Transcripts For LINKTV Democracy Now 20130524 : vimarsana.co

LINKTV Democracy Now May 24, 2013



need for healthy development, but you have negative circumstances of neglect i do not know a single female patient who was not sexually abused, for example, males who were neglected or abandoned. that is what sets up the addiction. the addiction is psychological in terms of emotional pain relief and neurological development too early adversity. >> what does the title of your book mean, the realm of hungry ghosts? >> it is a boost phrase. there are a number of cycles in the human being. the motionar, rage, that are difficult to handle. the creatures are depicted as people with large bodies, small mounds, and small next. they can never get enough satisfaction, they are always hungry, always empty, and that speaks to the part of us that everyone in our society has, where we want satisfaction from the other side. we want to be sued by something in the short term but we can never fulfil that from the outside. addicts are in that realm all the time. most of us are in that round some of the time. there is no clear distinction between the identified addict and the rest of us, just a continuum where we can all be found. they are on it because they have suffered more than most of us. >> can you talk about the biology of addiction? >> if you look at the brain circuits involved in the addiction, whether it is a shopping addiction, like mine, or an addiction to opiates, we are looking for endorphins in our brain. that is the feel-good and reward and feel good chemicals. that circuitry does not function very well in attics. it is the circuitry of motivation which involves dopamine which also does not function very well. stimulants like cocaine, nicotine, caffeine, elevate dopamine levels in the brain, as out,sexually acting extreme sports, workaholics. the question is why the circuit do not work as well and some people as others. the drugs themselves are not addictive. what i mean by that is that most people will try drugs and not become addicted to them. so there has to be some stability there. insusceptible ones are the ones with these impaired brain circuits, and that is caused by early adversity, rather than genetics. the human brain, unlike any other mammal, for the most part, develops under the influence of the environment. from an evolutionary point of view, we have these large heads, and a narrowains, pelvis. that means we have to be born prematurely, otherwise you would never be born. the horse can run on its first day of life. human being do not develop for another two years. us, development occurs out in the environment. which circuits develop and which do not depend on our mental input. when people are stressed or abused, they cannot develop as they need to. unfortunately, our profession puts the emphasis on genetics, rather than the environment, which is a simple explanation. it also takes everyone off the hook. >> what do you mean by it takes everyone off the hook? people's behaviors and functions are regulated, controlled by genes, we do not have to look at child welfare policies, the kind of support we give to pregnant women. we do not have to look at the kind of non support that we give to families. most children in north america right now have to be away from their parents and elderly aid because of economic considerations, and especially in the states, because of welfare laws, women are forced to find low-paying jobs for which from home, often single women, and not see their kids for most of the day. under those conditions, brains do not develop the with the need to. just looked at genetics, we do not need to look at those social policies, politics the disadvantage certain minority groups, cause them more stress and pain, in other words, more predisposition for addiction. we do not have to look and economic inequalities. it is all genes, we are all innocent and society does not have to take a look of its own attitudes and policies. about this whole approach of criminalization versus harm reduction, how you think addicts should be treated, and how they are in the u.s. and canada? is, if peopleoint become severe attics, as shown by the studies, were for the most part, abused children, then we realized the war on drugs is actually waged against people who were abuse from the moment they were born, or from an early age. we are punishing people for having been abused. that is the first point. the second point is, research clearly shows the biggest driver of the addictive relapse and behavior is stress. in north america right now, because of the economic crisis, a lot of people are eating junk food. junk food releases endorphins and dopamine's, and just drives addiction. imagine a situation where we are trying to help addicts come up with a system. who would design a system that ,stracizes, marginalizes impoverishes, and insures the disease of the attic and hopes to rehabilitate in large numbers? it cannot be done. in other words, the so-called war on drugs is a more on people, it actually in trenches addiction more deeply. furthermore, it institutionalizes people in facilities where the care -- where there is no care. we call it a correctional system, but it does not correct anything. people suffer more, and then they come out more entrenched in their addiction than when they came in. >> i am curious about your own history, gabor mate. you were born in occupied hungary. >> i have attention deficit order myself. most people see it as a genetic problem. it has to do with factors of brain development, which in my case, occurred when i was a jewish child under nazi occupation. the day after they marched into toapest, a pediatrician as visit -- asked me to visit his son. i said, of course, i would, but all of my babies are crying. they are picking up on the stress of the parents. being away in forced labor, separated from their parents, under those conditions, i do not have the kind of condition that i need or the proper development of my brain circuits. particularly, how does an infant deal with that much stress? by tuning in out. when you do that, that becomes programmed into the brain. when you look at the -- add erant of 80 medication and other psychotic medications, they are showing stress from the environment. that is why we have seen such a preponderant. this case, but also set up case of never having enough because i was starving infant. so i have the propensity to sue myself. how do i do that? one way is to work a lot and get lots of admiration and respect, people wanting me. if you get the impression early in life that the world does not want you, you will make yourself wanted an indispensable. people do that through work. i did that for being a medical doctor. i also have a propensity to sue myself through shopping, especially when i am distressed. to the sensation of the infant who is not suit, and their brain development is affected. >> how do you think kids with adhd should be treated? >> if you recognize that it is a problem of brain development, not disease, and knowing that the good news -- and this is good for addicts as well -- the brain can develop new circuits later on in life, and that is called their plasticity. of question then becomes not how to regulate and control systems, but how do you promote development? that involves providing the kind of environment to nurture kidd said that those kinds of circuits can develop later on. that is also with addict needs. you need a more compassionate, caring approach that allows these people to develop because their development got stuck at an early age. >> you began your talk at columbia the other night with a quotation, and i wanted to end the conversation with that. yes, the great egyptian writer. he said, nothing requires the effects of a sad life so completely as the human body -- so graphically as the human body. you see that sad life in the bodies of my patients. >> dr. gabor mate, a best- selling author, position in canada. in that first interview, we touched briefly on his work on attention deficit disorder, the sean deck of his book "scattered." just about one month ago, we had dr. mate back on to talk more about add as bile as parenting, bullying, the education system, and how they live the of stresses on the family environment is leading to what he calls the destruction of the american childhood. >> in the u.s. there are 3 million children receiving medication for adhd, attention deficit hyperactive disorder. there are about half a million kids in this country who are receiving heavy and a psychotic medication, medication that are usually given to schizophrenics to regulate their hallucinations. in this case, it is being used to control their behavior. so we have this massive experiment of chemical and the psychotics. statistics last week showed in the last five years there has been a 43% increase in the rate of dispensing of stimulant nd adhd.tions for aboutalking more broadly the destruction of the american childhood because add is just an example of what is going on. according to recent studies, nearly half of american adolescents now meet some kind of criteria for mental health disorders. so we are talking about a massive impact on our children or something in our culture that is not been recognized. >> explain exactly what attention disorder -- attention deficit disorder is, attention deficit hyperactive disorder. symptomsa set of known for impulse control. these children have difficulty controlling their impulses. when the brain tells them to do something, there is nothing out there in the cortex, which is where the executive functions are, those functions that tell us what to do and what not to do, they do not work. so these children act out, they speak out of turn, they say the wrong thing. impulsively or compulsively and behave in impulsive passion spirit for impulse control. please notice that the impulse control problem is general amongst kids these days. it is not just those kids diagnosed with add, and there are new diagnoses now. they are being diagnosed with all sorts of things. another that deals with impulse control. add isond criteria for physical hyperactivity. so the part of the brain that is supposed to regulate physical hyperactivity and keep you still does not work. the third criteria is for attention skills. not paying attention, absent mindedness, not being able to focus, working on something and five minutes later the mind goes somewhere else. the lack of being still, focused, the lack of being present. >> i want to go to this point that you just raised about the destruction of american childhood. what do you mean by that? in whichnditions children develop have been so and troubled over the last several decades that the template for normal brain development is no longer present. -- there is aids, professor at the university of neglect- he says that and abuse of children is the number one public health concern in the u.s. a recent study coming out of notre dame has showed that the conditions for trout development hunter-gatherer societies are no longer relevant for our kids. the way we raise our children today are depriving them of the practices that lead to well- being in the moral sense. so there is something going on here now. the development of conditions for helping childhood psychological and brain development are less available, so that the issue of add is only a small part of the general issue of children no longer having the support for the way they need to develop. the human brain does not develop on its own, does not develop according to a genetic program. it depends on the environment. the essential condition for the physiological development of these brain circuits that regulates human behavior, that gives us empathy, a social sense, and gives us a connection to other people, connection with ourselves, that allows us to mature, a central condition for those circuits is the presence the motion read available, non stressed, attuned parenting caregivers. the average maternity leave is six weeks in this country. women suffer from postpartum depression. thecannot be attuned to child at that point. >> what about fathers? >> there was a study recently that showed an increasing number of men are having postpartum depression as well. the main role of the father would be to support the mother. but when people are emotionally stressed, -- what we have to understand here is that human beings are not discreet individual entities, contrary to the myth that people are competitive individuals, private entities. people are actually social creatures very much dependent on one another and very much program to corporate with one another when the circumstances are right. when that is not available, with the support is not there for women, that is when they get depressed. when the fathers are stressed, they are not supporting the women, that important bonding part in the beginning. then they get stressed themselves. a chance brain development depends on non-stressed emotionally available parents. in this country, we are less and less available. hence, we have verging rates of autism in this country. by autism. you mean >> this is a spectrum of disorders, but the essential quality of it is an emotional disconnect. these children live in the mind of their own. it cannot respond appropriately to emotional cues. they withdraw, they act out some times in the unpredictable clearns, there is no sense of an emotional connection and just peace inside them. there are many more kids in this inntry now, 20-fold increase the last 30 years, the rates of anxiety among children is increasing. a number of kids on anti- depressant medication. the number of kids diagnosed with bipolar disorder. the issuesion all of like bullying, teenage pregnancies. a so-called reality show that just focuses on teenage mothers. it never used to be that children grew up in a stressed family. that was not a normal basis for child development. beingal basis was always the klan, the tribe, the community, neighborhood, the extended family. essentially, post-industrial capitalism had destroyed those conditions. people no longer live in communities connected to each other, people no longer work where they live. the kids do not go to school necessary where they live. the parents are away for most of the day. for the first part in history, children are not spending most of their times around nurture and adults in their lives, instead, away from that nurturing house, which is what they need for brain development the then canadian doctor gabor mate. we are going to go back to this discussion in a minute. [♪] >> this is democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman. we return to our special with canadian physician and best- selling author gabor mate. "scattered," ude and "hold on to your kids." affectout how the drugs the development of the brain. , there is a necessary brain chemical necessary for motivation that seemed to be lacking, dopamine. that is simply an essential live chemical. mice in the laboratory have no dopamine because they have no incentive to eat even though they are hungry and their life is in danger, they will not eat. there is no motivation or incentives. add is a lack of motivation. stimulants elevate dopamine levels and now these kids are more motivated and can pay attention. however, the assumption underneath giving these kids medications, we are dealing with a genetic disorder and the only way to do with it is pharmacologically. look at infant monkeys and you develop -- look at their opening levels when their with their mothers, dopamine levels go down within a few days. we are correcting a massive social problem that has to do with this connection in the society and the loss of nurturing, non-dressed parenting and we are replacing that chemically. the drugs do seem to work, a lot of things are held by it, but the problem is not so much whether they should be used are not. 80% of the time a kid is described medication and that is all that happens. nobody talks about the family environment. the school makes no attempt to change the family environment. nobody connects with these kids emotionally. it is simply seen as an emotional problem and not development. >> you talk and acting out. what does that mean? >> that is a good question. when we hear that phrase, it usually means that a kid paves bad they, that a kid is oppositional, violent, bullying, rude. that is because they do not know. out is portrayed the behavior which do not have the language. in a game of charades, you have to act out because you cannot speak. if you land in a country where nobody speaks for language and you are hungry, you have to literally demonstrate your pointing toehavior, your mouth or empty valley, because you do not have the words. my point is, a large part of them are acting out, but it is not bad behavior, it is the representation of emotional losses in their life. whether it is building or other favors that we are dealing with here, the childhood is stunted in emotional development, sometimes stanton brain development. we try to control these behaviors through punishments for even through medication. we need to help these kids develop. addou suffered from yourself. explain your story. >> i was in nearly 50's, working in palliative care at that time in a canadian hospital. a social worker on the unit who was diagnosed as an adult told me her story. as a physician, like most, and nothing about add. told me her story, i determined it was me, subsequently, i was diagnosed. >> what did you realize? >> for impulse control a lot of my life, disorganization, a tendency to tune out a lot, be absent minded, physical restlessness. i have trouble sitting still. saw in traits that i literature i recognize myself, which is kind of an epiphany in a sense. at least to get a sense of why you are behaving the way that you are behaving. but never made sense is the idea of add as a genetic disease. with, in my case, stressed circumstances as an infant, which i talked about in a previous program. in the case of my children, it is because their father was ever called a doctor who was not the motion the available to them. under those circumstances, children are stressed. when they are stressed when their brains are developing, one way to deal with it is to tune out. "holding on to your kids." was a new york times best book of the year called "and nurture assumption" in which the researcher argued that parents do not make a difference anymore. (newsweek" had a cover article that your untitled, do parents matter? if you want to see the stupidity of that, look at another veterinary magazine last whether mothers matter for their babies. researcher concluded that it was on natural. what she mistook was, the norm in north america, she thought it was natural and healthy. in fact, it is not. our book is about showing why it is true that children are being more influence by their kids these days -- by kids these days rather than their parents, and won a distortion is of normal human development. normal mammalian development demands the presence of nurturing parents. even birds. they do not develop properly on the same mother bird and a father birder there. rats, mice., rice -- can you talk about the importance of attachment? emotion drive to the close to somebody. in fact, the most powerful emotion there is. even as adults, we are in attachment relationships where people close to us are lost or threatened, and they somehow become very upset. for children and babies, that is a necessity. the more mature you are, and the more you need your attachment. it is like a force of gravity. when the attachment goes in the wrong direction, childhood development can be distorted, development is stopped, and parenting and teaching becomes extremely difficult p.w. co- wrote the book, and you both found in your experience that your kids were becoming increasingly secr

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