's the feeling part of your brain so

you go oh my God oh my God I'm terrified

but there's no cognition basically the

left side of the brain shuts down so

when you're in your trauma you don't

become you're not a reasonable person

you actually uh become a little bit of a

blubbering idiot all of us when we

really are angry upset and not very

articulate but we have a lot of

feelings and then the the piece that by

I show this is that as he is this guy is

Rel living his trauma these two parts of

your brain go

offline this is the dorsal Lal prefontal

cortex that's the part of the brain

that's the timekeeper of your brain and

so if something unpleasant happens

between us let's say uh I go oh it's not

a half hour and I'll be okay so let me

just put up with this but when you get

traumatized the timee keeper disappears

and this is all there is you lose your

sense of perspective and that is what

happen when your in your trauma you

don't know the difference between the

past and the present because the time

keeper of your brain goes offline and

whatever is you're feeling is real as

opposed to be feeling like a

memory so you get it yeah so people that

can't see it in this brain scan what I'm

basically seeing is the right side is

extremely activated the left side looks

like it's off off yeah and then there's

these two blanks um empty spaces that

aren't activated called the doors dorsal

lateral prefontal cortex soal pre part

of the system in the brain give you a

sense of time okay and as long as you

have a sense it's like little babies

only a sense of of time out whatever

happens happens totally then you see a

child slowly grow and they get a sense

of perspective it's happening right now

but tomorrow it will be different okay

so that's when I mean presumably that's

when you get anxiety right when you

start thinking about the future it is

about get having the

perspective of this is happening right

now right now I'm really scared but the

moment I go home the moment I call my

friend I'll feel better so that that you

you need to have the capacity

perspective and that perspective goes

offline when you're in your trauma and

you become a trauma Des person so this

particular person this brain scan that I

have here this guy was in a car accident

and the the triggered brain that I'm

looking at here is he was basically put

in a uh an m fmri i scanner and he was

intentionally triggered to see what

would happen in his brain exactly so he

was shown maybe a car accident or

something no no we specifically his car

oh you show him a picture of his what

did you see what did you hear what did

you smell what were you thinking very

specific sensory details okay so not

somebody else's sensory your sensory

details and the right side of his brain

was

illuminated yeah the light side of brain

became very active yeah but what got

inactivated was the eke keeper of his

brain so he could not lie there and say

oh I'm remembering what happened to me

yesterday he's Rel living what happened

yesterday instantly you feel like it's

happening right now and that's the

nature of trauma trauma is not a memory

it's a

reliving are you consciously reliving it

or is your subconscious reliving you

feel like it's happening right now with

all forms of trauma but not it's

happening right now but my feeling is

happening right now in my body you don't

know that the feelings actually belong

to the time that your dad used to beat

you it is now I feel the same way

because I disagree with you so I've been

triggered in the past and I felt that

sort of instant fight or flight response

because Something's Happened or whatever

it can and it's instantaneous so

although I don't feel like I'm back

there my body does feel like it's not

there and so people are confused about

it say oh you weiv the past no actually

you notw that you live the past because

the past is the present MH so you don't

think oh reminds me about the time that

my dad used to be beat me when I was

four years old no it feels like you are

beating me right

now and is there a way for this

particular gentleman here who's been

through that car crash to ever stop this

triggering yeah he've done quite well he

he did he did uh EMDR actually yeah I

movement decentralization and what was

his results he a all right guy he's he's

he's functioning he's fine he's no no

longer trauma Pres what's the most

radical Improvement you've seen in your

clinical practice oh really people

really coming to life people just saying

it's over give me the the the most the

best example the good example is the

videotape I showed people yesterday of a

woman again terrible car accident

freezing uh upset freaked out and then

three sessions later we got talk about

it she says yeah this shitty thing

happened to me uh I was in this car

accident and I jolted for it and my head

was F and boy that was terrible back

then but I no I have a granddaughter and

I drive my car to my granddaughter I'm

fine three sessions it took three

sessions yeah every we saw it in

psychedelic therapy all the time what

did you do in those three

sessions wiggle your fingers in front of

people's eyes I mean for for me for me

EMDR was really the gateway drug like um

soorry you know I've written three books

about PT they actually wrote the very

first book in which the word pgsd exists

in 84 or something uh but they didn't

know how to treat it so I'm a

world-renowned expert but I have no idea

how to treat it because people keep

relieving that trauma and they don't

know how to stop that and then somebody

starts telling me about EMDR and I don't

believe a word of it and they say just

you move your fingers in front of

people's eyes I mean you move your eye

from side to side as you relive the

trauma

and I go that's crazy everybody who

hears that's crazy and then people start

doing it and they show me how it works I

go like wow and people indeed

had a certain subsample of people we

studied indeed after a few session of

EMDR go like yeah that really sucked but

it's over it belongs to the Past not

happening right now you're telling me

that wiggling your fingers in front of

people's eyes can help heal that trauma

well and then of course we had to do a

little research which took us 15 years

to get enough funding to get do it to

see what happens when you move your eyes

back and forth and then we discover that

if you move your eyes back and forth as

you recall a traumatic experiences you

activate certain Pathways between the

temporo petal Junction which is your

sense of self and your insul your s your

body so your brain is able to say oh

this is what happened to me but that

happened to me in the past so these are

Pathways that makes it possible for your

brain to uh make that distinction and in

the research that's been done on this

yeah what does the what did the outcome

what was the conclusion in terms of it

efficacy oh in terms of uh in our

research um 78% of the people who had

adult trauma so so being assaulted or

raped

uh by a stranger 78% of them were

completely

cured but that's not the majority of

people we see because most people we see

have Early Childhood trauma which is

much more complicated to treat Early

Childhood trauma is much more sort of

stubborn and resistant to this treatment

yeah because your Early Childhood

experiences create who you

are Al so if you go

to fancy College when you're 18 you do

become identified with that college but

it doesn't radically change into a new

person I bet it becomes part of your

identity but if you grow up in a certain

family early on in your life you

actually become that you that the

imprint is very deep early on yeah so

it's called eye movement

desens and reprocessing treatment yeah

um I was just looking up some stats

about it it says it's been extensively

studied with evidence supporting its

efficacy across ious conditions with

PTSD a 2020 2014 Metro analysis of 26

randomized control trials found that

EMDR significantly reduced PD symptoms

with a large effect size depression a

2024 systemic review and Metro analysis

in encompassing 25 studies and more than

a thousand participants reported that it

alleviated depressive depressive

symptoms the same 2014 Met analysis

noted that EMDR led to significant

reductions in anxiety symptoms among

PTSD patients with a large effect uh and

finally a 2024 systemic review and

individual participation data meta

analysis concluded that EMDR is an

effective is as effective as other

psychological treatments for PTSD

achieving comparable symptom reduction

and remission

rates so can you show me how it works

can you do it on me I

could uh I'm G be can I move my chair of

course you can you're going to come

closer so can you bring to mind an

really to rather unpleasant experience

you have had not too long ago yeah and

when can you bring to mind what you saw

at that

point yeah can you remember what the

voice sounded like at that

point or whatever it was and sounds come

to

mind yeah uh do you remember what your

body felt like back

then yeah okay can you remember what you

were thinking or bring to mind what you

were

thinking yeah okay so how Vivid is your

feeling right now of recollecting it

make a six seven out of 10 okay so so

stay there now follow my finger with

with your eyes so look at my look at me

right

now take a deep

breath so what comes to your mind right

now as we doing

I feel calm

uhhuh yeah I just don't I feel calm okay

so when you go back to what you were

just

feeling what's it like now um

it's it's hard to Recall why I was

bothered it's the best way to describe

it that is the weird stuff you know why

is that is that just cuz why is that now

see that is that is what's so great

about his work we don't know the

linearity we don't know where the hell

the emotional imprint is gone now but it

is and you know of course if you bring

up something much worse than what you

had going to it takes it much longer and

a lot of other stuff comes up but what

somehow EMDR seems to do it creates new

associative processes in the

brain so let's say um first some people

did EMDR on

me something really very very nasty that

happened to me and I started off being

very upset and then during the EMDR I

know if that happened to you I had

images of sitting at my dining room

table as a kid and I had images of

playing in a playground in Primary

School something don't come in mind but

and then we stopped it and inde so yeah

that really sucked time to go on an

important part of this you did not tell

me what you were going through no um

because I'm suspicious of language

because language is always an

interactive process and if I would ask

you to tell me what happen you will

filter yourself because certain things

may be embarrassing or you don't want me

to know about it and so we we circumvent

this whole verbal process of your making

meaning out of it and we reorganize some

core ways in which your brain is

perceiving this so so you saw a little

bit of this very in minor way for me

when I first saw this I was blown away

by it and thought I need to study this

so when they quoted studies the main

study was done by me uh NIH funded that

but I was also the last time that

somebody got funded for ni for EMDR

breath work yeah what role did breath

Works become a really big topic my

partner runs a business called B breath

work hash ad um and she takes women away

she does these breath work Retreats all

around the world has a studio Etc um

what do you think of breath work as a

way to makes perfect

sense for one thing it's been used since

I'm time Memorial in certain cultures

have people people always Discover it no

in India people know

it not in Europe nobody knows about

breth work that's why these are

culturally dependent things I think uh

um the Clos us may know it I don't know

go out there see if people do

it and and so people are so conformist

to be approved of by their teachers and

their

peers that then when people do something

Innovative they tend to very quickly be

or they're cookie they're crazy that's

like um I really got into body work and

I've not not done breath work myself but

I hear about it from people and

I so it's perfectly legitimate to me um

but when I we do something new like I

was the first person who started yoga

for PDS and people go like putting your

butt in the air and twisting your spine

pessel for trauma like and said well

let's find out and so we did the study

and it turned out that yoga was very

effective for treatment of PTSD but but

the overwhelming reaction of my academic

colleagues was oh there he goes again

he's gone off the deep

end and now yoga is sort of pretty well

accepted as a so you yeah you can use

yoga to treat trauma you can no you

don't treat trauma you you you you yoga

to treat your relationship to your

body it's not the same thing but trauma

really distorts your relationship to

your body and uh what our research also

shows is that when you start doing yoga

certain brain areas that tend to get S

dampened by trauma come to life it's an

Adaptive thing because trauma is so

relived in physical physical experiences

Darwin said heartbreaking gut venge is

the visual Sensations and so if you're

heart constantly heartbroken gut vened

you try

to pull that down and so you lose

contact with your body

in as a defensive maneuver of feeling

overwhelmed by these physical Sensations

so I want to make sure understand this

so the insular part of the brain is the

part that links how we're what we do

with how we feel how we viscerally feel

yeah what's happening in our bodies okay

it link so it links how we're feeling in

our bodies to to what we know about

ourselves yeah the stories we have in

our head about ourselves so that's what

the insula does and Trauma interrupts

that which is what kind of dysfunction

on a day-to-day basis you are out of s

you you feel numbed out or disconnected

you don't feel alive you don't feel

connected you uh you can't feel pleasure

or you feel hyper sensitive and you feel

hypers sensitive because you talk about

the two sort of responses being

disconnection or

hypersensitivity there's always these

two contradictory things that coexist

remembering too much and remembering too

little feeling too much and feeling too

little uh there is no happy medum

you go from one extreme to another

you're agitated and num out at the same

time and and and I bet you know what

it's like because we all have been there

that we feel agitated and at the same

time we feel completely nothing at all

and there's almost no mind there and I

think is a very not uncommon Human

Experience and the in sealer playing a

ro the insul insul plays a big role in

that and many other P structures so if I

start doing yoga yeah what is that then

doing to that hypers sensitivity

disconnection yoga makes it possible for

you to

reconnect your senses in a way uh to to

feel what you feel and to make it safe

what you feel so as where you go to yoga

studio with a teacher with a nice voice

who really helps you to not take a deep

breath stretch out your arms feel that

Warrior 3 pose and then you start

feeling it and for many people do yoga

can be actually quite agitating scary

actually in a way for traumatized people

we see it all the time is that uh

something gets triggered and you start

getting upset just doing a simple down

dog let's say or certainly the the yoga

pose that all SE abused victims have

great trouble with is the happy baby

pose happy baby POS when you put your

feet in the air you lie on your back you

hold your toes and you spread

your your legs wide so your pelvis is up

against the air for most of us that's a

very pleasant part makes you relaxed if

you're a sexual abuse Survivor that's

going to trigger a lot of stuff really

yeah and you have to be very careful

doing

that because it's it's

triggering and so so because these

positions may be triggering you may hold

your body in a frozen position in order

not to trigger those feeling of sexual

abuse I was just thinking as you were

speaking about a friend of mine who um

tends to go through life with a sort of

crumpled up body they and they're low

self-esteem they're quite low confidence

I've never I don't know if they're

traumatized in any way can't pass

judgment on that but they started doing

yoga and it really has helped their

mental health in a profound way and I'm

just wondering what you think the link

is between someone who I'm just telling

you on the surface is like crumpled up

through their life but then go

absolutely I told you I was a sickly

child I was really sickly until I had

asked when I was 13

and and I think the most helpful thing I

ever did was roling roling is a very

intense form of massage ready so tear

your muscles from your fascia and I live

came to live in a new body I no longer

live Frozen in that body of this little

child who who almost died had a profound

effect of me as as much as anything I've

ever done why and how because you get

stuck in habits in a way trauma becomes

a habit my habit is that when I see a

strong guy in a room I get scared

hypothetical situation and so you have

habitual responses and part of what you

do therapy for is to get to realize your

habitual responses and become curious

about it like like you know whenever a

person like that comes to the room I

freeze and I sound like an idiot and and

your therapist says so what happens to

your body and how long have you felt

this way you feel this way when you were

six or three or eight and then at some

point people get a narrative that may

begin to explain it and that narrative

may say oh I was bullied by somebody and

that feeling comes back when I meet

somebody who reminds me of my bully and

then you go like um

have you ever tried martial

arts and see what it like be like for

you to actually learn to use your body

to fight

somebody and that's for example

treatment that I have never studied but

I was amazed how many of my close

colleagues who are very much into trauma

tell me at some point oh and now I have

to go to my martial arts

class and that is nobody sees that as a

legitimate way of dealing with what

they're dealing with but I think people

are doing their martial arts because

they have memories of being

victimized and it help gives me a vis

experience of my body can defend itself

my body I can use my body to take care

of myself and that's not an intellectual

process that's a visual

experience people often describe meeting

somebody and their body just being off y

so they say I met this person and my

body was just I just felt something in

my body y that they can't consciously

articulate but they just feel it in

their body this person's a bit off Y

what do you think they're describing

there I think they're describing two

things we pick up each other's energy

there's such a thing as the mirror

neuron system which hasn't received much

attention the past few years but I think

it's a very important

invention uh that you're I pick up your

energy and if let's say you're depressed

but you have a job to do so to talk with

me today it's very likely that I on some

level will pick up your depression and

it will affect our conversation I'm not

saying that it do that's a hypothetical

thing you know but we pick up each

other's energy and so we may be somebody

who is very angry but who's trying to

behave themselves and be very well but

you may pick up that anger and that's

really the very complicated stuff in

Psychotherapy am I picking up your your

energy or am I picking up my

energy and so if I feel uncomfortable in

your presence is that because you're

triggering something in me about my past

or am I picking something up about you

and that is the complexity of of our

interactions so yeah and from an

evolutionary standpoint um as you were

speaking I was thinking where where has

this come from you know this ability to

subconsciously just get a re for someone

and then form a pattern of okay this

type of person help me in the past and

20 years later I meet someone in the

street and I immediately feel the same

yeah is that just a survival thing what

you I think that makes perfect sense to

me like because we are primates uh

something that came up in your interview

with Trevor the degree to to the Deep

degree to which we're interconnected

creatures that we really don't exist as

individuals so we are meant to live

troops we're meant to be with other

people and so what is safe with other

people uh becomes a critical issue of

our survival the reason that that humans

have survived is not because of your

individual gifts or mine it's because we

can band together and build buildings

and airplanes and all stuff it's all

communal communal things so our it's

it's not Central in our science anymore

today but it's it's at the core if you

understand human beings we are a

collective bunch of creatures who

collectively create something and so

knowing how to do that and how to adjust

to each other is at the core of who we

are

yeah are we losing that a little bit you

know people are getting loner and loner

and more individualistic huge huge issue

screens as virtual realities is our

biggest challenge I

think yeah why uh because screens give

you a virtual reality of pleasure etc

etc but it's not real and is not a

product of your efforts of doing

something you get a cheap

reward but ordinarily takes a lot of

activity and so you get your little

dopamine rush and it

feels like you had experience but you

don't learn how to get along with other

people you don't learn that visual

reaction of pleasure of we are

friends what role does community and

social connection play in trauma

everything

critical and there's another thing that

is troublesome about the development of

our field namely in our generation

traumas who started with experiences

like mine working with combat

veterans I'm not a combat veteran I was

a conscien objector during the Vietnam

war um I don't think about the US Marine

Corps and so I couldn't I couldn't have

told people what it's like but they went

groups they talked to each other and

they learned about buts like to be a

combat veteran from each other and the

moment they made this connection with

each other they were become a band of

brothers and that's how people survive

trauma by bonding with other people it

seems that women are better at forming

those connections than men yeah I think

so I think so although no that's not

entirely true uh I learned a lot about

love for my combat veterans to some

degree I think most human beings don't

know what love is until you have know

what like to be in combat together with

other people creates an enormously deep

deep bond between people uh so I know

something about male love more from

working with combat R anything else when

you're have great danger guys are there

for each other they really protect each

other they really look after each

other what is it about that environment

that forms what you describing there as

real love and how do we it's danger the

natural instinct when you are in danger

you know you and I become much better

friends than we are if something bad

happened to us right now we start

clinging to each other is that because

we would probably need each other you

need each other yeah you need each other

and you count on each other and you have

each other's back and you're saying to

me I have your back um us making

commitment to each other is a very

profound Human Experience you don't get

from a screen well as also in an

individualistic Society you're almost

trained to not need anyone else but

yourself well but you know um I have

friends who went to

eatan uh so the definition for me of

many Englishmen is your mother hatte you

and send you off to buring school when

you're six years old and never looks

after you anymore and what helped my

friends who went to the the public

schools in England was

Sports enormously powerful uh people

felt really close to each other moving

together throwing balls together uh

fighting in the in the fields um that's

additionally has been the way that that

guys get close

together yeah that may bring a bell with

you somewhere of course yeah I was

thinking back to playing football

growing up and just you you yeah you're

one you're one unit effectively and if

there's a problem in this part of the

pitch then it's my problem too if you're

in trouble I I'm there to help you yeah

and I bet you you still make easy

contact with your friends when you

played football with 20 years ago no 30

years ago it's it's really interesting

because as you were talking I was

wondering how we can bring that back

into our lives in the modern world yeah

in a modern world where we live on

screens and exactly white walles alone

yeah you know the studies say that the

average I think it said something like

the average American has an average of

zero people that they feel they could

turn to in a time of Crisis which is

down from like three I think two decades

ago right I'll have a look I'll have

look at the stats I'll I'll pull up the

stats but the general idea of like us

being lonelier than than ever before and

how do we in a society that's like

designed to be lonely how do I on an

individual level fix that I think that's

the big challenge actually uh we have a

foundation now and the main thing that

be is in finding funding for projects

like that of how do you help people to

connect to each other be in sync with

each other we're very much into uh

people making music together do making

theater together creating projects

together that is who we are that is our

Glory as human beings this this

collaborative active physical creation

of things and that sort of not has not

been part of mental health we talk and

we give pills but but we don't really

connect people on a very deep

level is that is are you optimistic

about

this not after the last election no

really I'm very desperate after the

election yeah yeah yeah you're very

desperate after the last election why

because the last election was based on

othering you are different projection

you're

evil these immigrants come and killers

and they project their own uncom

discomfort themselves on people from

different religions and different skin

colors etc etc it's all projection of

people's own discomfort for themselves

and there's no honesty about the problem

is inside of me and not you yeah yeah so

I say you're not a fan of

trump Let's uh let's leave it at that

yeah no I think no obvious psychopath

who doesn't give a [ __ ] about anybody

else are you able to point to anything

good about him and I've when I've had

people on this show that are pro Trump I

ask them the same questions I say can

you point about anything bad about him

because he's got family anybody who goes

to China and says I've been received

better than anybody else in Chinese

history is a

fool the guy's gone bankrupt any number

of times he says terrible things to

other people he insults other people all

the time I'm sure there's something good

about him Ivanka seems to have loved him

at some point

um he's a terrible person

going back to this point of trauma um

you said that there's three broad ways

to reverse the damage of trauma yeah so

if I came to you and I was a traumatized

person whatever that trauma might be

what would what would step one be if I

came to you for support with my trauma

Step One is tell me about yourself who

are you okay uh what do you value what

is

working what you want to work and what

gets in the way so it at start of really

language is terrible important I don't

make a list of how screwed up you

are I help to create a DSM at some for

in a very minor role uh but the DSM is

not a good way of starting off namely

how sick are you I first I want to know

who you are what is working what isn't

working what has helped you what hasn't

helped you what it gets in the way and

so we create a map together of who you

are uh

and to some degree who you are in

relationship with

me um and I would check a lot with

people about is this helping you um so I

don't I don't

prescribe at some point I may say well

have you thought about doing some

martial

arts uh would you be interested in going

to yoga studio but by large I give very

little advice but I help people to to

discover what is going on and where that

leads them in a

way and then once you've done that so

you find out that I had some early

traumatic experience how do you know

what treatment would you give me that is

a not of tricky thing and that is

something in my book I tried to do that

and I failed and in my new book I'm not

doing very much better I would see how