Dr. Gabor Maté on Trauma, Addiction, Ayahuasca, and More | The Tim Ferriss Show

Summary

Tim Ferriss speaks with Dr. Gabor Maté, a physician who specializes in neurology, psychiatry, and psychology. He’s well known for studying and treating addiction. I’ve wanted to invite Dr. Maté to this podcast for a while because he is not only an expert in the pathologies of addiction, but he’s experimented with — and used successfully — tools that are perhaps outside the realm of traditional psychiatry. He is also a co-founder, along with Vicky Dulai, of Compassion for Addiction, a group that advocates for a new way to understand and treat addiction.

Personal Thoughts

While not short, this youtube video provides one of the most complete rundowns of Dr. Mate that I’ve come across. He’s a fascinating man who’s worked in Vancouver’s downtown eastside–an area often considered to be North America’s most concentrated area of drug use.

My favourite section can be found at 1:59:17, where Dr. Mate runs Tim through a short exercise. It’s a brilliant moment where they take an uncomfortable moment and dig through it until they reach some fascinating conclusions. It covers empathy, how the brain jumps to negativity, self-compassion, and how we can better handle stressful situations in our lives.