Moment 116 - The ONE Type Of Trauma You Cannot Heal From: Professor Steven Peters

In this moment, the psychiatrist and author of ‘The Chimp Paradox’, Professor Steve Peters, discusses how there are some early childhood traumas that simply can’t be erased. It is a commonly held belief that with enough therapy and time all traumas can be eventually be eradicated. However Professor Peters believes that it is critical we divide traumas between those you can tackle and others that you have to learn to live and deal with. If we don’t accept that there are some problems that can’t be solved it can actually cause more distress, not only to the people suffering the trauma but even to their therapists and partners. Listen to the full episode here - https://g2ul0.app.link/xOA3BtDJ2Ab Watch the Episodes On Youtube - https://www.youtube.com/c/%20TheDiaryOfACEO/videos Professor Steven: https://chimpmanagement.com/professor-steve-peters/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:03Steven Bartlett?

  What role does trauma play, like early childhood trauma play in how we respond in situations?

• 0:08Steve Peters?

  Wow, now we're really getting deep. It depends on, again, I'm being black and white. If someone has a really bad trauma at childhood, it can have repercussions throughout life. Because now the circuits in your brain are developing. So if you have a really traumatic event, and not necessarily what we would define as traumatic, it's what the child defines. So I'm being a bit facetious here. For example, if it's got its favourite sweets and somebody steals them, that could be a traumatic childhood event. At that moment in time, the impact was so significant that it has repercussions. It's damaging the circuits. It might, for example, perceive that as nothing in life is safe. Anything I have can be removed.

• 0:52Steve Peters?

  However, most children get over it in seconds. You know, but it depends on the child and what stage they're at and what the circumstances are at that point. Somebody else might have child abuse, for example, which is much more likely to have repercussions throughout life. So, but we still get children who get child abuse and have no repercussions. So it isn't a definite black and white, it's probabilities.

• 1:15Steven Bartlett?

  Is it, the way that I've come to understand it is almost like we're wearing our own sunglasses, which is a metaphor for like interpretation. So me and my brother, we could be identical twins. We go through the same experience, but we're wearing different sunglasses. So we interpret that experience differently. We deposit evidence about what that experience means into our computer.

• 1:34Steve Peters?

  You're absolutely right. And it all hangs on, for example, somebody, like your parent might suddenly say, oh, you're just an idiot. You know, but something might have happened just before that where you've gone to school and you got one out of 10 and you were bottom of the spelling test. And you've come home and then your father, you've done something at home and made a mistake. And he says you're an idiot. And the two together get emotionally tangled. And that then damages the circuits. Whereas normally, if you come home, you've just got nine out of 10 for the spelling come top of the class. And he says you're an idiot, he just bat it off and think, well, I've got nine out of 10. So therefore the brain doesn't pick it up. So again, I'm trying to give examples where it's so complicated. What I would say is it's hard to find these because they happen often very young in life.

• 2:17Steve Peters?

  And the emotional aspects and our memories emotionally and how we formulate things have about a three year start on the human circuit, which doesn't come in for three years approximately. So that's why we have no memories of childhood. We can't remember before the age of two because it's not working. So our emotional memory begins in fetal life. So before we're even born, the emotional memory is starting to work out what trauma is and react to that trauma. So we react to the mother's heartbeat, for example. And again, every fetus is different on the spectrum. And then we follow that through and therefore the machine can be damaged early in life. It can be damaged at any point. And then we have something which I've then tried to determine, give a terminology of a goblin to.

• 3:02Steve Peters?

  So gremlin is a belief or an experience you can process and actually get rid of. Whereas a goblin is something which is really damaged the circuits. So you get people often who have very low self-esteem and that's going to continue throughout life. Now, I'm certainly not saying we shouldn't try and get rid of that. Generally, we can. But it could be they always have moments of low self-esteem. And what they need to do is accept that they're always going to appear. But I'm going to have a way of dealing with them and then going back on to them a much more positive footing. So sometimes we have beliefs within us that are just too hard to remove. And they may have come from traumatic experiences. What I'm saying is I'm not rolling over and saying, oh, well, this is damaged goods. I'm saying, let's learn if they do raise their heads, let's learn how to put them in a box,

• 3:47Steve Peters?

  stop them from having impact in my life today and then work forward from that. And again, that's a skill to do and it just needs people to learn how to do that.

• 3:57Steven Bartlett?

  So we can, we can take down gremlins, but we can't.

• 4:00Steve Peters?

  Goblins you have to accept. And the reason I brought that terminology in is sadly, I've seen over the years when I've been in an educational role as a doctor, I've trained doctors and clinical psychologists, nursing staff to how we deal with emotions. And what I've seen distressed is when you get well-meaning therapists of any kind. And they're trying to change something that can't be changed. And you have to say, you know, the circuit's damaged. And rather than try and change it, let's learn to deal with it in a very constructive way, but not put that pressure on the person to do something which we're probably never going to achieve. So I'd always say, try, I'd always say, let's try and process an event and let's try moving on. So they remove it. So great if you can get rid of low self-esteem.

• 4:45Steve Peters?

  But if it keeps raising its head, let's say, stop putting pressure on that person and work with it. You still try and remove it. So but but there's a point you say to them, look, let's accept it. But let's not let it take over. Let's learn how to put it in a box. So it's a bit like a virus in a computer system, exactly the same. We accept it's damaged, but we can box it in. And if it does raise its head, we mop it up again.

• 5:10Steven Bartlett?

  It's interesting because I, from doing this podcast, I used to believe that your traumas, you know, there's early experiences that define you and the evidence it creates could be, all of them could be eradicated with like some form of therapy or treatment. The more I've done this podcast and sat with exceptional people who have, you know, have exceptional stories and some in many cases have exceptional traumas. I've gone the other way and realised that even if they've had all the therapy, they've gone and done ayahuasca, they've had whatever they've had. It's still the, some traumas, some of the deeper, earlier traumas never seem to disappear. And so my stance has changed. And in recent podcasts, I've been saying that there are instances where some things just, it seems like people just can't overcome certain things.

• 5:53Steven Bartlett?

  Is there a age group where goblins, the traumas that we can't seem to overcome, the evidence or whatever it is, the damage to the circuitry, is there, does it tend to happen earlier?

• 6:08Steve Peters?

  Yeah, the younger we are, when we're developing the brain, the brain keeps developing up to the age of around thirty. So it's young to me at my age as anyone under thirty.

• 6:17Steven Bartlett?

  Okay, so I'm thirty now.

• 6:18Steve Peters?

  Right, you're just still, you're just about done. All right, so if some people finish, we know that matures, the final sort of like bits to the brain mature, which is actually the rationality of the brain. It matures around twenty five to thirty, but there are quite a lot. Of particularly more men who keep going to around thirty two, but by then you're out of the oven. So whatever you've got, you you've finished.

• 6:41Steven Bartlett?

  Oh, God.

• 6:41Steve Peters?

  I agree with what you're saying is then you accept this is the way my system is. So let me manage my system instead of trying to make my system do something it can't do. So I hope I'm not coming across saying death roll over. I'm not saying that. But the reason that I did it was it's they're also the therapists. It's really hard for the doctor, the nurse, the psychologist. It's really hard to see them struggling to try and change something or help someone and it's not working. And that can damage them to think what's wrong with me.

• 7:10Steven Bartlett?

  I've seen it.

• 7:10Steve Peters?

  Yeah, all right.

• 7:11Steven Bartlett?

  I've got a friend that's a therapist and I've seen her crying.

• 7:14Steve Peters?

  Yeah.

• 7:14Steven Bartlett?

  Because she couldn't change something.

• 7:15Steve Peters?

  Right. And that's why I brought this out and said to the therapist, look, stop. You know, let's you review what you're doing. They're their own professionals, but as someone who tries to teach therapists and and people are working this field. To say neuroscientifically, there are damages to the circuit. So rather than say, we're going to change it, you've tried and you've probably done a great job. Because again, most people are really good. Most therapists I've worked alongside have been excellent, you know, whatever their profession is. Is but don't beat yourself up if you're struggling with someone. It may be you are hitting the nail on the head, but exactly what you've just said, we're not going to move this person. So stop worrying about it and say, let's try managing it first, whatever's raising its head.

• 7:58Steve Peters?

  And then if we manage it, then we might still try processing, but now we're not defeated.

• 8:04Steven Bartlett?

  I have to say that that's that's great advice for therapists, but it's also just great advice for someone in a family unit. Or in a relationship who has a partner or a loved one who is struggling with something. Where the circuitry might be irreparably damaged. And they're destroying the relationship with that person because they're trying to change them.

• 8:21Steve Peters?

  Exactly. And the devil is in the detail again, because there are other elements to this. Because another factor is time. We know that the brain will try and repair itself, even if emotional scars, it will try and do that. So the can sometimes just be time. So we know like in grief reactions, it you have to allow the brain time. And the brain will process things in its own time. And that's a piece of string generally in a serious loss or change of job or relationship gone. Or you've lost someone because they passed on. It usually we say around three months is intense, then a twelve months is still bad. But some people, it can be ten years and and there is no normal grief. There's just normal grief for you. And then if it gets stuck, then again, this where the clinicians will come in.

• 9:05Steve Peters?

  If you have pathological grief, and this can be due to anything. It's often a belief system again in the computer that's stopping you being able to process something.

• 9:15Steven Bartlett?

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