“Earlier this year [2016], there was an article in Pediatrics, from Harvard’s Center on the Developing Child, collating all the material - showing how early childhood stress or trauma results in adaptations that help the child survive in the short term, but are the basis of pathology, physical illness and mental illness later on. I presented this information to a group of pediatricians. They sat there in stunned silence. On the part of professionals, there’s a difficulty accepting this material, because they haven’t dealt with their own stuff. So, the barrier is people’s own unresolved stuff that they haven’t dealt with themselves.
There was an interesting study about climate change denial recently. If you’re denying climate change, the more educated you are, the more entrenched you are in your denial. It’s not that education leads to more openness. Education leads to less openness. The intellectual weapons that you gain and sharpen in the course of your post-graduate education actually become marshaled in the service of your denial. The denial comes first. It’s an emotional block, not an intellectual block.
We don’t need a stitch more research on what causes addiction. We don’t need one more bit of research on what causes violence, rape, psychopathic behavior, or mental illness. I know that sounds like a radical statement in a society which is so research-oriented and where whole intellectual industries, knowledge factories, are based on having to gather more money for research to justify more jobs, to justify more papers. But I’m telling you, if we simply applied what we already know, if we simply follow the lessons of what’s already been clearly shown, we would have a totally different world. Even the very need for more research is a factor of denial.”

#GaborMaté #Healthcare #PublicHealthIsChildcare #ChildhoodTrauma