January 22, 2025 • 50 mins
He spent most of his career putting people to sleep. Now, he’s waking them up. Dr. Robin Youngson was a successful anesthesiologist who bravely stepped away from the security of traditional medicine to embrace the uncharted territory of holistic healing. Even with financial uncertainties and skepticism from his peers present he remained fueled by his passion for compassionate care. His exploration of Havening Techniques highlights the incredible potential of self-healing and redefines what it means to truly care for others and be a servant to their stories.
BOOKS MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE
The Science of Miracles by Dr Robin Youngson
Time to Care: How to Love Your Patients and Your Job
By Dr. Robin Youngson
Fifteen Minutes to Freedom: The Power and Promise of Havening Techniques
by Harry Pickens
CONNECT WITH DR ROBIN YOUNGSON
https://www.youtube.com/user/DrRobinYoungson
https://www.linkedin.com/in/robinyoungson/
https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100027866423673
EXPLORE HAVENING TECHNIQUES TRAININGS & WORKSHOPS
https://www.hilaryrusso.com/training
GET BRAIN CANDY DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
https://www.hilaryrusso.com/braincandy
WORK WITH HILARY
https://www.hilaryrusso.com/havening
CONNECT WITH HILARY
https://www.linkedin.com/in/hilaryrusso
https://www.instagram.com/hilaryrusso
https://www.youtube.com/hilaryrusso
https://www.hilaryrusso.com/podcast
MUSIC by Lipbone Redding
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Dr. Robin Youngson (00:00):
Trauma healing is kind of a shortcut to
greater enlightenment and to deeper
compassion and to non-attachment, Because
if we let go of the pain and the hurt and
the trauma then we come back to our true
compassionate selves.
Naturally it's just so beautiful to see.
Hilary Russo (00:17):
Why are so many medical doctors walking
away from the health care system?
Actually, maybe we need to call that
something else.
We don't have a health care system.
We have a sick healthcare system.
Actually, maybe we need to call that
something else.
We don't have a healthcare system, we have
a sick care system, and it's not just in
the US either.
Around the world, there are problems with
healthcare that are causing many doctors to
(00:38):
make different choices on how they want to
be in practice, support their patients,
support their clients and show up for those
they're serving and also themselves to help
them heal and to also live well.
Maybe this has been your story, and don't
get me wrong.
There are so many wonderful doctors and
(00:59):
nurses and practitioners in the healthcare
system that are practicing compassionate
care, seeking to look for the root cause,
to not just look at the symptom and to
genuinely look by using holistic approaches
that treat the whole body right.
That holistic means whole body, and I work
(01:20):
with many of them as a holistic
practitioner myself, and I'm grateful for
the work they do.
I work with many of them as a holistic
practitioner myself, and I'm grateful for
the work they do.
This is about the system they work in, not
the person, the one that is not showing up
for the caregiver.
That's what we're seeing a lot, and the
(01:47):
word that I want to focus on right there is
care, compassionate care.
Well, dr Robin Youngson, you are one of
those doctors, with over 30 years as an
anesthesiologist working with the World
Health Organization, being an advisor in
New Zealand with the government on patient
safety and healthcare quality and
compassionate care, and you're also a
fellow Havening practitioner and trainer,
which is the work you have gone into, and,
my goodness, what a joy it is to have you
here, because you're the kind of doctor
(02:09):
that we need more of in this world.
So, thank you for being here.
It's so good to see you, robin.
Dr. Robin Youngson (02:14):
Thank you, Hilary.
I'm delighted to be invited on your program.
Thank you so much.
Hilary Russo (02:18):
Absolutely.
I have been wanting to talk to you for
quite some time.
We obviously don't get to connect too much
because we're on opposite sides of the
world but we do get to connect through the
Havening world, being that we're both
practitioners and trainers of the field.
You've been a trainer quite some time as
well, but you took a pretty bold step, and
I know we're going to talk about your
latest book, which is the Science of
(02:39):
Miracles, which I can't put down.
In fact, I keep reading chapters over and
over because it's such a personal story.
But I think, for those who are tuning in,
what I really want to touch on first is how
does somebody with an entire career as a
doctor and someone who actually started as
an engineer and got into medicine how do
you make a choice to walk away from your
(02:59):
practice?
How do you make a choice to walk away from
your practice and possibly your patients
and the system that kept you employed for
so long, and you only made this choice in
2020.
So we'd love to know that story.
Dr. Robin Youngson (03:14):
Yeah Well, that was.
I'd have to say that was an absolutely
terrifying decision to make.
I mean, unlike most of my peers
anesthesiologists who earned a lot of money
and have a big flesh house and my wife and
I have devoted so much of our lives to
trying to improve the system, to campaign
around the world I actually spent all of
(03:36):
our money doing that work.
You know, I'm nearly I'll be 69 in a couple
of weeks.
We don't have any savings, I'm still paying
a mortgage, we're not financially secure.
And to walk away from a job as an
anesthesiologist with all that financial
security and status and power and
reputation, and to step into a kind of
(03:58):
alternative healthcare field which my
colleagues, medical colleagues, would
regard, as you know, woo-woo or strange or
even fraudulent, was just an
extraordinarily difficult decision to make
and I'm grateful to my wife, meredith, for
supporting me in that.
But basically I've spent my entire life
trying to make healthcare better and
provide compassionate care to the people we
(04:19):
serve, and I just saw that there were much
better ways of doing that outside of the
system and, in particular, having learned
about Havening techniques and seeing the
miracles that unfold every day in our
clinics.
And then COVID hit and in actual fact, the
contract medical work I was doing
disappeared overnight.
So I had zero income.
(04:40):
So I had no choice but to make a success of
my own clinic, and that was four and a half
years ago.
Hilary Russo (04:46):
Amazing, when you look back on it, how
you've grown over the years and you're
really one of those folks that pop up when,
if you're putting in Havening on YouTube,
you know there's a number of us that pop up.
But I have to say a number of folks will
come to me if they've never heard of
Havening.
There was some gentleman that popped up and
he was doing stuff about Havening.
I'm like, oh, that's probably Robin,
(05:06):
because you really have brought attention
to Havening and the world of Havening and
just how this is a neuroscience based
modality that can help people rapidly heal
from anxiety, depression, ptsd, phobias,
relationship difficulties, sleep, chronic
pain.
And you saw that as a doctor.
(05:28):
And here you are flipping on the other side
and seeing it's not so much about what the
doctor does, but what we can do for
ourselves and put the healing in our own
hands.
Dr. Robin Youngson (05:38):
Yeah, but I have to admit that I was deeply
skeptical about Havening.
So how I came across it was that my wife,
Meredith and I had made many trips to
Louisville and Kentucky, which you might
not know is under the International Charter
for Compassion.
Louisville is the model compassionate city
in the USA.
Led by a very inspirational mayor, we were
(06:00):
invited into the city to try and bring more
compassion into healthcare across very many
different organizations across an entire
city.
And that was the home of Harry Pickens,
who's a renowned Haydening trainer and
extraordinary man and a world-famous jazz
musician.
And so he became a very dear friend and for
about two years he was trying to persuade
(06:20):
me to take an interest in Haydening and I
said what's that?
He said well, you can have the worst trauma
in the world and you just stroke your arms
and your face and your hands for 15 minutes
and the trauma can be erased.
And I'd never heard anything so ridiculous.
And even though he's a very esteemed friend
and colleague, I completely ignored his
entreaties for several years and then he
(06:40):
wrote a whole book about it, called 15
Minutes to Freedom.
I don't know if you've interviewed Harry he
would be a great subject.
Hilary Russo (06:47):
He's on the list.
Dr. Robin Youngson (06:49):
To my shame, I didn't even buy his book,
even though he's a great friend.
But my wife, meredith, had a copy in her
room and every time I went into a room I'd
see his book on the shelf.
It was like a reproach to me, and so one
day I said hey, darling, can I borrow your
book?
And I sat down and read it and I got
intrigued, because he interviewed Dr Ronald
Ruden, the developer of Havening, and
(07:09):
shared something about the science which
intrigued me, and then a lot of stories
from practitioners and from clients, and I
thought, hey, maybe there's something to
this.
So I did what we all do I sat down at my
computer and did a Google search for
Haydening and I came across a video of Dr
Ruden Havening, someone for a severe phobia
of bridges.
(07:30):
So this poor woman, while driving across a
very high bridge over a waterway in a
tremendous rainstorm the rain fell so
heavily she couldn't see the lines on the
road, couldn't see the other vehicles,
couldn't see the barriers became
disorientated.
She had kids in the back.
She thought she was going to die.
She had a panic attack and then over a
number of years, the phobia got worse and
worse and spread to other bridges until
(07:52):
eventually she couldn't drive across any
bridge at all, even a really small bridge,
and her life had kind of shrunk down.
And Dr she chose to do the Havening touch
to herself what we call Havening and Dr
Ruden took her through the simplest
protocol, which is to raise her traumatic
memory, and in 15 minutes and that's how
long the video is her trauma and her fear
(08:14):
was completely gone and she sat there
completely astounded.
And then he said well, should we go and
check it out?
And she said what do you mean?
And he said well, we're not far from that
bridge, you know.
Would you want to get in the car and check
it out?
And she kind of looked at him aghast but
eventually agreed.
So she drove across the bridge with no
reaction at all.
And I watched this video and sat on my
(08:36):
computer for quite some time shaking my
head in disbelief that this terrible fear
had been erased in 15 minutes.
And then I began thinking about some of the
very traumatic events I've experienced as a
doctor, like a young mother bleeding to
death in front of me despite my best
efforts.
Then I had this crazy thought what if I try
it?
So I rewound the video and copied the
(08:57):
entire process.
I copied the touch and I copied the
distractions.
At the end of 15 minutes I could not
connect into my traumatic event at all.
It was a race in my mind.
I could remember objectively the effects of
it and I just sat there again completely
astounded and thought no, I've got to train
in this.
So I discovered there's a training course
(09:17):
in Melbourne three weeks later in Australia,
and Louise Kami and Donna Ryan were flying
from the UK and the USA to run that course
and On the first day of the course I
volunteered to be a subject for Havening in
front of the class and had my fear,
profound fear of abandonment that I'd had
for 52 years was erased in 15 minutes as a
(09:38):
demonstration in front of the class.
I mean that was really life-changing and so
that was 2018.
So I've never looked back, really.
Hilary Russo (09:47):
I think a lot of us have a very similar
story.
That's how Havening came into my life as
well.
I was not a doctor for 30 years.
I did not have a background and I was
coming from a completely different field in
journalism.
And yet that one day, that first day of the
workshop on stage with Dr Ron Ruden, I
volunteered as well and I never looked back.
(10:08):
I'm like I remember, saying I've got to put
this into my practice Because there is a
skepticism, you know and.
I think that is what's so beautiful about
more people in the medical field that are
seeing its value, whether they are still in
the actual medical system and the
healthcare system.
You know, some of the folks I've been
(10:29):
recently training are doctors, are nurses,
are first responders and at least are
taking a chance to see.
This is something that could help put the
tools in somebody else's hands to you know
to help themselves.
But that's just part of the story and thank
you so much for sharing that.
I love hearing that story too.
I've heard the bridge story from Ron before
(10:50):
and, yes, shout out to Harry Pickens as
well.
He's wonderful.
We have so many wonderful people in this
community, including yourself, but your
work getting to this point.
I want to go back a little bit, because as
someone who's been in the system for so
long, and you even mentioned having your
own traumas as a child, and you mentioned
in your book, which is the Science of
(11:11):
Miracles.
This is your latest book, which is One
Doctor's Journey to Find Hope and Healing
Beyond the Broken Medical System.
My friends, please put this in your library.
It is a beautiful read.
It is such a personal read, Robin, that to
learn about you before your time as a
doctor, but also during your time and then
(11:32):
making that decision to walk away, really,
really builds the story, which is different
from your first book, which was Time to
Care, which sparked this international
movement about why compassionate care is so
important.
So I so, as somebody who's been in this
field for so long and then moved away from
it, like you just shared.
(11:52):
Where was it where it clicked in you to say
I need to write my personal story, Like I
need to put it out there, I need to share
it this way?
Dr. Robin Youngson (12:01):
Yeah, so that's a bit of a.
It's been a long journey.
I've been working on that book for three
and a half years and I've actually written
the whole book three times a half years and
I've actually written the whole book three
times.
And I really struggle to know what kind of
a book, because my previous book, time to
Care, was written as a nonfiction book, you
know, with 200 scientific references and
(12:21):
lots of arguments and so on.
It had a lot of personal stories as well
that really connect to the heart of people.
But we learned on our international
campaign work on compassionate healthcare
that if you try to persuade people, you
just create resistance Because they're
deeply embodied in their own worldview and
their beliefs and ways of working and if
(12:41):
you suggest something different it's in
some ways threatening to them or they have
to give up something or learn something new.
I learned something new and eventually we
evolved ways of not preaching to people but
putting people in a circle and getting them
to share their stories of compassionate
connection and human connection and healing.
And they would learn from those stories and
(13:03):
hear the stories in the group and remind
themselves of all these precious gifts of
caring, compassion and empathy that they
have.
And what an amazing life-saving difference
it made.
So we found more subtle ways of influencing
people for them to find it within
themselves.
So I wrote a kind of non-fiction book which
is a kind of mismatch, you know, partly
(13:23):
autobiographical, partly non-fiction.
You know I tried to make arguments and then
send it to a professional editor and said,
look, I want you to review the book and
tell me what you think, and spent a fair
amount of money on that.
And she was very helpful and she said well,
it's just not working in this mismatch, but
if you wrote a medical memoir it could be
(13:44):
effective.
There's really not a single argument in the
whole book.
I don't try to persuade anyone to do
anything, but if I share my story, if I can
get people on board with my passion, my
story and my hurts and my wounds and my
traumas and my struggles against the system
and eventually finding the light, then they
might come along with me on that story.
(14:04):
So that was the third version and then it
ended up far too long, like 153,000 words,
just far too long for a book.
There were so many wonderful stories and in
one week I cut 40,000 words out and that
made me nearly physically sick.
I mean, it was such a painful process to
throw out so many wonderful stories, but
the book is better for it.
So that's how we ended up with just.
(14:26):
And then I decided to dramatize it, you
know, write it like a thriller, write it as
a dramatized nonfiction and really get
people into the stories.
So that's that's how it ended up.
And then I found a professional editor,
beth Derry in the UK, who's done a
wonderful job and took it on as a passion
project and helped me out.
Hilary Russo (14:46):
Somebody that saw the gift that you were
giving.
Dr. Robin Youngson (14:48):
Yeah, thank you.
Hilary Russo (14:50):
Yeah, you mentioned that it was painful to
cut a lot of those stories, and what that
kind of reminds me of is when we're working
with our clients and this is something that
comes up and you want to reinforce to them,
because sometimes they don't want to get
rid of their trauma.
They feel like they're getting rid of the
story or what built up that story.
(15:11):
And it's a reminder to them.
It's like this is part of a chapter in your
book, but it doesn't mean you're, you can
read, you can rewrite the narrative, but it
doesn't take away this, because sometimes
people are angry or they're like no, no, if
I forget it, it means it didn't I'm.
You know, I'm taking blame away from
whoever did whatever they did, or the upset,
and it's quite the contrary.
(15:33):
So when you mentioned that you took pages
out of this final copy, what was that
feeling that you were truly feeling?
Dr. Robin Youngson (15:41):
Yeah, I mean I think you're right.
I'm not going to answer that question
directly because I want to come back to
your point and that is I mean the work that
we do in trauma is really all about stories.
And here I'm sitting in my clinic room and
you can't see a lot of it, but it's
actually full of curious objects and
historical things and you know gifts to me
from my and all sorts of things, and you
(16:02):
know I work a lot with kids as well and I
said come in, pick anything up, play with
anything, because we're really working with
stories.
And the beautiful thing about this work is
that I'm very careful to explain to clients
that you're not going to lose.
If you've lost a loved one in a very
traumatic way, you're not going to lose the
memory of your loved one.
In fact, at the moment, all you can
(16:23):
remember is the terrible, traumatic last
hours or days and you can't even connect to
who that beautiful person was.
And if we take the trauma away, then all of
the lovely stories of that loved one are
going to come forward and you're going to
be able to grieve in a healthy way.
And when we've.
You know, every difficult life experience,
every trauma, carries gifts within it and I
(16:46):
often say that the people who have become
the very best practitioners are those
who've had their own severe trauma and gone
through a path of healing.
And then they bring the gifts of empathy
and compassion and non-judgment and
understanding and faith and healing and
they bring those gifts forwards in service
of others.
And so when we let go of the trauma, we
(17:06):
actually liberate our deeper gifts and we
come to a place of compassion.
Naturally, you know, forgiveness is not
required because people just come to a
place of of ease and healing and compassion.
And then they see that, you know, the
perpetrator was themselves working out,
acting out of their own trauma.
Um, and it's um, yeah, it's really.
(17:28):
One of my clients was was a Buddhist monk.
I was a bit surprised because I thought you
spent 20 years meditating on non-attachment
and letting go of anger and you know hurt
and why are you coming to my clinic?
And it's just a human being like everyone
else.
But you know, in some ways trauma healing
is kind of a shortcut to greater
(17:48):
enlightenment and to deeper compassion and
to non-attachment, because if we let go of
the pain and the hurt and the trauma, then
we come back to our true compassionate
selves.
Naturally, it's just so beautiful to see.
Hilary Russo (18:02):
I love how you put that.
It's so true and in this day and age, the
word trauma is such a buzzword and there
are a lot of words out there that have
become buzzwords on the internet and you
it's holding space for those because you
don't want to lessen what they're feeling
or their story.
And you're right, it is, it's the story
before it's anything.
(18:23):
But you can rewrite that story so that this
next chapter can be the gifts, the lessons,
lessons and the learning right and building
that resiliency.
We talk about that a lot in Havening as
well as building the resiliency.
But for yourself, when you had to make a
choice to remove thousands of words and
(18:44):
pages, you said it was very painful.
Why was that?
Dr. Robin Youngson (18:49):
Because for so many years years we've been
dealing in the most extraordinary stories
of human connection and compassion and
healing and I mean some of those stories
just would move anyone to tears.
I mean they're just the most precious,
profound stories that have been kind of
gifted to us.
Gifted to us and some of the stories are
just hysterically funny and just like you
(19:12):
know, if you were reading a novel it would
just be so engaging and funny or exciting
and so I just had to throw away.
I mean there's probably another whole book
worth.
Hilary Russo (19:22):
That's what I was going to say.
I'm like what about a second book?
Because those stories, I imagine, are
healing for you too.
Dr. Robin Youngson (19:29):
It's therapeutic.
Hilary Russo (19:29):
For you to write it down.
Dr. Robin Youngson (19:31):
Yeah, I actually cried a lot writing my
book because, as a result of my childhood
trauma and the way I grew up and then
entering into medicine which in medical
training is profoundly dehumanizing and
brutalizing and I speak about some of those
things in my book and really I became a
very highly trained anesthesiologist and
(19:52):
intensive care doctor in our biggest trauma
hospital, doing all the glamorous
specialties of neurosurgery and trauma and
transplant and everything else really at
the peak of my career, but disconnected
from my feelings, and I was always kind as
a doctor and I always maintained some
compassion.
One of the stories in the book is about our
(20:13):
18-year-old daughter, chloe, when she broke
her neck and her back and ended up three
months in our biggest trauma hospital and
the quality of clinical care was pretty
good, but how they treated her as a human
being was just so beyond belief and neglect
of her basic human needs.
Now, looking back on those times, I mean it
was a familiar environment in a hospital in
which I'd worked.
(20:34):
So I kind of retained, in a sense, my
clinical detachment and even though the
events that I was seeing were distressing,
you know, I was kind of a bit detached or
dissociated from it.
But when I wrote the story again, 20 years
on.
I mean, I just sobbed because the result of
I've done this work of getting into the
world of healing and Havening and trauma
(20:55):
I've actually healed so much of my own
wounds and come back to my full humanity
and, you know, connected to my feelings
story and I'd write it in such a powerful
way and I was able to experience that event
you know, with with everything, with every
(21:15):
part of my being, and to to sob and to cry,
and it was was cathartic and healing, um,
and it makes the story sound and you know,
being a trauma therapist gives us the
language right of feelings, animations and
I mean it's enabled me to write more
powerfully and so, yeah, so it's been, it's
been healing.
Hilary Russo (21:34):
I'm glad, I'm so happy that's been your
experience and I couldn't agree with you
more that so much of the work that we do
comes from our own healings involved in
that.
It makes you more empathetic and
compassionate.
We we're coming from that space already, so
(21:56):
that's definitely something I think about a
lot.
And just showing up for people.
It's not just sitting across from somebody
anymore like tell me your feelings and
writing down and being judged like some
therapist versus patient kind of thing.
It's a relationship you're building, it's a
trust.
There's a vulnerability on both sides.
Dr. Robin Youngson (22:14):
And it's.
I mean, I've come to realize that it's
pretty much the complete 180 degree
opposite of medical practice in terms of
the power relationship and in terms about
our you know assumptions about what is
making a patient or a client better,
because in the medical world we pretty much
reduce a human being to a complex chemical
machine.
(22:34):
I mean, the entire basis of evidence-based
medical practice is a placebo-controlled,
randomized, controlled trial that removes
any influence of human consciousness from
the basis of medical science and medical
practice and medical treatment.
So that means that when you go and see your
GP, he's not going to listen to your
stories or experiences or emotions or your
(22:56):
feelings or your beliefs.
He's going to measure your blood pressure
and your cholesterol and put you on a pill
right In a 15-minute appointment.
So the work I do now is the complete
opposite because as a trauma therapist, I'm
not doing any healing to anyone at all.
As we know, Dr Ron Ruden has given us a
very sophisticated scientific theory around
(23:18):
the mechanisms by which the brain can heal
itself and what we're doing is creating the
conditions for that healing to occur within
the client.
So we're facilitating a natural process and
the power relationship has to be soar 180
degrees because you have to be led by the
client's desires and feelings and wishes
and you're in service to the client's story
(23:42):
as opposed and facilitating a process of
healing within the client.
So that was kind of a radical relearning
for me.
It's taken me perhaps 20 years to make that
shift.
Hilary Russo (23:52):
I love what you just shared.
You're a servant to the client's story.
Dr. Robin Youngson (23:57):
Yeah, it's beautiful.
Hilary Russo (23:58):
Yeah, that is really beautiful and I want
to.
I think I'll be using that in future
trainings.
We've learned so much from the modality,
the neuroscience-based approach, that both
Dr Youngson, robin and myself use in our
practice.
As you know.
(24:18):
It's a beautiful healing approach that puts
the power of active emotional well-being in
your hands, something you can use without
even our help.
You know you can do this every day to
self-regulate and self-soothe, for
self-care.
Obviously, for deeper rooted upsets and
traumas, always good to work with a
certified practitioner so you have support.
(24:38):
Never good to do trauma work on your own.
But this is a beautiful approach and I'm
going to put some information in the notes
about Havening and also how to get in touch
with Robin and also to grab the book the
Science of Miracles, and I'm also going to
put a link in there for Time to Care,
because they're two very different books,
but I think they're both really beautiful
books to have in your library.
As we're building the HIListically Speaking
(25:00):
Podcast Library, people will never run out
of reading by listening to this podcast,
that's for sure, because I always have the
best on here.
And Dr Ron and Dr Steve Ruden, who are
brothers here, and Dr Ron and Dr Steve
Ruden, who are brothers, co-developed the
Havening technique and it is by far the
(25:21):
go-to for me and, I know, for you.
For you, the one thing I would love to talk
about a little bit is you know you've
worked with the World Health Organization,
you've worked with the government in New
Zealand, where you're located, and how has
that been for you as far as the reception
and going forward being in this area of
health, now care, now.
Dr. Robin Youngson (25:42):
I mean that's a major theme in the book
because I mean I first started trying to
change healthcare as a junior doctor, as an
intern.
I wrote my first book, which was a handbook
for surgical patients, explaining to them
what happens when you go in a hospital and
who are all the staff and what are these
tests, and will I die if that little bubble
in the IV line gets into my vein?
(26:03):
And there's so many questions like that
because I discovered as a junior doctor
working a hundred hours a week in the UK,
that the patients were so afraid and so
uneducated and didn't know no one really
talked to them as human beings and I felt
so motivated to try to give them some
knowledge and some power.
But I was far ahead of my time in those
(26:23):
days.
This is about 1990.
Bookshops did not have a shelf for kind of
self-help medical books.
They didn't exist as a genre.
So my book kind of got filed with the
nursing textbooks and so I knew where to
put it and I've just been passionate my
whole life.
I was an engineer first and worked.
I did an engineering degree and then worked
(26:44):
for three years and that gives us a
language to understand structures and
systems and prosims and mechanisms and
dynamics and when I came into the hospital
system I found a completely disordered
system that was incredibly inefficient and
that hurt a lot of people and I saw so many
opportunities to re-engineer patient care
pathways and to provide better quality,
(27:06):
safer care that was just better for
everyone better for the workers in the
healthcare system as well as the patients
and which would save money.
And that's been my passion my whole life.
I've been a pioneer in patient safety.
I've been medical director of a hospital
and worked with a very inspirational
leadership and we actually completely
transformed the culture of a hospital.
(27:26):
We had the opportunity to design and build
and commission and open an entirely new
200-bed hospital in a disadvantaged
community where there had been no hospital
before and there was kind of like tsunami
of demand arrived in the emergency
department the first day.
We opened the doors and we did so much work
on compassion and caring and eliminating
(27:48):
bullying, which is very widespread in
healthcare, and creating a friendly and
compassionate environment.
And we're pioneers in patient safety like
after a terrible adverse event when a
patient was horribly injured and it was
number one story in the newspaper
nationally, we employed apology and open
disclosure and a radically different way of
addressing bad events and building trust
(28:10):
and rapport radically different way of
addressing, you know, bad events and
building trust and rapport.
And so I pursued that work relentlessly for
decade after decade after decade.
And then you know, I was just trying so
hard to bring more humanity and compassion
to the healthcare and finding it resisted
and I couldn't get it on the agenda of the
National Committee, I couldn't get it on
the agenda of the WHO.
So eventually, after the experiences of our
(28:32):
daughter, we thought, well, maybe there's
another approach.
So I quit all my committees and all my
roles and my job and so did Meredith, and
we founded an international movement for
compassionate healthcare and we wrote the
book Time to Care how to Love your Patients
and your Job, and traveled around the world
and that got translated into Dutch and
German and Hungarian and sparked movements
(28:53):
in those countries and we helped maybe tens
of thousands of individual health
professionals reconnect to the heart of the
practice and find more joy and satisfaction
and care for patients in a better way.
But the system itself just stubbornly
refused to change.
I mean, we had compelling evidence that
compassionate care gets much better
(29:13):
outcomes clinical outcomes for patients,
that it gives joy and satisfaction to the
work of you know doctors and nurses and
therapists and midwives that it
dramatically reduces patient demand.
There's even research in the USA looking at
how patient-centered is the care in primary
care.
Looking at how patient-centered is the care
in primary care and if you're above the
(29:33):
50th centile, so the 50% of people who get
more patient-centered care, the total cost
of health care is 30% less than the
patients who don't get patient-centered
care in primary care.
That's research from the USA.
I mean really stunning research showing
that we could save a vast amount of money.
So it's a win-win-win for the patients, for
the health professionals, for the funders,
(29:54):
the providers, the insurance companies.
And it should spread like wildfire and just
the system would not change.
And I began to dwell down into, you know, I
always ask the question why let's not blame
people, let's not just say they're greedy
or corrupted or whatever.
Let's really dig down and try to understand.
And greedy or corrupted or whatever, let's
really dig down and try to understand and
(30:15):
eventually, through coming to this healing
work, that Havening work and understanding
the extraordinary capacity of a conscious
human being to heal, realize that the
fundamental problem is the nature of our
science, this scientific materialism, the
science that reduces a human body to a
machine.
The science that assumes that mental
illness is the result of a chemical
imbalance therefore must be treated with a
(30:36):
drug.
This is the fundamental difficulty in our
society and it applies right across every
different field, whether it's health or
education, or housing or food production.
It's a set of societal myths and beliefs
about the nature of the world as an
unconscious machine.
And yet if we realize that human beings and
(30:58):
nature is conscious and alive, the
possibilities for change are just endless.
And I just kind of gradually, bit by bit,
through a variety of extraordinary
encounters with healers and others,
discovered that the scientific world as had
been described to me and that I was
immersed in was in no way a description of
the real world, and there's far more
(31:19):
sitting beyond that.
That's what eventually led me out of
medical practice and led me to understand
that really good people trying their best
to make healthcare better are just stuck,
because they're stuck in these mental
models of how we should try to fix things,
as if things are a machine, as if a
hospital is a complex machine.
So you need a command and control
(31:39):
management structure to address their
feelings and their beliefs and their
experiences.
We utterly transform clinical care.
Hilary Russo (31:46):
And everything you're saying reminds me of
just needing to be heard and understood.
And you know, I had a.
I had an example of a story that happened
with my mom, actually, when she was seeking
help from a new doctor and she was really
needing care and she wasn't getting care.
And this was, I don't know, maybe five
years ago or so, and we finally got an
(32:09):
appointment in with the doctor who she had
never met before, and when the doctor
actually walked in the room, she was
holding a clipboard.
She was frantic and she's like she was very
upset because she's like this is just
adding another patient to my plate and she
kind of directed her upset towards us.
But my mom and I looked at each other
(32:30):
because we both come from that
compassionate place and we were like we
kind of winked at each other because we
could tell, even though my mom was in pain,
this woman was just overworked.
And you talk about that in the book, the
physiological effects and the extreme
overwhelm and the fatigue, and actually I
talk about that a lot, with the secondary
traumatic stress and vicarious trauma and
(32:50):
compassion fatigue, especially coming from
the field of journalism.
You know, we call it the forgotten first
responders.
The way that we approached her was just
like I understand this, you must be so
overworked with so many people and like
just saying that to that doctor diffused
her and suddenly she sat down with us.
Diffused her and suddenly she sat down with
(33:12):
us and what was supposed to be 15 minutes
right, Because they usually only give you
about 15, turned into 45.
Because I think she just needed to know
that she was appreciated and heard and
needed a break.
We need more of that.
We definitely need more of that.
Dr. Robin Youngson (33:25):
And I think, as trauma therapists, when we
look at a doctor behaving like that, we're
seeing a very traumatized individual and
you talk about vicarious traumatization and
that's true.
But we need to take a step back and realize
that the process of medical training itself
is profoundly traumatizing, brutalizing,
dehumanizing.
I just I mean as what you would call a
(33:48):
resident, as an anesthesiology resident, in
a large city hospital.
You know, on a 15-hour shift one Saturday I
had three patients young patients in a row
that all died despite my best efforts.
There was no suggestion that I should stop
work or take time off or go for counseling
or take stress leave or whatever.
I was just expected to continue.
(34:09):
You know, reported all the deaths to the
coroner and wrote the records and, you know,
felt really traumatized and shocked and
grief stricken and I've and East I was five
more patients that day, all emergency cases,
and I remember I had a cup of tea and
trying to calm myself and I went to the
patient and I was doing informed consent
and I remember the thought in my head I
(34:29):
wonder if it should be part of informed
consent.
Should I tell this patient maybe you don't
want me as your anesthesiologist, because
my last three patients all died and I
thought, no, I'd better keep quiet about
that.
And then the Sunday I did another 15-hour
shift and then turned up for work at eight
o'clock on Monday and there was no debrief,
(34:50):
no counseling, no support.
I mean, you know, this is how we cause PTSD.
Most doctors I know have PTSD.
They have burnout, and the symptoms of that
are emotional exhaustion and
depersonalization and cynicism and a lack
of personal agency, like they feel their
work doesn't do any good anymore and the
patients, you know, are just demanding good
(35:10):
anymore and the patients, you know, are
just demanding too much.
And it's, you know what.
That's what you're describing is the doctor
that first presented and what you did
beautifully was empathize with her and, you
know, open up her heart a little bit, which
is a lovely story.
Hilary Russo (35:25):
I think about that a lot because you know
we get so frustrated in the healthcare
system.
Just getting on the phone and trying to get
an appointment sometimes is a struggle and
just knowing that and I have a lot of
friends, obviously, who are doctors as well
that still work in the system and it is
just daunting and wearing.
And it's not just about the patient, you
(35:47):
know, it's also about the person who's
providing the care and I want that person
to feel like they're cared for.
But it also comes back to what are you
doing to care for yourself?
So that let's circle back for a second,
because I'm curious what you think if and I
don't mean this to be a pitch, but quite
frankly I can see it working well, but can
(36:09):
you see an entire medical system that uses
behaving techniques in their approach, like
how different doctors and practitioners
would be?
Dr. Robin Youngson (36:18):
It would just be utterly transformative.
I was doing research into mothers with
severe PTSD as a result of childbirth
trauma, which about a quarter or a third of
all women in the Western world experience,
sadly, in our medicalized childbirth system.
She had severe PTSD 20 years after the
birth of her son, who had also been
rendered disabled, and she still looked
(36:40):
after him and you know her score for PTSD
symptoms was kind of off the chart and in
one session at Havening her score came down
really nearly to zero.
It was just typical the responses I saw.
And so she was cured of her PTSD in that
one session.
She went on to have two more Havening
sessions, not with me but with actually one
of my students I was supervising for two
(37:02):
other major life events.
Now this person was in her 50s, she was
overweight, she had type 2 diabetes.
Her diabetes was completely out of control.
Her blood glucose was nearly double what it
should be.
I mean really completely out of the safe
range.
She was on a lot of medication.
She was on a restricted diet.
She was looked after carefully by a
(37:24):
diabetic clinic doctors, specialists in the
field, but they couldn't get her blood
glucose under control.
But after the three happening sessions her
blood glucose fell by 40% and the long-term
measure of her blood glucose is a thing
called HbA1c which measures how blood kind
of affects the hemoglobin, how glucose
affects the hemoglobin in our blood over a
(37:45):
long period of time.
And that fell from 94 to 60.
And she had no change in medication, no
change in diet.
And the explanation is very simple that
simply as a result of healing the three
major traumas alive, her cortisol levels
fell.
So cortisol is a stress hormone and the
first an acute stress hormone and the first
job with cortisol is to tell the liver make
(38:06):
lots of glucose, so you've got lots of
energy for the fight and flight reaction.
Right, and she just had chronically
extremely high levels of cortisol.
That was pushing up the glucose way up.
Now obesity and diabetes is the biggest
threat to our health status.
In the whole world.
We have an epidemic of obesity and diabetes
and diabetes causes kidney failure and
(38:28):
arterial disease and blindness and
amputations and you know heart attacks, and
I mean it's just the biggest.
And if we actually just help people heal
their trauma, so many diabetics would
actually come back in control and
dramatically reduce, you know, their
complications.
I mean that's just one illustration.
Or patients with severe chronic pain.
(38:49):
I had a client with severe fibromyalgia for
40 years.
This is an extremely painful condition of
muscle inflammation and pain.
It was very disabling Even till I'm bad at
night.
It was acutely painful for her and she's
been on lots of medical treatments like
steroids, and we did four sessions of
Havening over a week and at the end of the
last session she danced on the mat behind
(39:11):
me a jig of delight because all of her
muscle pains are gone and her fibromyalgia
was cured.
These are conditions for which we have no
effect on medical treatments and Dr Gabor
Mate, who's a world authority on trauma, in
his new book the Myth of Normal, says that
if you have early life trauma, it changes
all your gene expression, it creates
(39:32):
inescapable physiological stress, it turns
on all your inflammatory mediators, all the
chemicals that cause inflammation, it
rewires the brain, it changes the whole
hormonal environment and that means that
you're four times more likely to develop
endometriosis or three times more likely to
get autoimmune disease or cancer or heart
disease, whatever.
These are much more important things than
(39:54):
smoking, cigarettes or high cholesterol or
all the things we try to attend to.
So if we had a healthcare system where we
actually treated people, patients as
conscious human beings and work with their
stories and their beliefs and their trauma
and their feelings.
We would utterly transform the whole
practice of medicine, but it might take a
while.
Hilary Russo (40:14):
But we have a while.
Dr. Robin Youngson (40:16):
Yeah.
Hilary Russo (40:17):
Right, and you mentioned earlier that you
have another birthday coming up and you've
been doing this, for you've been in the
medical field for 30 years.
You started as an engineer and you moved
into medicine, and I want to ask you what
would be next for you, like, where do you
want to go now, now that you have this book
(40:37):
out and you've been doing Havening?
Dr. Robin Youngson (40:39):
I kind of like to start to retire and take
it a bit easier, but I'm mindful of the
pile of great stories.
I mean, when I sent my original manuscript
to five editors to try and find it with a
sample chapter, three of them said you
should be writing medical thrillers.
So maybe that's the next thing, just as a
(40:59):
hobby career, you know in retirement, is
writing medical thrillers.
Hilary Russo (41:05):
Whatever brings you joy brings you joy.
I mean you're and and doing this for less
than five years, just in 2020, about five
years now, even if it's just been the last
five years and it's just, it's been the
most gratifying work I've ever done as a
doctor.
Dr. Robin Youngson (41:22):
I mean, I really just see miracles in front
of me every day.
It just blows people's minds, it's.
Hilary Russo (41:27):
It's so different from their experience of
spending three years telling their terrible
stories to a counselor or you know just um
and the astonishment that you see on
clients faces look, there are so many
wonderful psychotherapists out there, many
of which are Havening trainers and
practitioners my mentors but sometimes
telling the story over and over can be a
(41:50):
lot that could be traumatizing and
triggering as well.
So having different tools to support
yourself and, like you said, there is humor
in the healing, you know when we can look
back on something later and be able to
laugh a little bit.
That's part of just the joy that is our
human right, you know, the ability to just
be joyful and present and happy.
Dr. Robin Youngson (42:12):
But even in the process you know to have
someone in floods of tears and deep
distress with just briefly touching on the
memory of a just dreadfully traumatizing
event and within two minutes to see them
smiling and laughing and the energy
shifting, because this is a process that's
catalyzing a chemical reaction in the brain
that the brain is designed to do that
(42:33):
occurs in just a few minutes.
We evolved our safety systems to try and
keep us safe from many hazards in the world
of the amygdala.
It's like our emotional safety system and
it's evolved to encode or store a trauma in
just a few minutes to affect us for the
rest of our life.
But evolution is smart, so at the same time
it evolved a balancing chemical reaction
(42:56):
that does the exact opposite.
And that's the genius of Dr Ruden is to
uncover this extraordinary mechanism within
the brain and figure out ways to catalyze
it, to activate it and to connect that to
human touch and healing and connection, and
to write a very, very detailed scientific
(43:16):
model for exactly how this is working.
And as an anesthesiologist, I'm a very
skilled observer of human physiology and I
see major physiological changes occurring
within minutes as all the stress reactions
disappear and everything that the
scientific theory predicts I see come out
true and it gives us such precise
diagnostics tools.
(43:38):
I mean it's very precise work.
I mean there's an art to it and there's a
science to it.
But I'm a standard that such a powerful and
simple theory plays out with such veracity
in so many clients.
I've never seen a client that's behaved in
a way that said no, no, no, this is not
right.
There's something wrong with the theory.
(43:59):
It's a better predictor of what happens
than a lot of medical, scientific theories.
Hilary Russo (44:04):
Yeah, love that.
Thank you so much for sharing that.
I want to mention again.
The book is the Science of Miracles.
Hold it up, it's a little fuzzy there.
There we go, science of Miracles.
We're going to put everything in the notes
of the podcast so that you can grab Robin's
book, or even Time to Heal, which was his
first book, even some links on how to get
in touch with him and find him, because
it's easy to find you which I love.
(44:26):
You put out some really beautiful content,
but also if you're interested in learning
more about Havening, we'll have some
information about that.
Or if you're in the medical field, or if
you are a practitioner, a doctor, a nurse,
first responder, my goodness, you don't
even need to be in the field to put
Havening into your life, as both of us are
trainers.
We have regular training so that you can
(44:47):
learn how to learn about the fundamentals,
learn about the science, the history of
Havening, and even go on and get
certification and mentorship, so that's a
possibility as well.
All of that will be there, but what I want
to do with you first well, not first, but
the next step I'd love to hold space for
you, robin is I would love to play a little
(45:08):
game with you.
I do this on my podcast.
Every episode, my guests get to play a
little word association, and what I have
been doing is writing down some words, and
what I'd love for you to do is just come
back with the first word that comes to mind.
Dr. Robin Youngson (45:22):
All right, so it's like fun Makes me
slightly nervous.
Hilary Russo (45:26):
I get that a lot.
Okay, here we go.
Compassionate Healing.
Dr. Robin Youngson (45:35):
Stress, healing Safety.
I just kind of feel like the idea of kind
of wrapping this nest of safety around
people.
Yeah, nest Nesting.
Hilary Russo (45:48):
Nesting.
That's a good word, I like that.
Dr. Robin Youngson (45:53):
Connection, humanity or humanness.
Bullying.
Hilary Russo (45:59):
Trauma, that was my next word.
Dr. Robin Youngson (46:04):
Trauma.
There's no word coming up.
I mean, it's such a massive, no one word.
Curiosity there you go.
Hilary Russo (46:12):
Okay, I like that You've reframed that.
Reframe that Humor.
Dr. Robin Youngson (46:17):
Yeah and laughter.
Hilary Russo (46:20):
Havening.
Blessing, oh I like that and two more words
Care.
Dr. Robin Youngson (46:31):
Touch.
Hilary Russo (46:34):
This is good, Robin.
And final word, miracles.
Dr. Robin Youngson (46:39):
Miracles.
Well, einstein said we can either live our
lives as if there are no miracles, or we
can live our lives as if everything is a
miracle.
Yeah, conscious living beings are
miraculous, whether it's human beings or
nature itself.
Now, if we want to solve the climate crisis,
we just have to allow nature to heal itself,
(47:01):
can do so rapidly.
We have to stop trying to fix it.
We have to stop trying to fix human beings,
because they heal themselves so much better.
Hilary Russo (47:10):
And they're not broken.
Dr. Robin Youngson (47:11):
No, well, perfectly broken.
Perfectly and perfectly broken that was the
title of my TEDx talk.
Is it Perfectly broken and ready to heal?
Hilary Russo (47:21):
Love that.
Dr. Robin Youngson (47:22):
Yeah.
Hilary Russo (47:23):
Love that we're going to share that as well.
That's great.
This was such a joy.
I am so, so happy that we were able to
cross continents and waters and share this
time together.
You're a delight, you're a gift.
Dr. Robin Youngson (47:37):
Thank you.
Hilary Russo (47:38):
I'm just so elated to have you here.
We're going to share everything in the
podcast notes, but please, I want to offer
you a moment and invite you to share with
those who are tuning in to HIListically
Speaking.
What would you like for them to walk away
with from this episode?
Dr. Robin Youngson (47:54):
Yeah, I would just love people to
understand that they have just
extraordinary healing power within
themselves.
Yeah, just seek out whatever modality.
Seek out a practitioner who's going to see
you and connect with you and believe in you
and help you facilitate your own healing,
because that will just unfold miraculous
(48:16):
changes for you yeah, just being a human
being over a human doing.
Yeah, being the most authentic version of
ourselves someone said to me
tongue-in-cheek well, robin, you spent your
whole life putting people to sleep and now
you're waking them up.
Hilary Russo (48:35):
That is brilliant.
That needs to be on your business card.
That's a very clever way of putting it, and
how did that resonate with you when you
heard it?
Dr. Robin Youngson (48:46):
I laughed yeah, that's great Robin, thank
you so much.
It was a pleasure having you.
It's a pleasure, thank you.
Hilary Russo (48:57):
All right, my friend, if you want to learn
more about Dr Robin Youngstinner, even pick
up a copy of his latest book, the Science
of Miracles or perhaps you want to learn
more about Havening techniques, whether
it's putting it into your own personal life
or being part of your profession, your
practice.
All of the information you need is in the
notes of this podcast episode, including
(49:17):
all of the books that we've had on
HIListically Speaking in the HIListically
Speaking Podcast Library.
And if this conversation touched, moved and
inspired you in any way, if you know one
person where this conversation could make a
difference, consider paying it forward.
Pass it along.
You never know who it could touch.
HIListically Speaking is edited by 2Market
(49:39):
Media, with music by my dear friend,
Lipbone Redding and, of course, supported
by you.
So thank you for taking time to spend the
time with me here and tune in.
Week after week, it doesn't go unnoticed,
and I want to leave you with one thing I
want you to remember that everything you
need you have within yourself to be able to
heal, to find the support you need, the
(50:01):
compassionate care that is out there in
this world, to hug it out with yourself and
to be kind to your mind.
I'm here to support you.
I love you, I believe in you and I'm
sending hugs your way, Be well.
Trauma healing is kind of a shortcut to
greater enlightenment and to deeper
compassion and to non-attachment, Because
if we let go of the pain and the hurt and
the trauma then we come back to our true
compassionate selves.
Naturally it's just so beautiful to see.
Hilary Russo (00:17):
Why are so many medical doctors walking
away from the health care system?
Actually, maybe we need to call that
something else.
We don't have a health care system.
We have a sick healthcare system.
Actually, maybe we need to call that
something else.
We don't have a healthcare system, we have
a sick care system, and it's not just in
the US either.
Around the world, there are problems with
healthcare that are causing many doctors to
(00:38):
make different choices on how they want to
be in practice, support their patients,
support their clients and show up for those
they're serving and also themselves to help
them heal and to also live well.
Maybe this has been your story, and don't
get me wrong.
There are so many wonderful doctors and
(00:59):
nurses and practitioners in the healthcare
system that are practicing compassionate
care, seeking to look for the root cause,
to not just look at the symptom and to
genuinely look by using holistic approaches
that treat the whole body right.
That holistic means whole body, and I work
(01:20):
with many of them as a holistic
practitioner myself, and I'm grateful for
the work they do.
I work with many of them as a holistic
practitioner myself, and I'm grateful for
the work they do.
This is about the system they work in, not
the person, the one that is not showing up
for the caregiver.
That's what we're seeing a lot, and the
(01:47):
word that I want to focus on right there is
care, compassionate care.
Well, dr Robin Youngson, you are one of
those doctors, with over 30 years as an
anesthesiologist working with the World
Health Organization, being an advisor in
New Zealand with the government on patient
safety and healthcare quality and
compassionate care, and you're also a
fellow Havening practitioner and trainer,
which is the work you have gone into, and,
my goodness, what a joy it is to have you
here, because you're the kind of doctor
(02:09):
that we need more of in this world.
So, thank you for being here.
It's so good to see you, robin.
Dr. Robin Youngson (02:14):
Thank you, Hilary.
I'm delighted to be invited on your program.
Thank you so much.
Hilary Russo (02:18):
Absolutely.
I have been wanting to talk to you for
quite some time.
We obviously don't get to connect too much
because we're on opposite sides of the
world but we do get to connect through the
Havening world, being that we're both
practitioners and trainers of the field.
You've been a trainer quite some time as
well, but you took a pretty bold step, and
I know we're going to talk about your
latest book, which is the Science of
(02:39):
Miracles, which I can't put down.
In fact, I keep reading chapters over and
over because it's such a personal story.
But I think, for those who are tuning in,
what I really want to touch on first is how
does somebody with an entire career as a
doctor and someone who actually started as
an engineer and got into medicine how do
you make a choice to walk away from your
(02:59):
practice?
How do you make a choice to walk away from
your practice and possibly your patients
and the system that kept you employed for
so long, and you only made this choice in
2020.
So we'd love to know that story.
Dr. Robin Youngson (03:14):
Yeah Well, that was.
I'd have to say that was an absolutely
terrifying decision to make.
I mean, unlike most of my peers
anesthesiologists who earned a lot of money
and have a big flesh house and my wife and
I have devoted so much of our lives to
trying to improve the system, to campaign
around the world I actually spent all of
(03:36):
our money doing that work.
You know, I'm nearly I'll be 69 in a couple
of weeks.
We don't have any savings, I'm still paying
a mortgage, we're not financially secure.
And to walk away from a job as an
anesthesiologist with all that financial
security and status and power and
reputation, and to step into a kind of
(03:58):
alternative healthcare field which my
colleagues, medical colleagues, would
regard, as you know, woo-woo or strange or
even fraudulent, was just an
extraordinarily difficult decision to make
and I'm grateful to my wife, meredith, for
supporting me in that.
But basically I've spent my entire life
trying to make healthcare better and
provide compassionate care to the people we
(04:19):
serve, and I just saw that there were much
better ways of doing that outside of the
system and, in particular, having learned
about Havening techniques and seeing the
miracles that unfold every day in our
clinics.
And then COVID hit and in actual fact, the
contract medical work I was doing
disappeared overnight.
So I had zero income.
(04:40):
So I had no choice but to make a success of
my own clinic, and that was four and a half
years ago.
Hilary Russo (04:46):
Amazing, when you look back on it, how
you've grown over the years and you're
really one of those folks that pop up when,
if you're putting in Havening on YouTube,
you know there's a number of us that pop up.
But I have to say a number of folks will
come to me if they've never heard of
Havening.
There was some gentleman that popped up and
he was doing stuff about Havening.
I'm like, oh, that's probably Robin,
(05:06):
because you really have brought attention
to Havening and the world of Havening and
just how this is a neuroscience based
modality that can help people rapidly heal
from anxiety, depression, ptsd, phobias,
relationship difficulties, sleep, chronic
pain.
And you saw that as a doctor.
(05:28):
And here you are flipping on the other side
and seeing it's not so much about what the
doctor does, but what we can do for
ourselves and put the healing in our own
hands.
Dr. Robin Youngson (05:38):
Yeah, but I have to admit that I was deeply
skeptical about Havening.
So how I came across it was that my wife,
Meredith and I had made many trips to
Louisville and Kentucky, which you might
not know is under the International Charter
for Compassion.
Louisville is the model compassionate city
in the USA.
Led by a very inspirational mayor, we were
(06:00):
invited into the city to try and bring more
compassion into healthcare across very many
different organizations across an entire
city.
And that was the home of Harry Pickens,
who's a renowned Haydening trainer and
extraordinary man and a world-famous jazz
musician.
And so he became a very dear friend and for
about two years he was trying to persuade
(06:20):
me to take an interest in Haydening and I
said what's that?
He said well, you can have the worst trauma
in the world and you just stroke your arms
and your face and your hands for 15 minutes
and the trauma can be erased.
And I'd never heard anything so ridiculous.
And even though he's a very esteemed friend
and colleague, I completely ignored his
entreaties for several years and then he
(06:40):
wrote a whole book about it, called 15
Minutes to Freedom.
I don't know if you've interviewed Harry he
would be a great subject.
Hilary Russo (06:47):
He's on the list.
Dr. Robin Youngson (06:49):
To my shame, I didn't even buy his book,
even though he's a great friend.
But my wife, meredith, had a copy in her
room and every time I went into a room I'd
see his book on the shelf.
It was like a reproach to me, and so one
day I said hey, darling, can I borrow your
book?
And I sat down and read it and I got
intrigued, because he interviewed Dr Ronald
Ruden, the developer of Havening, and
(07:09):
shared something about the science which
intrigued me, and then a lot of stories
from practitioners and from clients, and I
thought, hey, maybe there's something to
this.
So I did what we all do I sat down at my
computer and did a Google search for
Haydening and I came across a video of Dr
Ruden Havening, someone for a severe phobia
of bridges.
(07:30):
So this poor woman, while driving across a
very high bridge over a waterway in a
tremendous rainstorm the rain fell so
heavily she couldn't see the lines on the
road, couldn't see the other vehicles,
couldn't see the barriers became
disorientated.
She had kids in the back.
She thought she was going to die.
She had a panic attack and then over a
number of years, the phobia got worse and
worse and spread to other bridges until
(07:52):
eventually she couldn't drive across any
bridge at all, even a really small bridge,
and her life had kind of shrunk down.
And Dr she chose to do the Havening touch
to herself what we call Havening and Dr
Ruden took her through the simplest
protocol, which is to raise her traumatic
memory, and in 15 minutes and that's how
long the video is her trauma and her fear
(08:14):
was completely gone and she sat there
completely astounded.
And then he said well, should we go and
check it out?
And she said what do you mean?
And he said well, we're not far from that
bridge, you know.
Would you want to get in the car and check
it out?
And she kind of looked at him aghast but
eventually agreed.
So she drove across the bridge with no
reaction at all.
And I watched this video and sat on my
(08:36):
computer for quite some time shaking my
head in disbelief that this terrible fear
had been erased in 15 minutes.
And then I began thinking about some of the
very traumatic events I've experienced as a
doctor, like a young mother bleeding to
death in front of me despite my best
efforts.
Then I had this crazy thought what if I try
it?
So I rewound the video and copied the
(08:57):
entire process.
I copied the touch and I copied the
distractions.
At the end of 15 minutes I could not
connect into my traumatic event at all.
It was a race in my mind.
I could remember objectively the effects of
it and I just sat there again completely
astounded and thought no, I've got to train
in this.
So I discovered there's a training course
(09:17):
in Melbourne three weeks later in Australia,
and Louise Kami and Donna Ryan were flying
from the UK and the USA to run that course
and On the first day of the course I
volunteered to be a subject for Havening in
front of the class and had my fear,
profound fear of abandonment that I'd had
for 52 years was erased in 15 minutes as a
(09:38):
demonstration in front of the class.
I mean that was really life-changing and so
that was 2018.
So I've never looked back, really.
Hilary Russo (09:47):
I think a lot of us have a very similar
story.
That's how Havening came into my life as
well.
I was not a doctor for 30 years.
I did not have a background and I was
coming from a completely different field in
journalism.
And yet that one day, that first day of the
workshop on stage with Dr Ron Ruden, I
volunteered as well and I never looked back.
(10:08):
I'm like I remember, saying I've got to put
this into my practice Because there is a
skepticism, you know and.
I think that is what's so beautiful about
more people in the medical field that are
seeing its value, whether they are still in
the actual medical system and the
healthcare system.
You know, some of the folks I've been
(10:29):
recently training are doctors, are nurses,
are first responders and at least are
taking a chance to see.
This is something that could help put the
tools in somebody else's hands to you know
to help themselves.
But that's just part of the story and thank
you so much for sharing that.
I love hearing that story too.
I've heard the bridge story from Ron before
(10:50):
and, yes, shout out to Harry Pickens as
well.
He's wonderful.
We have so many wonderful people in this
community, including yourself, but your
work getting to this point.
I want to go back a little bit, because as
someone who's been in the system for so
long, and you even mentioned having your
own traumas as a child, and you mentioned
in your book, which is the Science of
(11:11):
Miracles.
This is your latest book, which is One
Doctor's Journey to Find Hope and Healing
Beyond the Broken Medical System.
My friends, please put this in your library.
It is a beautiful read.
It is such a personal read, Robin, that to
learn about you before your time as a
doctor, but also during your time and then
(11:32):
making that decision to walk away, really,
really builds the story, which is different
from your first book, which was Time to
Care, which sparked this international
movement about why compassionate care is so
important.
So I so, as somebody who's been in this
field for so long and then moved away from
it, like you just shared.
(11:52):
Where was it where it clicked in you to say
I need to write my personal story, Like I
need to put it out there, I need to share
it this way?
Dr. Robin Youngson (12:01):
Yeah, so that's a bit of a.
It's been a long journey.
I've been working on that book for three
and a half years and I've actually written
the whole book three times a half years and
I've actually written the whole book three
times.
And I really struggle to know what kind of
a book, because my previous book, time to
Care, was written as a nonfiction book, you
know, with 200 scientific references and
(12:21):
lots of arguments and so on.
It had a lot of personal stories as well
that really connect to the heart of people.
But we learned on our international
campaign work on compassionate healthcare
that if you try to persuade people, you
just create resistance Because they're
deeply embodied in their own worldview and
their beliefs and ways of working and if
(12:41):
you suggest something different it's in
some ways threatening to them or they have
to give up something or learn something new.
I learned something new and eventually we
evolved ways of not preaching to people but
putting people in a circle and getting them
to share their stories of compassionate
connection and human connection and healing.
And they would learn from those stories and
(13:03):
hear the stories in the group and remind
themselves of all these precious gifts of
caring, compassion and empathy that they
have.
And what an amazing life-saving difference
it made.
So we found more subtle ways of influencing
people for them to find it within
themselves.
So I wrote a kind of non-fiction book which
is a kind of mismatch, you know, partly
(13:23):
autobiographical, partly non-fiction.
You know I tried to make arguments and then
send it to a professional editor and said,
look, I want you to review the book and
tell me what you think, and spent a fair
amount of money on that.
And she was very helpful and she said well,
it's just not working in this mismatch, but
if you wrote a medical memoir it could be
(13:44):
effective.
There's really not a single argument in the
whole book.
I don't try to persuade anyone to do
anything, but if I share my story, if I can
get people on board with my passion, my
story and my hurts and my wounds and my
traumas and my struggles against the system
and eventually finding the light, then they
might come along with me on that story.
(14:04):
So that was the third version and then it
ended up far too long, like 153,000 words,
just far too long for a book.
There were so many wonderful stories and in
one week I cut 40,000 words out and that
made me nearly physically sick.
I mean, it was such a painful process to
throw out so many wonderful stories, but
the book is better for it.
So that's how we ended up with just.
(14:26):
And then I decided to dramatize it, you
know, write it like a thriller, write it as
a dramatized nonfiction and really get
people into the stories.
So that's that's how it ended up.
And then I found a professional editor,
beth Derry in the UK, who's done a
wonderful job and took it on as a passion
project and helped me out.
Hilary Russo (14:46):
Somebody that saw the gift that you were
giving.
Dr. Robin Youngson (14:48):
Yeah, thank you.
Hilary Russo (14:50):
Yeah, you mentioned that it was painful to
cut a lot of those stories, and what that
kind of reminds me of is when we're working
with our clients and this is something that
comes up and you want to reinforce to them,
because sometimes they don't want to get
rid of their trauma.
They feel like they're getting rid of the
story or what built up that story.
(15:11):
And it's a reminder to them.
It's like this is part of a chapter in your
book, but it doesn't mean you're, you can
read, you can rewrite the narrative, but it
doesn't take away this, because sometimes
people are angry or they're like no, no, if
I forget it, it means it didn't I'm.
You know, I'm taking blame away from
whoever did whatever they did, or the upset,
and it's quite the contrary.
(15:33):
So when you mentioned that you took pages
out of this final copy, what was that
feeling that you were truly feeling?
Dr. Robin Youngson (15:41):
Yeah, I mean I think you're right.
I'm not going to answer that question
directly because I want to come back to
your point and that is I mean the work that
we do in trauma is really all about stories.
And here I'm sitting in my clinic room and
you can't see a lot of it, but it's
actually full of curious objects and
historical things and you know gifts to me
from my and all sorts of things, and you
(16:02):
know I work a lot with kids as well and I
said come in, pick anything up, play with
anything, because we're really working with
stories.
And the beautiful thing about this work is
that I'm very careful to explain to clients
that you're not going to lose.
If you've lost a loved one in a very
traumatic way, you're not going to lose the
memory of your loved one.
In fact, at the moment, all you can
(16:23):
remember is the terrible, traumatic last
hours or days and you can't even connect to
who that beautiful person was.
And if we take the trauma away, then all of
the lovely stories of that loved one are
going to come forward and you're going to
be able to grieve in a healthy way.
And when we've.
You know, every difficult life experience,
every trauma, carries gifts within it and I
(16:46):
often say that the people who have become
the very best practitioners are those
who've had their own severe trauma and gone
through a path of healing.
And then they bring the gifts of empathy
and compassion and non-judgment and
understanding and faith and healing and
they bring those gifts forwards in service
of others.
And so when we let go of the trauma, we
(17:06):
actually liberate our deeper gifts and we
come to a place of compassion.
Naturally, you know, forgiveness is not
required because people just come to a
place of of ease and healing and compassion.
And then they see that, you know, the
perpetrator was themselves working out,
acting out of their own trauma.
Um, and it's um, yeah, it's really.
(17:28):
One of my clients was was a Buddhist monk.
I was a bit surprised because I thought you
spent 20 years meditating on non-attachment
and letting go of anger and you know hurt
and why are you coming to my clinic?
And it's just a human being like everyone
else.
But you know, in some ways trauma healing
is kind of a shortcut to greater
(17:48):
enlightenment and to deeper compassion and
to non-attachment, because if we let go of
the pain and the hurt and the trauma, then
we come back to our true compassionate
selves.
Naturally, it's just so beautiful to see.
Hilary Russo (18:02):
I love how you put that.
It's so true and in this day and age, the
word trauma is such a buzzword and there
are a lot of words out there that have
become buzzwords on the internet and you
it's holding space for those because you
don't want to lessen what they're feeling
or their story.
And you're right, it is, it's the story
before it's anything.
(18:23):
But you can rewrite that story so that this
next chapter can be the gifts, the lessons,
lessons and the learning right and building
that resiliency.
We talk about that a lot in Havening as
well as building the resiliency.
But for yourself, when you had to make a
choice to remove thousands of words and
(18:44):
pages, you said it was very painful.
Why was that?
Dr. Robin Youngson (18:49):
Because for so many years years we've been
dealing in the most extraordinary stories
of human connection and compassion and
healing and I mean some of those stories
just would move anyone to tears.
I mean they're just the most precious,
profound stories that have been kind of
gifted to us.
Gifted to us and some of the stories are
just hysterically funny and just like you
(19:12):
know, if you were reading a novel it would
just be so engaging and funny or exciting
and so I just had to throw away.
I mean there's probably another whole book
worth.
Hilary Russo (19:22):
That's what I was going to say.
I'm like what about a second book?
Because those stories, I imagine, are
healing for you too.
Dr. Robin Youngson (19:29):
It's therapeutic.
Hilary Russo (19:29):
For you to write it down.
Dr. Robin Youngson (19:31):
Yeah, I actually cried a lot writing my
book because, as a result of my childhood
trauma and the way I grew up and then
entering into medicine which in medical
training is profoundly dehumanizing and
brutalizing and I speak about some of those
things in my book and really I became a
very highly trained anesthesiologist and
(19:52):
intensive care doctor in our biggest trauma
hospital, doing all the glamorous
specialties of neurosurgery and trauma and
transplant and everything else really at
the peak of my career, but disconnected
from my feelings, and I was always kind as
a doctor and I always maintained some
compassion.
One of the stories in the book is about our
(20:13):
18-year-old daughter, chloe, when she broke
her neck and her back and ended up three
months in our biggest trauma hospital and
the quality of clinical care was pretty
good, but how they treated her as a human
being was just so beyond belief and neglect
of her basic human needs.
Now, looking back on those times, I mean it
was a familiar environment in a hospital in
which I'd worked.
(20:34):
So I kind of retained, in a sense, my
clinical detachment and even though the
events that I was seeing were distressing,
you know, I was kind of a bit detached or
dissociated from it.
But when I wrote the story again, 20 years
on.
I mean, I just sobbed because the result of
I've done this work of getting into the
world of healing and Havening and trauma
(20:55):
I've actually healed so much of my own
wounds and come back to my full humanity
and, you know, connected to my feelings
story and I'd write it in such a powerful
way and I was able to experience that event
you know, with with everything, with every
(21:15):
part of my being, and to to sob and to cry,
and it was was cathartic and healing, um,
and it makes the story sound and you know,
being a trauma therapist gives us the
language right of feelings, animations and
I mean it's enabled me to write more
powerfully and so, yeah, so it's been, it's
been healing.
Hilary Russo (21:34):
I'm glad, I'm so happy that's been your
experience and I couldn't agree with you
more that so much of the work that we do
comes from our own healings involved in
that.
It makes you more empathetic and
compassionate.
We we're coming from that space already, so
(21:56):
that's definitely something I think about a
lot.
And just showing up for people.
It's not just sitting across from somebody
anymore like tell me your feelings and
writing down and being judged like some
therapist versus patient kind of thing.
It's a relationship you're building, it's a
trust.
There's a vulnerability on both sides.
Dr. Robin Youngson (22:14):
And it's.
I mean, I've come to realize that it's
pretty much the complete 180 degree
opposite of medical practice in terms of
the power relationship and in terms about
our you know assumptions about what is
making a patient or a client better,
because in the medical world we pretty much
reduce a human being to a complex chemical
machine.
(22:34):
I mean, the entire basis of evidence-based
medical practice is a placebo-controlled,
randomized, controlled trial that removes
any influence of human consciousness from
the basis of medical science and medical
practice and medical treatment.
So that means that when you go and see your
GP, he's not going to listen to your
stories or experiences or emotions or your
(22:56):
feelings or your beliefs.
He's going to measure your blood pressure
and your cholesterol and put you on a pill
right In a 15-minute appointment.
So the work I do now is the complete
opposite because as a trauma therapist, I'm
not doing any healing to anyone at all.
As we know, Dr Ron Ruden has given us a
very sophisticated scientific theory around
(23:18):
the mechanisms by which the brain can heal
itself and what we're doing is creating the
conditions for that healing to occur within
the client.
So we're facilitating a natural process and
the power relationship has to be soar 180
degrees because you have to be led by the
client's desires and feelings and wishes
and you're in service to the client's story
(23:42):
as opposed and facilitating a process of
healing within the client.
So that was kind of a radical relearning
for me.
It's taken me perhaps 20 years to make that
shift.
Hilary Russo (23:52):
I love what you just shared.
You're a servant to the client's story.
Dr. Robin Youngson (23:57):
Yeah, it's beautiful.
Hilary Russo (23:58):
Yeah, that is really beautiful and I want
to.
I think I'll be using that in future
trainings.
We've learned so much from the modality,
the neuroscience-based approach, that both
Dr Youngson, robin and myself use in our
practice.
As you know.
(24:18):
It's a beautiful healing approach that puts
the power of active emotional well-being in
your hands, something you can use without
even our help.
You know you can do this every day to
self-regulate and self-soothe, for
self-care.
Obviously, for deeper rooted upsets and
traumas, always good to work with a
certified practitioner so you have support.
(24:38):
Never good to do trauma work on your own.
But this is a beautiful approach and I'm
going to put some information in the notes
about Havening and also how to get in touch
with Robin and also to grab the book the
Science of Miracles, and I'm also going to
put a link in there for Time to Care,
because they're two very different books,
but I think they're both really beautiful
books to have in your library.
As we're building the HIListically Speaking
(25:00):
Podcast Library, people will never run out
of reading by listening to this podcast,
that's for sure, because I always have the
best on here.
And Dr Ron and Dr Steve Ruden, who are
brothers here, and Dr Ron and Dr Steve
Ruden, who are brothers, co-developed the
Havening technique and it is by far the
(25:21):
go-to for me and, I know, for you.
For you, the one thing I would love to talk
about a little bit is you know you've
worked with the World Health Organization,
you've worked with the government in New
Zealand, where you're located, and how has
that been for you as far as the reception
and going forward being in this area of
health, now care, now.
Dr. Robin Youngson (25:42):
I mean that's a major theme in the book
because I mean I first started trying to
change healthcare as a junior doctor, as an
intern.
I wrote my first book, which was a handbook
for surgical patients, explaining to them
what happens when you go in a hospital and
who are all the staff and what are these
tests, and will I die if that little bubble
in the IV line gets into my vein?
(26:03):
And there's so many questions like that
because I discovered as a junior doctor
working a hundred hours a week in the UK,
that the patients were so afraid and so
uneducated and didn't know no one really
talked to them as human beings and I felt
so motivated to try to give them some
knowledge and some power.
But I was far ahead of my time in those
(26:23):
days.
This is about 1990.
Bookshops did not have a shelf for kind of
self-help medical books.
They didn't exist as a genre.
So my book kind of got filed with the
nursing textbooks and so I knew where to
put it and I've just been passionate my
whole life.
I was an engineer first and worked.
I did an engineering degree and then worked
(26:44):
for three years and that gives us a
language to understand structures and
systems and prosims and mechanisms and
dynamics and when I came into the hospital
system I found a completely disordered
system that was incredibly inefficient and
that hurt a lot of people and I saw so many
opportunities to re-engineer patient care
pathways and to provide better quality,
(27:06):
safer care that was just better for
everyone better for the workers in the
healthcare system as well as the patients
and which would save money.
And that's been my passion my whole life.
I've been a pioneer in patient safety.
I've been medical director of a hospital
and worked with a very inspirational
leadership and we actually completely
transformed the culture of a hospital.
(27:26):
We had the opportunity to design and build
and commission and open an entirely new
200-bed hospital in a disadvantaged
community where there had been no hospital
before and there was kind of like tsunami
of demand arrived in the emergency
department the first day.
We opened the doors and we did so much work
on compassion and caring and eliminating
(27:48):
bullying, which is very widespread in
healthcare, and creating a friendly and
compassionate environment.
And we're pioneers in patient safety like
after a terrible adverse event when a
patient was horribly injured and it was
number one story in the newspaper
nationally, we employed apology and open
disclosure and a radically different way of
addressing bad events and building trust
(28:10):
and rapport radically different way of
addressing, you know, bad events and
building trust and rapport.
And so I pursued that work relentlessly for
decade after decade after decade.
And then you know, I was just trying so
hard to bring more humanity and compassion
to the healthcare and finding it resisted
and I couldn't get it on the agenda of the
National Committee, I couldn't get it on
the agenda of the WHO.
So eventually, after the experiences of our
(28:32):
daughter, we thought, well, maybe there's
another approach.
So I quit all my committees and all my
roles and my job and so did Meredith, and
we founded an international movement for
compassionate healthcare and we wrote the
book Time to Care how to Love your Patients
and your Job, and traveled around the world
and that got translated into Dutch and
German and Hungarian and sparked movements
(28:53):
in those countries and we helped maybe tens
of thousands of individual health
professionals reconnect to the heart of the
practice and find more joy and satisfaction
and care for patients in a better way.
But the system itself just stubbornly
refused to change.
I mean, we had compelling evidence that
compassionate care gets much better
(29:13):
outcomes clinical outcomes for patients,
that it gives joy and satisfaction to the
work of you know doctors and nurses and
therapists and midwives that it
dramatically reduces patient demand.
There's even research in the USA looking at
how patient-centered is the care in primary
care.
Looking at how patient-centered is the care
in primary care and if you're above the
(29:33):
50th centile, so the 50% of people who get
more patient-centered care, the total cost
of health care is 30% less than the
patients who don't get patient-centered
care in primary care.
That's research from the USA.
I mean really stunning research showing
that we could save a vast amount of money.
So it's a win-win-win for the patients, for
the health professionals, for the funders,
(29:54):
the providers, the insurance companies.
And it should spread like wildfire and just
the system would not change.
And I began to dwell down into, you know, I
always ask the question why let's not blame
people, let's not just say they're greedy
or corrupted or whatever.
Let's really dig down and try to understand.
And greedy or corrupted or whatever, let's
really dig down and try to understand and
(30:15):
eventually, through coming to this healing
work, that Havening work and understanding
the extraordinary capacity of a conscious
human being to heal, realize that the
fundamental problem is the nature of our
science, this scientific materialism, the
science that reduces a human body to a
machine.
The science that assumes that mental
illness is the result of a chemical
imbalance therefore must be treated with a
(30:36):
drug.
This is the fundamental difficulty in our
society and it applies right across every
different field, whether it's health or
education, or housing or food production.
It's a set of societal myths and beliefs
about the nature of the world as an
unconscious machine.
And yet if we realize that human beings and
(30:58):
nature is conscious and alive, the
possibilities for change are just endless.
And I just kind of gradually, bit by bit,
through a variety of extraordinary
encounters with healers and others,
discovered that the scientific world as had
been described to me and that I was
immersed in was in no way a description of
the real world, and there's far more
(31:19):
sitting beyond that.
That's what eventually led me out of
medical practice and led me to understand
that really good people trying their best
to make healthcare better are just stuck,
because they're stuck in these mental
models of how we should try to fix things,
as if things are a machine, as if a
hospital is a complex machine.
So you need a command and control
(31:39):
management structure to address their
feelings and their beliefs and their
experiences.
We utterly transform clinical care.
Hilary Russo (31:46):
And everything you're saying reminds me of
just needing to be heard and understood.
And you know, I had a.
I had an example of a story that happened
with my mom, actually, when she was seeking
help from a new doctor and she was really
needing care and she wasn't getting care.
And this was, I don't know, maybe five
years ago or so, and we finally got an
(32:09):
appointment in with the doctor who she had
never met before, and when the doctor
actually walked in the room, she was
holding a clipboard.
She was frantic and she's like she was very
upset because she's like this is just
adding another patient to my plate and she
kind of directed her upset towards us.
But my mom and I looked at each other
(32:30):
because we both come from that
compassionate place and we were like we
kind of winked at each other because we
could tell, even though my mom was in pain,
this woman was just overworked.
And you talk about that in the book, the
physiological effects and the extreme
overwhelm and the fatigue, and actually I
talk about that a lot, with the secondary
traumatic stress and vicarious trauma and
(32:50):
compassion fatigue, especially coming from
the field of journalism.
You know, we call it the forgotten first
responders.
The way that we approached her was just
like I understand this, you must be so
overworked with so many people and like
just saying that to that doctor diffused
her and suddenly she sat down with us.
Diffused her and suddenly she sat down with
(33:12):
us and what was supposed to be 15 minutes
right, Because they usually only give you
about 15, turned into 45.
Because I think she just needed to know
that she was appreciated and heard and
needed a break.
We need more of that.
We definitely need more of that.
Dr. Robin Youngson (33:25):
And I think, as trauma therapists, when we
look at a doctor behaving like that, we're
seeing a very traumatized individual and
you talk about vicarious traumatization and
that's true.
But we need to take a step back and realize
that the process of medical training itself
is profoundly traumatizing, brutalizing,
dehumanizing.
I just I mean as what you would call a
(33:48):
resident, as an anesthesiology resident, in
a large city hospital.
You know, on a 15-hour shift one Saturday I
had three patients young patients in a row
that all died despite my best efforts.
There was no suggestion that I should stop
work or take time off or go for counseling
or take stress leave or whatever.
I was just expected to continue.
(34:09):
You know, reported all the deaths to the
coroner and wrote the records and, you know,
felt really traumatized and shocked and
grief stricken and I've and East I was five
more patients that day, all emergency cases,
and I remember I had a cup of tea and
trying to calm myself and I went to the
patient and I was doing informed consent
and I remember the thought in my head I
(34:29):
wonder if it should be part of informed
consent.
Should I tell this patient maybe you don't
want me as your anesthesiologist, because
my last three patients all died and I
thought, no, I'd better keep quiet about
that.
And then the Sunday I did another 15-hour
shift and then turned up for work at eight
o'clock on Monday and there was no debrief,
(34:50):
no counseling, no support.
I mean, you know, this is how we cause PTSD.
Most doctors I know have PTSD.
They have burnout, and the symptoms of that
are emotional exhaustion and
depersonalization and cynicism and a lack
of personal agency, like they feel their
work doesn't do any good anymore and the
patients, you know, are just demanding good
(35:10):
anymore and the patients, you know, are
just demanding too much.
And it's, you know what.
That's what you're describing is the doctor
that first presented and what you did
beautifully was empathize with her and, you
know, open up her heart a little bit, which
is a lovely story.
Hilary Russo (35:25):
I think about that a lot because you know
we get so frustrated in the healthcare
system.
Just getting on the phone and trying to get
an appointment sometimes is a struggle and
just knowing that and I have a lot of
friends, obviously, who are doctors as well
that still work in the system and it is
just daunting and wearing.
And it's not just about the patient, you
(35:47):
know, it's also about the person who's
providing the care and I want that person
to feel like they're cared for.
But it also comes back to what are you
doing to care for yourself?
So that let's circle back for a second,
because I'm curious what you think if and I
don't mean this to be a pitch, but quite
frankly I can see it working well, but can
(36:09):
you see an entire medical system that uses
behaving techniques in their approach, like
how different doctors and practitioners
would be?
Dr. Robin Youngson (36:18):
It would just be utterly transformative.
I was doing research into mothers with
severe PTSD as a result of childbirth
trauma, which about a quarter or a third of
all women in the Western world experience,
sadly, in our medicalized childbirth system.
She had severe PTSD 20 years after the
birth of her son, who had also been
rendered disabled, and she still looked
(36:40):
after him and you know her score for PTSD
symptoms was kind of off the chart and in
one session at Havening her score came down
really nearly to zero.
It was just typical the responses I saw.
And so she was cured of her PTSD in that
one session.
She went on to have two more Havening
sessions, not with me but with actually one
of my students I was supervising for two
(37:02):
other major life events.
Now this person was in her 50s, she was
overweight, she had type 2 diabetes.
Her diabetes was completely out of control.
Her blood glucose was nearly double what it
should be.
I mean really completely out of the safe
range.
She was on a lot of medication.
She was on a restricted diet.
She was looked after carefully by a
(37:24):
diabetic clinic doctors, specialists in the
field, but they couldn't get her blood
glucose under control.
But after the three happening sessions her
blood glucose fell by 40% and the long-term
measure of her blood glucose is a thing
called HbA1c which measures how blood kind
of affects the hemoglobin, how glucose
affects the hemoglobin in our blood over a
(37:45):
long period of time.
And that fell from 94 to 60.
And she had no change in medication, no
change in diet.
And the explanation is very simple that
simply as a result of healing the three
major traumas alive, her cortisol levels
fell.
So cortisol is a stress hormone and the
first an acute stress hormone and the first
job with cortisol is to tell the liver make
(38:06):
lots of glucose, so you've got lots of
energy for the fight and flight reaction.
Right, and she just had chronically
extremely high levels of cortisol.
That was pushing up the glucose way up.
Now obesity and diabetes is the biggest
threat to our health status.
In the whole world.
We have an epidemic of obesity and diabetes
and diabetes causes kidney failure and
(38:28):
arterial disease and blindness and
amputations and you know heart attacks, and
I mean it's just the biggest.
And if we actually just help people heal
their trauma, so many diabetics would
actually come back in control and
dramatically reduce, you know, their
complications.
I mean that's just one illustration.
Or patients with severe chronic pain.
(38:49):
I had a client with severe fibromyalgia for
40 years.
This is an extremely painful condition of
muscle inflammation and pain.
It was very disabling Even till I'm bad at
night.
It was acutely painful for her and she's
been on lots of medical treatments like
steroids, and we did four sessions of
Havening over a week and at the end of the
last session she danced on the mat behind
(39:11):
me a jig of delight because all of her
muscle pains are gone and her fibromyalgia
was cured.
These are conditions for which we have no
effect on medical treatments and Dr Gabor
Mate, who's a world authority on trauma, in
his new book the Myth of Normal, says that
if you have early life trauma, it changes
all your gene expression, it creates
(39:32):
inescapable physiological stress, it turns
on all your inflammatory mediators, all the
chemicals that cause inflammation, it
rewires the brain, it changes the whole
hormonal environment and that means that
you're four times more likely to develop
endometriosis or three times more likely to
get autoimmune disease or cancer or heart
disease, whatever.
These are much more important things than
(39:54):
smoking, cigarettes or high cholesterol or
all the things we try to attend to.
So if we had a healthcare system where we
actually treated people, patients as
conscious human beings and work with their
stories and their beliefs and their trauma
and their feelings.
We would utterly transform the whole
practice of medicine, but it might take a
while.
Hilary Russo (40:14):
But we have a while.
Dr. Robin Youngson (40:16):
Yeah.
Hilary Russo (40:17):
Right, and you mentioned earlier that you
have another birthday coming up and you've
been doing this, for you've been in the
medical field for 30 years.
You started as an engineer and you moved
into medicine, and I want to ask you what
would be next for you, like, where do you
want to go now, now that you have this book
(40:37):
out and you've been doing Havening?
Dr. Robin Youngson (40:39):
I kind of like to start to retire and take
it a bit easier, but I'm mindful of the
pile of great stories.
I mean, when I sent my original manuscript
to five editors to try and find it with a
sample chapter, three of them said you
should be writing medical thrillers.
So maybe that's the next thing, just as a
(40:59):
hobby career, you know in retirement, is
writing medical thrillers.
Hilary Russo (41:05):
Whatever brings you joy brings you joy.
I mean you're and and doing this for less
than five years, just in 2020, about five
years now, even if it's just been the last
five years and it's just, it's been the
most gratifying work I've ever done as a
doctor.
Dr. Robin Youngson (41:22):
I mean, I really just see miracles in front
of me every day.
It just blows people's minds, it's.
Hilary Russo (41:27):
It's so different from their experience of
spending three years telling their terrible
stories to a counselor or you know just um
and the astonishment that you see on
clients faces look, there are so many
wonderful psychotherapists out there, many
of which are Havening trainers and
practitioners my mentors but sometimes
telling the story over and over can be a
(41:50):
lot that could be traumatizing and
triggering as well.
So having different tools to support
yourself and, like you said, there is humor
in the healing, you know when we can look
back on something later and be able to
laugh a little bit.
That's part of just the joy that is our
human right, you know, the ability to just
be joyful and present and happy.
Dr. Robin Youngson (42:12):
But even in the process you know to have
someone in floods of tears and deep
distress with just briefly touching on the
memory of a just dreadfully traumatizing
event and within two minutes to see them
smiling and laughing and the energy
shifting, because this is a process that's
catalyzing a chemical reaction in the brain
that the brain is designed to do that
(42:33):
occurs in just a few minutes.
We evolved our safety systems to try and
keep us safe from many hazards in the world
of the amygdala.
It's like our emotional safety system and
it's evolved to encode or store a trauma in
just a few minutes to affect us for the
rest of our life.
But evolution is smart, so at the same time
it evolved a balancing chemical reaction
(42:56):
that does the exact opposite.
And that's the genius of Dr Ruden is to
uncover this extraordinary mechanism within
the brain and figure out ways to catalyze
it, to activate it and to connect that to
human touch and healing and connection, and
to write a very, very detailed scientific
(43:16):
model for exactly how this is working.
And as an anesthesiologist, I'm a very
skilled observer of human physiology and I
see major physiological changes occurring
within minutes as all the stress reactions
disappear and everything that the
scientific theory predicts I see come out
true and it gives us such precise
diagnostics tools.
(43:38):
I mean it's very precise work.
I mean there's an art to it and there's a
science to it.
But I'm a standard that such a powerful and
simple theory plays out with such veracity
in so many clients.
I've never seen a client that's behaved in
a way that said no, no, no, this is not
right.
There's something wrong with the theory.
(43:59):
It's a better predictor of what happens
than a lot of medical, scientific theories.
Hilary Russo (44:04):
Yeah, love that.
Thank you so much for sharing that.
I want to mention again.
The book is the Science of Miracles.
Hold it up, it's a little fuzzy there.
There we go, science of Miracles.
We're going to put everything in the notes
of the podcast so that you can grab Robin's
book, or even Time to Heal, which was his
first book, even some links on how to get
in touch with him and find him, because
it's easy to find you which I love.
(44:26):
You put out some really beautiful content,
but also if you're interested in learning
more about Havening, we'll have some
information about that.
Or if you're in the medical field, or if
you are a practitioner, a doctor, a nurse,
first responder, my goodness, you don't
even need to be in the field to put
Havening into your life, as both of us are
trainers.
We have regular training so that you can
(44:47):
learn how to learn about the fundamentals,
learn about the science, the history of
Havening, and even go on and get
certification and mentorship, so that's a
possibility as well.
All of that will be there, but what I want
to do with you first well, not first, but
the next step I'd love to hold space for
you, robin is I would love to play a little
(45:08):
game with you.
I do this on my podcast.
Every episode, my guests get to play a
little word association, and what I have
been doing is writing down some words, and
what I'd love for you to do is just come
back with the first word that comes to mind.
Dr. Robin Youngson (45:22):
All right, so it's like fun Makes me
slightly nervous.
Hilary Russo (45:26):
I get that a lot.
Okay, here we go.
Compassionate Healing.
Dr. Robin Youngson (45:35):
Stress, healing Safety.
I just kind of feel like the idea of kind
of wrapping this nest of safety around
people.
Yeah, nest Nesting.
Hilary Russo (45:48):
Nesting.
That's a good word, I like that.
Dr. Robin Youngson (45:53):
Connection, humanity or humanness.
Bullying.
Hilary Russo (45:59):
Trauma, that was my next word.
Dr. Robin Youngson (46:04):
Trauma.
There's no word coming up.
I mean, it's such a massive, no one word.
Curiosity there you go.
Hilary Russo (46:12):
Okay, I like that You've reframed that.
Reframe that Humor.
Dr. Robin Youngson (46:17):
Yeah and laughter.
Hilary Russo (46:20):
Havening.
Blessing, oh I like that and two more words
Care.
Dr. Robin Youngson (46:31):
Touch.
Hilary Russo (46:34):
This is good, Robin.
And final word, miracles.
Dr. Robin Youngson (46:39):
Miracles.
Well, einstein said we can either live our
lives as if there are no miracles, or we
can live our lives as if everything is a
miracle.
Yeah, conscious living beings are
miraculous, whether it's human beings or
nature itself.
Now, if we want to solve the climate crisis,
we just have to allow nature to heal itself,
(47:01):
can do so rapidly.
We have to stop trying to fix it.
We have to stop trying to fix human beings,
because they heal themselves so much better.
Hilary Russo (47:10):
And they're not broken.
Dr. Robin Youngson (47:11):
No, well, perfectly broken.
Perfectly and perfectly broken that was the
title of my TEDx talk.
Is it Perfectly broken and ready to heal?
Hilary Russo (47:21):
Love that.
Dr. Robin Youngson (47:22):
Yeah.
Hilary Russo (47:23):
Love that we're going to share that as well.
That's great.
This was such a joy.
I am so, so happy that we were able to
cross continents and waters and share this
time together.
You're a delight, you're a gift.
Dr. Robin Youngson (47:37):
Thank you.
Hilary Russo (47:38):
I'm just so elated to have you here.
We're going to share everything in the
podcast notes, but please, I want to offer
you a moment and invite you to share with
those who are tuning in to HIListically
Speaking.
What would you like for them to walk away
with from this episode?
Dr. Robin Youngson (47:54):
Yeah, I would just love people to
understand that they have just
extraordinary healing power within
themselves.
Yeah, just seek out whatever modality.
Seek out a practitioner who's going to see
you and connect with you and believe in you
and help you facilitate your own healing,
because that will just unfold miraculous
(48:16):
changes for you yeah, just being a human
being over a human doing.
Yeah, being the most authentic version of
ourselves someone said to me
tongue-in-cheek well, robin, you spent your
whole life putting people to sleep and now
you're waking them up.
Hilary Russo (48:35):
That is brilliant.
That needs to be on your business card.
That's a very clever way of putting it, and
how did that resonate with you when you
heard it?
Dr. Robin Youngson (48:46):
I laughed yeah, that's great Robin, thank
you so much.
It was a pleasure having you.
It's a pleasure, thank you.
Hilary Russo (48:57):
All right, my friend, if you want to learn
more about Dr Robin Youngstinner, even pick
up a copy of his latest book, the Science
of Miracles or perhaps you want to learn
more about Havening techniques, whether
it's putting it into your own personal life
or being part of your profession, your
practice.
All of the information you need is in the
notes of this podcast episode, including
(49:17):
all of the books that we've had on
HIListically Speaking in the HIListically
Speaking Podcast Library.
And if this conversation touched, moved and
inspired you in any way, if you know one
person where this conversation could make a
difference, consider paying it forward.
Pass it along.
You never know who it could touch.
HIListically Speaking is edited by 2Market
(49:39):
Media, with music by my dear friend,
Lipbone Redding and, of course, supported
by you.
So thank you for taking time to spend the
time with me here and tune in.
Week after week, it doesn't go unnoticed,
and I want to leave you with one thing I
want you to remember that everything you
need you have within yourself to be able to
heal, to find the support you need, the
(50:01):
compassionate care that is out there in
this world, to hug it out with yourself and
to be kind to your mind.
I'm here to support you.
I love you, I believe in you and I'm
sending hugs your way, Be well.
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