Transforming Trauma Episode 007: Dr. Heller in Conversation w/ Dr. Gabor Maté on Complex Trauma (38:00)

At the core of both Dr. Heller’s and Dr. Maté’s thinking on trauma is the understanding that trauma is not what happens to someone, it is what happens within someone. When asked to define complex trauma, Dr. Heller says, “The word trauma itself is being thrown around a lot. I just want to emphasize that [early trauma leads to an] adaptation, a way that we distort our sense of self and the sense of other in adapting to developmental trauma that creates the difficulties that we experienced as human beings.”