We are delighted to have our third conversation with Dr Maté for the Radical Recovery Summit. He has been tireless in his work educating people worldwide about trauma. In 2021, several million people viewed the movie The Wisdom of Trauma, featuring his work Compassionate Inquiry. We learned from his in-depth conversations with a diverse group of fascinating people, including medical experts like Dr Stephen Porges and Dr Bessel van der Kolk, famous people like Jamie Lee Curtis, Indigenous leaders like Dr Ruby Gibson, therapists like Dr Richard Schwartz IFS, and grassroots social justice activists.

Compassionate Inquiry is a psychotherapeutic approach developed by Dr. Gabor Maté that reveals what lies beneath the appearance we present to the world. Using Compassionate Inquiry, both the individual and therapist unveil the level of consciousness, mental climate, hidden assumptions, implicit memories and body states that form the real message that words both express and conceal.

Through Compassionate Inquiry, the client can recognize the unconscious dynamics that run their lives and how to liberate themselves from them. The purpose of Compassionate Inquiry is to drill down to the core stories people tell themselves – to get them to see what story they are telling themselves unconsciously; what those beliefs are, where they came from; and guide them to the possibility of letting go of those stories, or letting go of the hold those stories have on them …”

Books by Dr Maté: Realm of the Hungry Ghost; Hold On To Your Kids; Scattered Minds; and When the Body Says No. His latest book is The Myth of Normal, to be released in 2022.

The Radical Recovery Summit features innovators in the field of trauma and addiction recovery. In our sixth year of the Summit, we see the mindset has changed about trauma as it relates to addiction and the importance of somatics (working in the body). The leading edge perspective of people we've interviewed is becoming better known.