1 Youtube Video by
Gabor Mate
Gabor Maté on Impact Theory
  • Really really interesting stuff. The trauma/infant attachment/parental losing of intuition stuff seems correct to me, particularly having read his book. At the same time, I feel he doesn't do a great job at addressing some of the questions, and repeatedly leans on the "aboriginals /hunter gatherers do it this way" as the source of his authority, which feels weak. Tom asks about tantrums at one point and he mentions that you should allow kids to express their anger rather than teaching them that you'll only love and respond to them under certain conditions and emotional states. I would've loved to hear Tom ask about obviously-manipulative behaviour children engage in to get what they want, and how to be responsive without rewarding, which is to me where the interesting stuff lies.
  • Book - the myth of normal
  • Rheumatoid arthritis - avg profile tends to be super conscientious, suppress healthy anger, some more stuff <- strong claim. Claim is that rheumatoid arthritis is the result of adaptive response.
  • We have to connect. But we also have to be in touch with our emotions and be true to them, and to be in relationships where we can do that.
  • Lots of people grew up in a house where your honest emotions are not accepted by your parents.
  • Not a fan of Jordan Peterson - “he says children should be made to sit alone until they come back to “normal”.
  • If a child experiences healthy normal anger, but gets the message that he’ll be excluded for expressing that, they’ll adaptively repress the anger.
  • When you suppress your emotions, you suppress your immune system.
  • The lungs evolved as an expectation to oxygen. humans evolved as hominids as expectations for certain conditions. The less society meets those conditions, the more toxic it is. <- This sounds pretty close to many of the things I’ve written.