Trauma expert Dr Gabor Maté has expressed huge regret about interviewing Prince Harry in March 2023 as part of the promotion for the royal’s memoir Spare. The chat, which focused on themes of trauma, loss, and healing, saw Maté suggest Harry had ADHD based on the contents of the tome. Looking back the academic and author said he “lost himself” due to the circumstances surrounding the one to one with the dad of two.
He made the admission speaking on the Diary of a CEO podcast with Dragons’ Den star Steven Bartlett. “I had a gut feeling all along that I shouldn’t agree to doing it the way they set it up, because… in order to watch it, people have to buy a copy of Harry’s book,” he said. “And I thought, ‘This is not fair – four million people have already bought the book. Why can’t they watch this interview? Do they have to buy another copy? In other words, I believed that there should be a free public service on a part of two people who can have a very interesting conversation,” he said.
Admitting he agreed to the conversation out of “sheer opportunism” he acknowledged: “So I lost myself even in agreeing to the format.”
The aftermath did nothing to assuage his feelings as both he and Harry lost autonomy over the chat. “Harry and I both wanted it released to the public for free, but the lawyer said you can’t do that because this is advertised as a one time only event, and there could be a class action suit.
“So the result was that I agreed to something that I didn’t really like,” he said.
“Not that I didn’t like the idea of talking with them (Harry). I didn’t like the idea of putting this behind the pay wall. So I lost myself just in agreeing to it,” he conceded.
“Then there was the incredible social media and British media reaction to it that was, for the most part, so negative and so demeaning and so dismissive and so distorted that I barely even know how to talk about it,” he told Bartlett.
“I thought by this age I would know better. But you know what? It really got to me… Eventually what happened was that I was really in a negative state of mind.
Mate confessed he sought help dealing with these feelings. “I called a friend of mine, a psychiatrist, and I said, I’m just in a bad state.
“I said… there’s all this bad press and all the distortion of who I am and my motives. He said, What is about the bothers you so much? And I said, not being seen.”
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‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.express.co.uk ’
