The Wisdom of Trauma (2021) on Netflix

Plot summary

Health figures in the United States record one in five people diagnosed with a mental illness each year, suicide as the second leading cause of death among those aged 15 to 24, 81,000 deaths from drug overdose annually, and 24 million people living with autoimmune disorders. Gabor Maté, a physician and author, reads those numbers as symptoms of one underlying force. Anxiety, chronic illness and substance abuse, he argues, are connected epidemics and are normal, and trauma is what shapes how people live, love and make sense of the world. In his work on the connections between illness, addiction, trauma and society, he makes the case for a trauma-informed society, where teachers, parents, physicians, legal personnel and policy-makers ask where troubling behavior comes from instead of suppressing symptoms.