> Dr Gabor Maté, a retired family physician and among the most respected trauma experts in the world, boldly diagnosed Prince Harry with Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD), during a live interview.
> Having read the Duke of Sussex’s ghost-written memoir, Spare, Maté said that he had arrived upon “several diagnoses” that also included depression, anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder.
Dr Gabor Maté is popular on social media, podcasts, TV, and other media, but as evidenced by his cavalier approach to over-diagnosing everyone with everything he’s not really a good source for medical information. He’s been riding the wave of popularization of psychiatric conditions for years, and at this point appears to be stuck in an audience capture loop wherein his broad diagnoses continue to bring him more followers and a wider audience.
Dr Gabor Maté is a good litmus test for seeing where someone falls on the divide between actual medical literature versus pop culture usage of medical terms. People familiar with the research, literature, and clinical practice will groan when his name comes up, while those immersed in the TikTok world of self-diagnosis see him as a leader in the field.
There has been a long line of people following similar career paths of popularizing these conditions through cavalier diagnosis and promoting self-diagnosis or alternative medicine diagnosis practices. A decade ago, Dr. Amen was becoming famous for pushing ADHD diagnoses everywhere and pushing his (expensive!) brain scans on patients despite no supporting evidence. The current wave has focused on pushing authors like Dr Gabor Maté who are simply selling books, which scales more than visits to in-person clinics.
What’s amazing to me is that Harry’s response to his situation was about as rational as it gets - he wanted to escape, and he found a way to do that.
Anyone who tries to pathologize that, like this “Dr” Gabor Mate, is revealing themselves as an agent of a mentally ill society that’s desperately trying to protect its dysfunction.
Although I think the phenomenon they write about is real, I have difficulty sympathizing with these types of essay because I see them as causing more harm than good.
Gatekeeping trauma with a broad brush is never good in my mind. Calling out specific performative or attention-seeking episodes? Sure. But it doesn't need to go beyond that, in my opinion.
I also think life is generally hard, and I don't begrudge anyone trying to get help in whatever form for whatever thing they might need. If you have a headache, maybe you reach for an analgesic. You don't shame people for reaching for analgesics because some others are in truly need of global anesthetic.
"Gatekeeping trauma with a broad brush is never good in my mind."
Everyone self diagnosing has its own problems though and these days what is presented as trauma on social media has a ridiculously low bar. That's fine if you can look at it objectively and see the hyperbole attention grabbing for what it is but how does that play with all the kids who don't have that capacity? Or adults looking for external reasons to blame their woes on?
I also think life is generally hard, as we all have our personal challenges we deal with that cannot be compared and contrasted. I would suggest though that this is less about shaming people for reaching for pain relief and more about shaming those that are telling the entire world it is in severe pain and should be taking prescription pain killers.
I'll argue the opposite. Severe mental illness (schizophrenia, bipolar) is neurodevelopmental in origin -- trauma probably effects the progression, but on the other hand the neurodevelopmental difference attracts the trauma.
Personally I think the trauma theory is one of the most dangerous ideologies of the 21st century and to me part of resilience is effective resistance against it.
Robin M. Murray, Department of Psychosis Studies, Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience: "In the last 2 decades, it has become obvious that child abuse, urbanization, migration, and adverse life events contribute to the etiology of schizophrenia and other psychoses. […] I expect to see the end of the concept of schizophrenia soon." https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5605250/
The Role of Childhood Trauma in Psychosis and Schizophrenia: A Systematic Review: "There is a correlation between histories of child maltreatment with several structural changes in the brain." https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8858420/
I thought it's been known for decades that schizophrenia involved both a genetic predisposition and a stressor that caused it to manifest. Has that understanding changed?
Even before epigenetics (in the modern sense) or environmentally induced gene expression was talked about that's what my school textbooks said.
I think the issue is that rather than arm themselves with the tools to overcome, they succumb and end up posting it on TikTok or YouTube or wherever. Instead of dealing with the core issues they have.
News Flash, we all have issues, we all have past events that have shaped our thoughts and actions. Like you said, it’s the resilience we build by dealing with it, putting it behind us, and moving forward.
> Gatekeeping trauma with a broad brush is never good in my mind.
I think this is emblematic of the problem with these clinical diagnostic concepts entering common vernacular: In a clinical context, diagnosing someone with a specific clinical term with a specific set of diagnostic criteria isn’t “gatekeeping”, it’s just being accurate and precise. Improperly diagnosing or over diagnosing a condition is not harmless and can bring its own unintended harms. Clinicians have a duty to avoid giving the label too broadly as this can have negative effects.
When these words escaped into common discussion, the idea of limiting the applicability of a term or questioning someone’s self diagnosis makes a lot of people uneasy. It feels judgmental or like we’re unfairly excluding people.
There is a real problem with the way these terms have been adopted to mean something divorced from their clinical definitions, though. When everyone has trauma, the word stops meaning something so serious and now has come to refer to generic realities of life. Now people suffering from serious trauma are actually underserved by the word, because someone immersed in TraumaTok has convinced themselves that they are in the same boat as everyone else with trauma too.
There’s another problem with the dilution of these words that the autism community has been dealing with for decades: When people start broadly diagnosing themselves with conditions despite not reaching the level of clinical diagnostic criteria, they start to move the window for what is considered representative of that condition. Parents of severely autistic children are starting to encounter problems where others are unprepared to handle or even react to their severely autistic children because the popular understanding of autism has shifted to include even self-diagnosed people who may have some slightly quirky behaviors or social skills a few grade levels behind their peers. It’s sad to encounter situations where people encounter a severely autistic person and actually reject autism as the explanation and insist something else must be going on because they’ve come to believe that autism is a relatively mild condition after encountering so many self-diagnosed or over-diagnosed people with autism.
Even clinical providers and educators are getting overwhelmed with parents trying to force TikTok diagnoses on their children. When finite budgets for special needs students have to be spread across 1/3 of the class despite only 1-2 children having actually significant handicaps, it’s not hard to see why “gatekeeping” these popular diagnoses is actually a good thing for those suffering from the conditions.
Trauma isnt real -> whats wrong with these kids -> we need to be more sensitive to their suffering -> everyone has trauma -> why are corpos using trauma to shovel snakeoil and coddling down everyones throat -> trauma isnt real
literally everyone and everything has had the shit traumatized out of it on a daily basis since forever , if anything this overpathologization seems to be increasing trauma and hypersensitization
This "literally" is not true for most people. I typically go many years between traumatic events, and most of those are better designated as standard major life events than severe trauma.
If you've genuinely been that miserable everyday of your life you might want to consider getting some sort of help.
> Dr Gabor Maté, a retired family physician and among the most respected trauma experts in the world, boldly diagnosed Prince Harry with Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD), during a live interview.
> Having read the Duke of Sussex’s ghost-written memoir, Spare, Maté said that he had arrived upon “several diagnoses” that also included depression, anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder.
Dr Gabor Maté is popular on social media, podcasts, TV, and other media, but as evidenced by his cavalier approach to over-diagnosing everyone with everything he’s not really a good source for medical information. He’s been riding the wave of popularization of psychiatric conditions for years, and at this point appears to be stuck in an audience capture loop wherein his broad diagnoses continue to bring him more followers and a wider audience.
Dr Gabor Maté is a good litmus test for seeing where someone falls on the divide between actual medical literature versus pop culture usage of medical terms. People familiar with the research, literature, and clinical practice will groan when his name comes up, while those immersed in the TikTok world of self-diagnosis see him as a leader in the field.
There has been a long line of people following similar career paths of popularizing these conditions through cavalier diagnosis and promoting self-diagnosis or alternative medicine diagnosis practices. A decade ago, Dr. Amen was becoming famous for pushing ADHD diagnoses everywhere and pushing his (expensive!) brain scans on patients despite no supporting evidence. The current wave has focused on pushing authors like Dr Gabor Maté who are simply selling books, which scales more than visits to in-person clinics.
What’s amazing to me is that Harry’s response to his situation was about as rational as it gets - he wanted to escape, and he found a way to do that.
Anyone who tries to pathologize that, like this “Dr” Gabor Mate, is revealing themselves as an agent of a mentally ill society that’s desperately trying to protect its dysfunction.
Although I think the phenomenon they write about is real, I have difficulty sympathizing with these types of essay because I see them as causing more harm than good.
Gatekeeping trauma with a broad brush is never good in my mind. Calling out specific performative or attention-seeking episodes? Sure. But it doesn't need to go beyond that, in my opinion.
I also think life is generally hard, and I don't begrudge anyone trying to get help in whatever form for whatever thing they might need. If you have a headache, maybe you reach for an analgesic. You don't shame people for reaching for analgesics because some others are in truly need of global anesthetic.
"Gatekeeping trauma with a broad brush is never good in my mind."
Everyone self diagnosing has its own problems though and these days what is presented as trauma on social media has a ridiculously low bar. That's fine if you can look at it objectively and see the hyperbole attention grabbing for what it is but how does that play with all the kids who don't have that capacity? Or adults looking for external reasons to blame their woes on?
I also think life is generally hard, as we all have our personal challenges we deal with that cannot be compared and contrasted. I would suggest though that this is less about shaming people for reaching for pain relief and more about shaming those that are telling the entire world it is in severe pain and should be taking prescription pain killers.
I'll argue the opposite. Severe mental illness (schizophrenia, bipolar) is neurodevelopmental in origin -- trauma probably effects the progression, but on the other hand the neurodevelopmental difference attracts the trauma.
Personally I think the trauma theory is one of the most dangerous ideologies of the 21st century and to me part of resilience is effective resistance against it.
> Severe mental illness (schizophrenia, bipolar) is neurodevelopmental in origin
This is a theory, not fact. There are proponents from the medical community that argue otherwise.
Professor Jim van Os at Maastricht University Medical Centre: 'Schizophrenia' does not exist https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/02/160203090208.h...
Robin M. Murray, Department of Psychosis Studies, Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience: "In the last 2 decades, it has become obvious that child abuse, urbanization, migration, and adverse life events contribute to the etiology of schizophrenia and other psychoses. […] I expect to see the end of the concept of schizophrenia soon." https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5605250/
The Role of Childhood Trauma in Psychosis and Schizophrenia: A Systematic Review: "There is a correlation between histories of child maltreatment with several structural changes in the brain." https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8858420/
I thought it's been known for decades that schizophrenia involved both a genetic predisposition and a stressor that caused it to manifest. Has that understanding changed?
Even before epigenetics (in the modern sense) or environmentally induced gene expression was talked about that's what my school textbooks said.
I think the issue is that rather than arm themselves with the tools to overcome, they succumb and end up posting it on TikTok or YouTube or wherever. Instead of dealing with the core issues they have.
News Flash, we all have issues, we all have past events that have shaped our thoughts and actions. Like you said, it’s the resilience we build by dealing with it, putting it behind us, and moving forward.
> Gatekeeping trauma with a broad brush is never good in my mind.
I think this is emblematic of the problem with these clinical diagnostic concepts entering common vernacular: In a clinical context, diagnosing someone with a specific clinical term with a specific set of diagnostic criteria isn’t “gatekeeping”, it’s just being accurate and precise. Improperly diagnosing or over diagnosing a condition is not harmless and can bring its own unintended harms. Clinicians have a duty to avoid giving the label too broadly as this can have negative effects.
When these words escaped into common discussion, the idea of limiting the applicability of a term or questioning someone’s self diagnosis makes a lot of people uneasy. It feels judgmental or like we’re unfairly excluding people.
There is a real problem with the way these terms have been adopted to mean something divorced from their clinical definitions, though. When everyone has trauma, the word stops meaning something so serious and now has come to refer to generic realities of life. Now people suffering from serious trauma are actually underserved by the word, because someone immersed in TraumaTok has convinced themselves that they are in the same boat as everyone else with trauma too.
There’s another problem with the dilution of these words that the autism community has been dealing with for decades: When people start broadly diagnosing themselves with conditions despite not reaching the level of clinical diagnostic criteria, they start to move the window for what is considered representative of that condition. Parents of severely autistic children are starting to encounter problems where others are unprepared to handle or even react to their severely autistic children because the popular understanding of autism has shifted to include even self-diagnosed people who may have some slightly quirky behaviors or social skills a few grade levels behind their peers. It’s sad to encounter situations where people encounter a severely autistic person and actually reject autism as the explanation and insist something else must be going on because they’ve come to believe that autism is a relatively mild condition after encountering so many self-diagnosed or over-diagnosed people with autism.
Even clinical providers and educators are getting overwhelmed with parents trying to force TikTok diagnoses on their children. When finite budgets for special needs students have to be spread across 1/3 of the class despite only 1-2 children having actually significant handicaps, it’s not hard to see why “gatekeeping” these popular diagnoses is actually a good thing for those suffering from the conditions.
The pendulum keeps swinging
Trauma isnt real -> whats wrong with these kids -> we need to be more sensitive to their suffering -> everyone has trauma -> why are corpos using trauma to shovel snakeoil and coddling down everyones throat -> trauma isnt real
https://archive.is/rJMHJ
literally everyone and everything has had the shit traumatized out of it on a daily basis since forever , if anything this overpathologization seems to be increasing trauma and hypersensitization
This "literally" is not true for most people. I typically go many years between traumatic events, and most of those are better designated as standard major life events than severe trauma.
If you've genuinely been that miserable everyday of your life you might want to consider getting some sort of help.
you might have learnt our reality , I'm looking at reality for the last few mil years , kids die and fucked shit happens constantly