This screening is presented to you in partnership with the Tomah VA Medical Center.

The Tomah VA Medical Center began its path towards a Trauma Informed Care systems transformation with a VHA Innovation Program funded pilot project in 2018. Since that time, the project has grown and strengthened through key partnerships, including with the Chillicothe VAMC, Trauma Informed Community for Monroe County, and growing VA-wide communities of practice. The mission of the Trauma Informed Care Committee at the Tomah VAMC is to promote awareness and delivery of trauma-informed care throughout our VA for the benefit of our Veterans, our employees, and our community. Research supports that there is high lifetime prevalence of trauma in the general population, with groups including Veterans and healthcare workers at higher risk. Being trauma informed shifts the culture at all levels of the agency to respond to this trauma and to foster resiliency.

FILM SYNOPSIS

The interconnected epidemics of anxiety, chronic illness and substance abuse are, according to Dr Gabor Maté, normal. But not in the way you might think.

One in five Americans are diagnosed with mental illness in any given year [1]. Suicide is the second most common cause of death in the US for youth aged 15-24 [2], and kills over 800,000 people a year globally [3] and 48,300 in the USA [4]. Drug overdose kills 81,000 in the USA annually [5]. The autoimmunity epidemic affects 24 million people in the USA [6]. What is going on?

“So much of what we call abnormality in this culture is actually normal responses to an abnormal culture. The abnormality does not reside in the pathology of individuals, but in the very culture that drives people into suffering and dysfunction.” — Gabor Maté

In The Wisdom of Trauma, we travel alongside physician, bestselling author and Order of Canada recipient Dr. Gabor Maté to explore why our western society is facing such epidemics. This is a journey with a man who has dedicated his life to understanding the connection between illness, addiction, trauma and society.

“Trauma is not what happens to you. Trauma is what happens inside you, as a result of what happens to you.” — Gabor Maté

Trauma is the invisible force that shapes our lives. It shapes the way we live, the way we love and the way we make sense of the world. It is the root of our deepest wounds. Dr. Maté gives us a new vision: a trauma-informed society in which parents, teachers, physicians, policy-makers and legal personnel are not concerned with fixing behaviors, making diagnoses, suppressing symptoms and judging, but seek instead to understand the sources from which troubling behaviors and diseases spring in the wounded human soul.

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