Why Childhood Trauma Isn't Your Fault | Dr. Alex Howard
7/1/20261 hr 11 min
On this episode of We're Out of Time, host Richard Taite sits down with Dr. Alex Howard, internationally recognized trauma therapist, author, and founder of the Optimum Health Clinic, for a raw, deeply personal conversation about childhood trauma, emotional neglect, and the long road to healing.
Dr. Howard opens up about his own teenage years living with a debilitating chronic illness, the conversation with his uncle that changed the trajectory of his life, and how that experience shaped two decades of work helping people heal from trauma and nervous system patterns.
Richard and Alex dig into the difference between the trauma that happened to us and the patterns we built to survive it, why "it's not your fault" doesn't mean "it's not your responsibility," and how even loving, well-meaning parents can leave emotional needs unmet.The conversation moves through both men's complicated relationships with their own fathers, what it means to parent differently than you were parented, and how healing as an adult means learning to give yourself what you didn't receive as a child.
Dr. Howard is the author of It's Not Your Fault: Why Childhood Trauma Shapes You and How to Break Free, and his work has reached millions through his books, online programs, and his YouTube series In Therapy with Dr. Alex Howard, where he films real therapeutic sessions.
Learn more about at alexhoward.com.If someone you know is dealing with life's hardest challenges, share this episode — the right conversation at the right time can change everything.
Clips
Transcript preview
First 90 secondsAlex Howard· Guest0:00
As a child, we were dependent upon our caregivers to meet our needs for ourselves, and then we developed these strategies to replace that. One of the greatest blessings of being an adult is we can learn to meet those needs for ourself.
Speaker 20:16
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Richard Taite· Host0:55
The best is when I'm talking to a guest and we end up taking the conversation down a path I didn't realize it could go. That happened today with Dr. Alex Howard. We dig deep into why it's not your fault, also the name of his newest book, and we hit points that almost bring me to tears. Alex is an internationally recognized therapist, author, founder of the Optum Health Clinic, and someone whose life's work came directly out of his own suffering. After overcoming chronic fatigue syndrome himself as