Prince Harry encouraged members of the royal family to have therapy, it has been reported. According to The Times, the Duke of Sussex said it would help his relatives understand him better and "speak his language".
Harry, 38, was speaking to Dr Gabor Maté, a Hungarian-Canadian expert on "toxic trauma", according to The Times' report. He spent nearly an hour-and-a-half speaking to him in California on Saturday.
During the conversation, he said he was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) when his mother, Diana, died when he was 12. He also said he didn't think of himself as "a victim" and that his wife had "saved him". Harry said Meghan was an "exceptional human being" and also spoke about how drugs, including cannabis and psychedelics, "really helped" him.
The Times also reported that Harry urged other members of the royals to have therapy so they could "speak his language". He said that, after speaking to a therapist himself, he “did the thing of trying to encourage everyone [in his family] to do it”.
A spokesperson for the Duke and Duchess of Sussex confirmed to The Times that Harry had “recently received email correspondence from His Majesty’s office regarding the coronation. An immediate decision on whether the Duke and Duchess will attend will not be disclosed by us at this time.”
Coronation Day, May 6, coincides with their son Archie’s fourth birthday. Harry said “a lot of families are complicated and a lot of families are dysfunctional as well”, and said that therapy had taught him a “new language and the people that I was surrounded by, they didn’t speak that language…”
He added: “So I actually felt more pushed aside and then I said to my therapist: ‘Ok, I’ve got a problem — this is working for me … so that I can now live a truly authentic life and be genuinely happy and be a better dad for my kids, but at the same time I’m feeling more and more distant from my loved ones and my family, this is a problem’.”
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Harry said that therapy helped him get to know himself, saying that before "I didn't know myself". That, he said, meant that he couldn't expect members of his family to "know the real me".
Maté said that, The Times reported, after reading Harry’s memoir, Spare, “as a clinician”, he had diagnosed him with attention deficit disorder (ADD), which he told Harry “should not be seen as a disease but as a normal response to abnormal circumstances” caused by the “stress” in his life. ADD involves problems with concentration and focusing on a single task.
Speaking about his drug use, Harry said: “Marijuana is different [to cocaine]. It did really help me.” In reference to his use of ayahuasca, a psychedelic hallucinogen, he added: “For me… I started to realise how good it was for me. It was one of the fundamental parts of my life that changed me and helped me deal with the trauma of my past.”
Maté, an addiction expert, has advocated the use of ayahuasca, an illegal hallucinogenic drug, as a treatment for trauma. In his book, Harry also revealed he had taken cocaine during his youth, consumed magic mushrooms in 2016 while staying at the actress Courteney Cox’s LA home and smoked marijuana to relax after he and Meghan moved to America in 2020.
The Times reported that Maté described Spare as “a story of deprivation” and observed how the book revealed a “multi-generational lack of touching” within the royal family.
Harry also spoke of feeling “different to the rest of my family” for much of his life, adding: “I felt strange being in this container” and acknowledged that in stepping away from the royal family and moving to America, he had “lost a lot” but said he felt it was “a risk worth taking” for his family. “At the same time I’ve gained a lot, to see my kids growing up here the way that they are, I just can’t imagine how that would have been possible back in that environment.”
