Gabor Maté
👤 SpeakerAppearances Over Time
Podcast Appearances
She could not have had the calmness, the presence to attune with me.
Attunement means that she gets my internal experience and has the rest and the groundedness to respond to it.
She could barely assure our survival.
That's an extreme example.
So I don't get that attunement that I need, which I need.
The child's brain needs to be attuned with in order to develop the appropriate circuitry.
As I said earlier in this conversation, the brain is a social organ.
As the great American psychiatrist Bruce Perry says, the brain is a historical organ.
A historical organ, yeah.
It bears the imprint of our history.
Physiologically, it bears the imprint of our history.
Okay, so my mother's in that state.
Now, when the mother suffers, the baby suffers too.
How does a baby do I deal with the suffering?
Can I escape?
Can I fight back?
Can I change the situation?
Can I ask for help?
From whom?
What do I do?