Quote by Gabor Maté: “Trauma is not what happens to you. It's what happens inside you as a result.”

Two people can go through the same experience and be affected completely differently. Trauma isn't the event itself — it's the wound it leaves in the nervous system, the psyche, the body. This matters because it stops us from dismissing people's pain by saying 'that wasn't so bad.'

Maté developed and popularised this definition across lectures and interviews in the late 2010s as the concept of trauma was entering mainstream consciousness through social media, therapy culture, and growing awareness of adverse childhood experiences. His work challenged medicine's tendency to treat symptoms rather than root causes.

Hungarian-Canadian physician and author whose work on addiction, trauma, and the mind-body connection has reshaped mainstream understanding of mental health. His books include In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts and The Myth of Normal.