Dr. Bruce Perry
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Who is Dr. Bruce Perry and what is his expertise?
Hey there, and thanks to you for joining me here on the podcast and for watching on YouTube. Today I'm welcoming Dr. Bruce Perry. I've known Dr. Bruce Perry, a world-renowned child and adolescent psychiatrist and neuroscientist. I've known him now for 30 years and more. I invited him on The Oprah Show more times than I can count.
And over that time, we've had many, many, many opportunities to talk about the impact of sexual abuse or domestic violence or poverty or racism on development and how that impacts people.
I also asked Dr. Perry to implement his work called The Neurosequential Model of Therapeutics to help my girls' school in South Africa become a trauma-informed school.
When you're regulated, for me, my mind is open to learn.
Dr. Perry has written half a dozen books, including one he co-authored with me called What Happened to You? Conversations on Trauma, Resilience, and Healing. I'm proud to say it's a number one New York Times bestseller.
Hi, Oprah. Hi, Dr. Perry.
Dr. Perry and I are talking with viewers and listeners about our book.
How do I forgive my parents for not showing up the way I needed them to show up for me?
I would say reading it opened up a new way of healing from their trauma. Your work, this book, has had such a profound impact on my life personally and professionally, so thank you. It's a simple question that resonates profoundly for so many of us. What happened to you? I have to say, that question changed everything. I think it was 2018, I was interviewing Bruce Perry for an episode of 60 Minutes on CBS. Yeah, you were there even, Keith, right? Keith, my favorite DP I've had for years. We were talking about children, and you made a comment. You said, you know, all these schools where they have the kids, and those kids get dismissed, and they get suspended from school, and the teachers label them as bad, and they say, this is a bad kid, this is a bad kid. What they really should be saying not is what's wrong with this kid, but what happened to this child. Yeah. That was a... That was one of the biggest moments for me.
It changed the way I run my school. It has changed the results of what's happened at my school. It changed the way I see people, the way I see myself, the way I operate in the world in business. And you said that when a person or child is actually behaving in a certain way, that that's the question, not what's wrong with you. but more important, what's happened to. How did you know this? How did you come to this?
Well, I'd been studying the development of people forever, you know, for 40 years.
Development of the brain in particular.
Of the brain and of behavior and of the way people kind of grow and change and think and move and all that kind of stuff. And so I had this bias about, that was focused on the history of a person, which is really kind of the story of the person. And to understand where somebody was right now and why they were acting a certain way, you really needed to know their story. That's the bottom line. That's the bottom line. And I think it's the bottom line Anybody, everything. You want to understand history? Understand the story of these people. Yes. Understand the story of the economics. Understand the story of an individual's personal life. You want to understand why your boss is an asshole? Understand their story. Understand their story. Yep.
And one of the things that's really interesting about that... And the fact that your boss is an asshole means that they have a story. Exactly. Of some kind of... Trauma or being rejected. Being minimized.
Minimized, not feeling whole themselves.
How did Oprah and Dr. Perry's book come about?
Because the only people that make people feel like they are minimal are people who feel minimal themselves. Exactly. You absolutely can't do it if you're a whole person.
There's a great quote by Abraham Lincoln who had, there's a legislator he didn't like. Yes. And he said, I don't like that man. I must get to know him. Wow. Isn't that amazing, right? Well, that's why he was Abraham Lincoln. Abraham Lincoln understood that if I knew his story, I would have a better understanding about why I don't like him and why he's unlikable.
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