Wednesday, December 13, 2017

Dr. Gabor Maté on the Trauma Underlying the Stigma of Addiction: An Interview

Dr. Gabor Maté on the Trauma Underlying the Stigma of Addiction: An Interview
By John Lavitt 12/12/17

There are legitimate uses of opioids in the treatment of physical pain. There is no legitimate use in the treatment of emotional pain.

When commenting on the neurobiology of addiction, you write how, “addiction is related psychologically, in terms of both emotional pain relief and neurobiological development, to early adversity.”

If the neurobiological development of a child is affected by trauma, how can such physical changes set in place long ago be reversed? Is it possible for an adult to “renew” their brain, and if so, how long would such a process of renewal take? What tools would be required?

When we do brain scans on adult addicts, you see several neural systems that just don’t work very well, including the opiate pain relief, pleasure, reward, attachment, and love circuitry. Other problematic systems include the stress regulation circuitry, the impulse regulation circuitry, and especially the dopamine-driven incentive motivation circuitry. As a result, doctors often conclude that because these brain circuits aren’t working well, there has to be a brain disease and that addiction is that disease.....

View Part 1 of a 2 part interview

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