Physician Gabor Mate Gives His Analysis on ADHD and Anxiety — Transcript

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1. 0:00the jurgen experience i was just
2. 0:03watching this
3. 0:04very disturbing commercial yeah um
4. 0:07yesterday with children and it was
5. 0:09talking about adhd and it showed a kid
6. 0:12that was not paying attention in class
7. 0:15and it showed these kids like playing
8. 0:18around and doing things they weren't
9. 0:20supposed to be doing yes and then they
10. 0:22introduced this medication and then you
11. 0:24have the child raising their hand and
12. 0:26then you have everyone clapping and you
13. 0:29have the child with a big smile on their
14. 0:30face and you've
15. 0:32medicated your child to be a successful
16. 0:34and integrated person in society should
17. 0:37i should i spit off about adhd yes
18. 0:39please that was my first book
19. 0:42on adhd it's the american
20. 0:45scattered or scattered minds depending
21. 0:46on which edition you got and that was
22. 0:49after i was diagnosed with it myself
23. 0:51in my 50s
24. 0:54um
25. 0:55what does it mean adhd yeah what is it
26. 0:57exactly is it real
27. 0:59oh it's real but what does it mean well
28. 1:01like if someone has adhd it's not like
29. 1:03you have herpes right like you say oh
30. 1:05i've got you got a disease well uh what
31. 1:07is it well they
32. 1:09that's the whole point
33. 1:10is that the medical profession
34. 1:12and a lot of the so-called experts think
35. 1:14about it as a disease
36. 1:16another one of these inherited diseases
37. 1:18in fact they say it's the most heritable
38. 1:21mental illness there is
39. 1:23and i say it's neither an illness nor is
40. 1:25it heritable
41. 1:27so the the hallmark are difficulty
42. 1:30paying attention when you're not
43. 1:31motivated yeah so kind of tuning out
44. 1:33like that kid in the commercial like me
45. 1:35okay poor impulse control so that you
46. 1:38tend to act out whatever emotion arises
47. 1:41and sometimes the hyperactivity
48. 1:43difficulty sitting still and then to
49. 1:44fidget and all that and that described
50. 1:46me to a t
51. 1:48and
52. 1:51but as soon as i learned about the
53. 1:53diagnosis
54. 1:55i knew something
55. 1:56this is not a disease and it's not
56. 1:58heritable despite the fact that
57. 2:03some of my kids were diagnosed with it
58. 2:05what is it so tuning out
59. 2:08is not a disease
60. 2:09so let me ask you a question if i may
61. 2:12okay
62. 2:13if i were to stress you right now um
63. 2:15create stress
64. 2:16emotional difficulty or attention for
65. 2:18you right now
66. 2:20what would be your options of dealing
67. 2:21with that of dealing with me what would
68. 2:23be your options i could get upset or i
69. 2:25could leave exactly you could fight back
70. 2:28flight or fight yeah
71. 2:30but what if you didn't have those
72. 2:31options
73. 2:33yeah then you're stuck
74. 2:35and now what does the brain do when
75. 2:36you're stuck like that gets distracted
76. 2:38it gets tunes out yeah tunes out you
77. 2:40want to do other things think about
78. 2:42other things in other words it's a
79. 2:43coping mechanism yeah it's normal i mean
80. 2:46the the idea that your
81. 2:48child who is uh you know an eight nine
82. 2:51year old ball of energy filled with
83. 2:54you know hormones and life and thoughts
84. 2:58and things they enjoy and then you make
85. 3:00them sit down
86. 3:02all day in this unnatural state in a
87. 3:04classroom with fluorescent lights and
88. 3:06stare at a teacher that's unmotivated
89. 3:08and underpaid and is teaching something
90. 3:11in a very boring and non-entertaining
91. 3:13way yeah and then if this kid doesn't
92. 3:15lock in like a zombie we need to
93. 3:17medicate them yeah well the other part
94. 3:19of it is
95. 3:20that
96. 3:22if you look at my infancy and it sounds
97. 3:24like yours
98. 3:26we spent our first year or two under
99. 3:28very difficult circumstances a lot of
100. 3:30stress infants can't help but absorb the
101. 3:33stress of their parents right they can't
102. 3:35help it what does an infant do could i
103. 3:36have escaped or fought back could you
104. 3:38have
105. 3:39all we could do is tune out yes but when
106. 3:41is this tuning out happening when our
107. 3:42brain is being developed right and our
108. 3:44brain
109. 3:45this is the part that nobody taught me
110. 3:47in medical school but it turns out that
111. 3:48brain science now teaches us that the
112. 3:50human brain develops under the impact of
113. 3:52the environment
114. 3:54so
115. 3:56the
116. 3:56the most
117. 3:58salient feature of the environment that
118. 4:00shapes the circuits of the human brain
119. 4:02is actually the relationship with the
120. 4:04parents
121. 4:06and if the parents are present and
122. 4:08emotionally attuned and available
123. 4:11child brains develop properly but the
124. 4:14parents are stressed
125. 4:15the child absorbs the stress
126. 4:17what can they do with it they tune out
127. 4:19and that tuning out then gets programmed
128. 4:21into the brain and then 10 years later
129. 4:23or 50 years later we say you got this
130. 4:25disease no you don't you've got a coping
131. 4:27mechanism
132. 4:28that's no longer working for you but it
133. 4:31had a function when it first came along
134. 4:33so this whole idea and and by the way
135. 4:36if a family comes to me with the adhd
136. 4:38child
137. 4:41i'll say to them
138. 4:42what you've got here is a very sensitive
139. 4:44child
140. 4:45that sensitive child is picking up on
141. 4:47all the vibes energies and stresses in
142. 4:49your family i want to help this child
143. 4:51deal with the whole family
144. 4:53look at the parental relationship
145. 4:56look at how
146. 4:57what stress is there in your life
147. 4:59look at how you react to the child
148. 5:01look at do you understand the child's
149. 5:03behavior
150. 5:04or the emotions that the child is having
151. 5:06or you're just trying to control the
152. 5:08child's behaviors look at all that and
153. 5:10very often parents will tell me after
154. 5:12they've read that book on adhd they've
155. 5:13totally changed their relationship to
156. 5:14their child the child changes what a
157. 5:16surprise
158. 5:17but you go to the most doctors
159. 5:20you got this disease here's the pill and
160. 5:22by the way i took those medications
161. 5:24and they helped me for a while you know
162. 5:26so i'm not when you're in your 50s yeah
163. 5:28yeah i'm not anti-male which ones did
164. 5:29you take
165. 5:30i took ritalin um which
166. 5:33i can tell you the story sure so
167. 5:36you know one of the hallmarks of adhd is
168. 5:38poor impulse control right so um
169. 5:40[Music]
170. 5:42i found out about adhd and even before i
171. 5:45was diagnosed
172. 5:46i took ritalin and
173. 5:48you know why'd you take it before you
174. 5:49were diagnosed
175. 5:51because i'm a doctor and i could hey and
176. 5:53oh so you diagnosed yourself well they
177. 5:55did and and so you at least assumed that
178. 5:57you had that yeah i knew i had it and
179. 6:00and but not only that also because i had
180. 6:02poor impulse control i never practiced
181. 6:04medicine that way
182. 6:05if you came to me for any problem my
183. 6:07first impulse would never be to write
184. 6:08your prescription
185. 6:09honestly it was obvious that you needed
186. 6:11it for an infection or something i'd sit
187. 6:13down with you and talk to you about
188. 6:14what's going on here
189. 6:15but but
190. 6:16not me
191. 6:18poor impulse regulation so i went to a
192. 6:21colleague of mine a medical colleague
193. 6:24i said hey bev i think i've got ahd can
194. 6:26you sum it can you give me some red line
195. 6:27so she writes me a prescription
196. 6:29then i took it in a higher than
197. 6:30recommended initial dose
198. 6:33uh because i mean if a little bit is
199. 6:34good then more must be even better and
200. 6:36again
201. 6:37it's not how i practice medicine right
202. 6:38but i came to myself that's a totally
203. 6:40different ballgame
204. 6:41so i felt immediately present and calm
205. 6:44and grounded and real yeah and it's a
206. 6:46stimulant and i went well it calms the
207. 6:49adhd brain then i go home and my wife
208. 6:51says you look stoned
209. 6:54because you're calm because yeah well
210. 6:56because i got this glassy-eyed
211. 6:58expression and
212. 7:00within a couple days the
213. 7:02ritalin made me very depressed that's
214. 7:04one of its potential side effects
215. 7:06so i did see a psychiatrist
216. 7:08i was formally diagnosed and they gave
217. 7:10me dexadrine
218. 7:11and i took that for a while that's an
219. 7:13amphetamine yeah it's amphetamine it's
220. 7:15another stimulant um
221. 7:18and it did help me i became a much more
222. 7:20efficient workaholic i could do even
223. 7:23it didn't change any of my emotional
224. 7:26issues but it made me more focused and
225. 7:28so on it helped me write my first book
226. 7:30but i i haven't taken them for decades
227. 7:32but
228. 7:33because also i know that
229. 7:36the brain can change if you treat it
230. 7:38right
231. 7:40so this the reliance on medications that
232. 7:42we have is is
233. 7:44a real poverty of the spirit the real
234. 7:46poverty of imagination a poverty of
235. 7:48medical education
236. 7:50the average doctor never learns this
237. 7:52stuff the average physician never gets a
238. 7:53single lecture on brain development how
239. 7:55the brain develops in interaction with
240. 7:57their environment so when you're seeing
241. 7:58and let alone do they hear about trauma
242. 8:01they don't hardly at all right
243. 8:04so when they see an adult with adhd or
244. 8:06depression or addiction
245. 8:08or or or bipolar conditions or
246. 8:13or for that matter autoimmune illness or
247. 8:14anything else
248. 8:16they don't think of trauma they just
249. 8:17think of this disease
250. 8:19and they think that the diagnosis
251. 8:21explains everything but the diagnosis
252. 8:23don't explain anything because think
253. 8:24about it let's say gabor or joe goes to
254. 8:28a doctor and
255. 8:31they diagnosed with adhd well
256. 8:36why is
257. 8:37what are the harmonics of adhd well
258. 8:39tuning out poor impulse regulation maybe
259. 8:42hyperactivity
260. 8:43why does gobber have poor impulse
261. 8:45control uh hyperactivity and uh tuning
262. 8:48out because he's got adhd how do we know
263. 8:50he's got adhd because he got poor
264. 8:52impulse control and tunes out and he's
265. 8:55hyperactive why is he hyperactive tunes
266. 8:57that have poor impulse control he's got
267. 8:59adhd how do we know he's got adhd
268. 9:01because you know
269. 9:03it doesn't it's circular it doesn't
270. 9:04explain it it doesn't explain anything
271. 9:06diagnosis describe things
272. 9:09and that there that can be helpful that
273. 9:11way but they don't explain
274. 9:14yeah one of the things that people get
275. 9:17they get
276. 9:21they get treated for and they get
277. 9:23diagnosed with is anxiety yeah and that
278. 9:25one drives me nuts yeah it drives me
279. 9:27nuts because people pretend that anxiety
280. 9:29is a disease yeah it's not and i'm like
281. 9:31my god the world should make you anxious
282. 9:34if you're a sensitive introspective
283. 9:36person if you're just looking at the
284. 9:37world itself and you you don't put it in
285. 9:39perspective like the world's it's filled
286. 9:42with anxiety the anxiety is
287. 9:44it's future problem solving you're
288. 9:46you're thinking about all the things
289. 9:47that can go wrong you're thinking about
290. 9:49your life in a you know potentially uh
291. 9:51devastating way and that's not a disease
292. 9:54that's just the way you look at the
293. 9:56world and people getting diagnosed with
294. 9:58it well
295. 10:01i won't quite agree with you on that one
296. 10:03in what way
297. 10:05i've felt anxious at times
298. 10:07sure the world is the same
299. 10:10if i actually the world is the same but
300. 10:11the way you look at it is not the same
301. 10:13right the whole point yeah that's what
302. 10:14i'm saying so the world is giving you
303. 10:16anxiety no the world is not giving me
304. 10:18anxiety right you're giving yourself
305. 10:20anxiety by looking at the world right
306. 10:22and by how i look at the world yeah
307. 10:24because i look into i can look at the
308. 10:25same world one day and feel grounded and
309. 10:28connected and i may
310. 10:30have all kinds of concerns about what's
311. 10:32happening in the world but my nervous
312. 10:33system won't be on edge my i don't know
313. 10:35when it's flowing i won't be anxious
314. 10:37that's my point is that it's not a
315. 10:38disease it isn't a disease right so
316. 10:41remember i talked about those brain
317. 10:42circuits of lust and care and rage and
318. 10:46and
319. 10:47and and seeking and so on one of the
320. 10:49brain circuits that we have as described
321. 10:52by a very
322. 10:53prominent late neuroscientist yak
323. 10:56banksap is for panic and grief
324. 11:00panic and grief are the normal responses
325. 11:03of the young human being or the young
326. 11:05animal
327. 11:07when care isn't available
328. 11:10so when the parents are stressed
329. 11:12distracted
330. 11:13economically or politically or because
331. 11:16of their own unresolved trauma
332. 11:18or whatever is going on in their lives
333. 11:20and they don't respond to the child's
334. 11:22distress they don't pick up the child
335. 11:24when they're crying
336. 11:26they make the child be alone when their
337. 11:28child is upset
338. 11:30the child's panic circuits get activated
339. 11:34as they should be because when the
340. 11:35child's panic circus get activated they
341. 11:38cry for help yeah that's so it's
342. 11:40necessary for survival a young animal
343. 11:42should feel panic when the adult
344. 11:46is unavailable
345. 11:48in a rational world in the same world
346. 11:51that child would be responded to but
347. 11:53when children as in our society are not
348. 11:55responded to
349. 11:57in their distress
350. 11:58the panic becomes built into their
351. 12:00nervous system and now you have a lot of
352. 12:02anxious people
353. 12:04and that's why more and more kids are
354. 12:05being diagnosed you're right it's not a
355. 12:07disease it's a response to the
356. 12:08environment and
357. 12:11the thought process of like leaving a
358. 12:13child alone when the child's crying is
359. 12:15that to toughen the kid up is the
360. 12:18thought process that
361. 12:20you don't want to encourage this sort of
362. 12:22behavior because then they'll do it all
363. 12:23the time
364. 12:25and then you'll develop an indulgent
365. 12:27child like what is the thought process
366. 12:30the thought process is that the child's
367. 12:32behavior is the problem
368. 12:34and so we have to fix the behavior by
369. 12:36controlling it now actually
370. 12:40the opposite is true
371. 12:42because
372. 12:43if you pick up the child when a child
373. 12:46has distress
374. 12:48physical or emotional distress
375. 12:50you're teaching a child that the world
376. 12:52is safe
377. 12:54and they don't have to be they don't
378. 12:55have to be anxious about it
379. 12:58and they can just ask for help
380. 13:02and
381. 13:04it doesn't entrench kind of crying
382. 13:06manipulative behavior
383. 13:09how how it works dr daniel seagal who's
384. 13:12a
385. 13:12psychiatrist at ucla and a very prolific
386. 13:15author and mind researcher
387. 13:17he says in his book the developing mind
388. 13:20that the child uses
389. 13:22the mature
390. 13:24circuits of the adult brain to regulate
391. 13:27its own immature unregulated circuits
392. 13:30so when the adults show up in a calm
393. 13:32loving way
394. 13:34that the child downloads that into his
395. 13:36own nervous system
396. 13:38and then he grows he doesn't it's not
397. 13:40going to be an infant forever at some
398. 13:42point he's going to be a mature adult
399. 13:43who knows how to take care of themselves
400. 13:45that's a natural process we don't have
401. 13:47to teach kids to be independent
402. 13:50independent is nature's agenda
403. 13:52because the parents are going to die at
404. 13:54some point the mother bear is going to
405. 13:56disappear that bear cub has to be able
406. 13:58to
407. 14:00look after themselves in a mature
408. 14:02confident way that's nature's natural
409. 14:05agenda what the mother what the mother
410. 14:07bear needs to do is to meet the the
411. 14:09needs of that infant bear so the infant
412. 14:11bank care matures so if we meet the
413. 14:12child's needs they're going to mature
414. 14:14out of that helpless state
415. 14:16with a sense of self-regulation and calm
416. 14:19confidence in their own capacity
417. 14:21when you don't pick kids up
418. 14:23what you teach them is that the world is
419. 14:24not available that they're alone and
420. 14:26that they're helpless
421. 14:28talk about a formula for anxiety