Compassionate Inquiry — Dr Gabor Maté approach
A gentle, trauma-informed approach to exploring what lies beneath your thoughts, emotions, behaviours and relationship patterns.
Trauma (from the Greek word for “wound”) exists on a broad spectrum. It can include anything from experiences that lead to disconnection from yourself — your authenticity, your body, your emotions, your intuition — as well as any experience that diminishes the hope of reconnection.
Compassionate Inquiry, developed by Dr Gabor Maté, is based on the understanding that many of the patterns we struggle with today developed for good reasons. Rather than asking “What’s wrong with me?”, we become curious about “What happened to me, and how did I learn to adapt?”
The work helps you explore the beliefs, protective strategies, emotional wounds and patterns, attachment styles and unmet needs that may be shaping your life today — including how an attachment wound influences your relationships and the way you move through the world. Rather than simply trying to eliminate symptoms, we look beneath them with curiosity and compassion, noticing what happens in the present as you talk: emotions, physical sensations and protective responses.
Complex trauma doesn’t have to be physical abuse, but the reason attachment is so affected by it is because it is usually perpetrated by, or not able to be stopped by, a child’s primary caregiver. And that’s what makes it so fundamentally disruptive: the primary caregiver can’t provide consistency and safety to the child.
Trauma is not only the bad things that happen to you. Trauma is also the good things that should have happened and didn’t.
This might be your door if
- You understand intellectually why you do something, but still find yourself repeating it.
- You struggle with people-pleasing, perfectionism, self-criticism, or constantly putting others’ needs before your own.
- You have ADD or ADHD and would like to better understand your nervous system, emotions and patterns of regulation.
- You find it difficult to say no, set boundaries, or express what you genuinely need.
- You often seek approval, fear rejection, or worry about disappointing others.
- You are seeking to navigate and make sense of your emotional triggers.
- You feel disconnected from yourself, or unsure of what you truly want.
- You experience anxiety, emotional overwhelm, shame, anger or persistent stress.
- You have behaviours or coping strategies that give temporary relief but create difficulties over time.
- You feel stuck in recurring relationship patterns.
- You have difficulty trusting yourself, your feelings or your own decisions.
- You find yourself constantly adapting to other people while losing touch with yourself.
- You want to understand the connection between your past experiences and the way you live, relate and respond today.
- You want to explore the difference between who you learned to be and who you are underneath those adaptations.
How we work
Compassionate Inquiry is not about judging, analysing or trying to force change. We slow down and become curious about what is happening beneath the surface.
We may explore a thought, an emotion, a behaviour, a physical sensation, a relationship pattern or a reaction, and gently ask what is underneath it. Together we can begin to uncover the beliefs and protective strategies that developed in response to your experiences, and understand what they were trying to protect you from.
The process also brings attention to your body and nervous system. What you think, feel and believe is not separate from how your body responds. By developing greater awareness of those connections, you can begin to recognise patterns that once happened automatically, and discover new possibilities for responding.
The intention is not to get rid of parts of yourself. It is to understand them with greater compassion, develop more choice, and reconnect with your authentic needs, feelings and values.
What is Compassionate Inquiry? A plain explanationFrom adaptation to authenticity
Many of us learned early in life that being ourselves was not always safe, welcomed or accepted. We may have learned to please, perform, achieve, stay quiet, disconnect, control or take care of others in order to keep connection and belonging.
These adaptations can be remarkably intelligent responses to our circumstances. But what once helped us cope may later become a source of anxiety, disconnection, relationship difficulties or feeling stuck.
Compassionate Inquiry offers a space to understand these patterns without shame, and to explore what becomes possible when you no longer have to live entirely from them.
What this isn’t
Compassionate Inquiry is not about blaming your parents, endlessly analysing the past, or looking for someone to blame for your struggles. It is also not about forcing you to revisit painful experiences or relive trauma.
It isn’t positive thinking, advice-giving, or trying to eliminate difficult emotions. Instead it invites compassionate curiosity about what is happening beneath your thoughts, behaviours, emotions and coping patterns — while recognising that most of those developed as meaningful adaptations to your experiences.
And it is not about “fixing” you. The intention is to develop awareness and compassion for the ways you learned to survive and adapt, so you can recognise what is happening in the present and have more choice in how you respond.
Common questions
- Do I have to talk about everything that happened to me?
- No. You are not required to tell your entire story or revisit experiences before you are ready. We can begin with what is happening for you now — your thoughts, emotions, body sensations, behaviours and relationship patterns — and explore what feels relevant and safe.
- Is Compassionate Inquiry just talking about my childhood?
- Your childhood and past experiences may be relevant, but the goal is not to reconstruct your entire history. We focus on understanding how your experiences shaped the beliefs, coping strategies and patterns that are still operating in your life today.
- Will I be told that everything comes from my childhood?
- No. This work is about curiosity rather than assumptions. We explore what is happening in your experience and consider the context around it, rather than automatically attributing everything to childhood or trauma.
- Is this about blaming my parents?
- No. The approach is not about assigning blame. It is about understanding how your experiences influenced the ways you learned to adapt, protect yourself, seek connection and navigate the world. That understanding tends to create more compassion and more choice, without reducing your story to blame.
- What if I already understand why I behave this way?
- Insight is valuable, but understanding something intellectually doesn’t always change the pattern. Here we slow down and explore what happens beneath the explanation: the emotions, body responses, beliefs, needs and protective strategies involved. You might know intellectually that you are worthy, capable or brave — through this work that knowing begins to land in your body. The work is not about thinking differently; it is a deeper reconnection with yourself that can be felt, trusted and lived.
- Is this the same as positive thinking?
- No. Compassionate Inquiry doesn’t ask you to replace difficult thoughts with positive ones, or to talk yourself out of how you feel. We become curious about difficult experiences and the meaning they hold, without judging them or rushing to change them.
- Will I have to relive traumatic experiences?
- No. The intention is never to force you to relive or repeatedly retell traumatic experiences. We work with what is present and relevant, respecting your capacity and letting the process unfold gradually.
- What if I become emotional during a session?
- Emotions are welcome in the room. You don’t need to suppress them or perform them. We can slow down, notice what is happening, and explore it with curiosity while staying attentive to your capacity.
- How is this different from traditional talk therapy?
- Compassionate Inquiry includes talking and reflection, but it also pays attention to what happens underneath the story: how beliefs, emotions, physical sensations, nervous-system responses and protective patterns come together in the present moment. You can start to feel what safety and self-worth actually feel like in your own skin.
- How long does this work take?
- There is no fixed timeframe. It depends on your goals, your circumstances, your history and what you want to explore. Some people come for a specific issue; others choose longer-term work to explore longstanding patterns and relationships.
- Do I need to know what I want to work on before I start?
- No. You can begin with a sense that something isn’t working, that you feel stuck, or that you want to understand yourself differently. We can find a clearer focus together as the work unfolds.
Before we start, one important thing
This therapy is not a substitute for crisis or safety intervention. It isn't appropriate if you are currently in an unsafe or dangerous situation, or if you are at immediate risk of harming yourself or ending your life. In those circumstances you need crisis, emergency or specialised support first.
Somatic psychotherapy is also unsuitable for people who have recently faced, or are currently facing, legal allegations.
You might also be looking at
Somatic Trauma-Informed Psychotherapy
Somatic Counselling
Ready to start?
Book a first session, or write to me if you'd rather ask something before you do.