Everything we learned from Prince Harry's candid discussion with trauma expert Dr Gabor Mat¨¦
By Bronte Gossling|
P?rince Harry once again has gotten candid about the British royal family and associated mental health challenges, this time in a live therapy session with trauma expert Dr Gabor Mat¨¦ ¨C the broadcast of which was open for anyone in the world to attend virtually this morning if they had some spare change.
During the 90-minute discussion, the Duke of Sussex, 38, claimed his wife Meghan Markle, 41, had "saved" him from himself, and among other revelations, was also diagnosed in front of the whole world by Mat¨¦. King Charles III and Queen Elizabeth II were brought up, but Harry did not speak about Camilla, Queen Consort, nor his brother Prince William or sister-in-law Kate Middleton.
Here's everything we learned from Prince Harry's live therapy session with trauma, addiction, stress and childhood development expert Dr Gabor Mat¨¦, focusing on his memoir Spare.
Watch the video above.?
?Meghan 'saved' Harry from himself
Despite the presence of cameras broadcasting the session to Zoom, Harry and ?Mat¨¦'s discussion was quite intimate, according to session attendees.
During said intimate discussion, Harry revealed how the Duchess of Sussex "saved" him from himself.
?"My wife saved me. I was stuck in this world, and she was from a different world and helped draw me out of that," he said of Meghan.
"But none of the elements of my life now would have been possible without me seeing it for myself."
He also called Meghan an "exceptional human being" and said he's "?eternally grateful for the wisdom and the space that she has been able to give [him]."
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It was Meghan, after all, who Harry has previously said inspired him to pursue therapy and take mental health support more seriously.
Harry also said ?that after meeting Meghan, he had a "crash course" in racism.
"I think what people perhaps don't understand is the pain that it causes to an individual is huge, but then the pain that it causes to society is immense," Harry told Mat¨¦.
Harry 'diagnosed' by Dr Gabor Mat¨¦ during live broadcast
As Harry told ?Mat¨¦ that he and Meghan are "not making friends" by trying to break the cycle of their trauma, the trauma expert "diagnosed" Harry with ADD and PTSD.
"Since the age of 12, apart from being in a state of shock, I was in fight or flight," Harry, who was 12 when Princess Diana died, told Mat¨¦.
Mat¨¦ said that "as a clinician" after reading Spare, he had "several diagnoses" for Harry.
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"Whether you like it or not, I have diagnosed you with ADD. You can agree or disagree," Mat¨¦ told Harry. "I don't see it as a disease. I see it as a normal response to abnormal stress."
Harry simply responded, "OK", before later asking, "Should I accept that or should I look into it?"
?"You can do what you want with it," Mat¨¦ said.
Harry also insisted he was "not a victim" multiple times.
?"I definitely don't see myself as a victim," Harry said. "I get a huge amount of healing by helping others. I don't know if that was my purpose but it was the way I was brought up."
Harry 'always felt different' to his family and 'knows Diana felt the same'
Sitting across from ?Mat¨¦ in front of a crackling fireplace, Harry told the author and the world how he related to his late mother over feeling like he didn't fit into the rest of the British royal family.
"Certainly throughout my life, throughout my younger years, I always felt slightly different to the rest of my family," he said during the event.
"I felt strange being in this container, and I know that my mum felt the same. It makes sense to me ¨C it didn't make sense at the time ¨C I felt as though my body was in there, but my head was out, but sometimes it was vice-versa," he continued.
"The times that I ventured towards being myself, being my authentic true self, whether it was through media or family or whatever it was, it was almost like, 'Don't be yourself, come back to what you're expected to be,' if that makes sense," he said.
He also said of his time in therapy that: ?"A lot of families are complicated, a lot of families are dysfunctional, but for me when I was doing therapy regularly... I felt that I learned a new language."
Harry said he felt other members of the British royal family "didn't speak that language".
?"This is working for me and I'm starting to go back to the point of trauma and unpack everything so I can be truly happy... but at the same time I'm feeling more and more distant from my loved ones and my family," he said.
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Harry 'smothers' Archie and Lilibet? 'with love'
In what some may consider to be a dig about his own upbringing after the death of Diana, Harry spoke about his own approach to fatherhood, and said he prioritises showing affection to his own children, three year-old son Archie, and one-year-old daughter Lilibet.
Mat¨¦, in reference to the passage in Spare where Harry wrote about wishing Charles and his grandmother had been more physically affectionate to him in his childhood, asked him how that shaped his parenting approach today.
"It leaves me in the position how as a father, I have two kids of my own, making sure that I smother them with love and affection," Harry said ¨C but he also joked that he doesn't "smother them to the point that they're trying to get away."
"But in the sense that I as a father feel a huge responsibility to ensure that I don't pass on any traumas or negative experiences I've had," the duke said.
"And that's work, that's putting in the work, and daily, being conscious of my behaviour, of my reactions to both of my kids," he continued.
"And there are times when I catch myself in a moment when I should be smothering them with that love and in that moment, I might not be, reminding myself [to]. I wouldn't have been as aware of it had I not done the therapy and work that I've done," he said.
Mat¨¦ then asked Harry to imagine what the "impact" on his two children would be if they were "not getting the hugging the way you didn't get it."
"I don't know what the impact would be, but I imagine the result would be similar," Harry responded.
"That's why, again, I am grateful to have been able to change my environment, which I fully appreciate that not everyone can do, because it comes down to resource," he said in reference to his royal resignation and subsequent move to Montecito in California.
"To be able to change the root cause of so much of those issues, to be able to up, move, that to me, feels as though it gives me much more of a chance, and my wife, more agency as parents, to be able to bring our kids up in a way that's really beneficial and good for them."
Harry also said that he did have "elements" of "an incredible childhood"? but that also "elements of it were incredibly painful" ¨C and he also said that ridding himself of his "traumas" can be alienating.
"Me and my wife do the best we can as parents, learning from our own pasts and being able to grow together to provide for our kids and to be able to break that cycle," Harry said.
"And it's not easy, and you certainly don't make friends in the process in the short term."
Harry answers audience member's question about growing up in a castle
At the end of the live therapy session, Harry answered a series of viewer questions, which were read to him by ?Mat¨¦.
"As a royal child, did you get to roam the castles freely, and did you find any trap doors?" Mat¨¦ read out on behalf of an attendee.
"That's the assumption, that there were trap doors all over castles. As kids, it was an adventure, running around that kind of a place. What an experience," Harry replied with a chuckle.
"Not so many trap doors, lots of fun things to investigate, but I guess, it's weird. When you're brought up as a child in that environment, you think that is normal, but it's not. It's anything but normal," he continued.
"So no, some secret doorways and some secret cupboards. None so sophisticated as you pull a book and then all of the sudden a thing opens. I probably would have gotten stuck in there," Harry joked.
Harry and William were mainly raised in Kensington Palace, which is currently one of William and Catherine's residences.
?During their school breaks, the brothers Windsor would also spend time at Highgrove House, Balmoral Castle, and more.
Why Harry wrote his memoir Spare
?Spare has polarised the world since its contents was leaked days before its official on-sale date, and Harry told Mat¨¦ why he felt it was important for him to be open and honest about his life.
"I really hope, and I hoped right from the beginning, when I turned around to the people that were helping me write this book, I said, 'I want this to be an act of service, it needs to be, because I know important it is, because you're almost giving permission for people to talk about their own stuff, and be their own selves, and society doesn't really help us," he said.
"And I would say even more so within my family, because of the expectations and because of how you're cast as individuals."
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