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Medica Psycholog Nonfictio HTML:The instant New York Times bestseller By the acclaimed author of In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts, a groundbreaking investigation into the causes of illness, a bracing critique of how our society breeds disease, and a pathway to health and healing. In this revolutionary book, renowned physician Gabor Maté eloquently dissects how in Western countries that pride themselves on their healthcare systems, chronic illness and general ill health are on the rise. Nearly 70 percent of Americans are on at least one prescription drug; more than half take two. In Canada, every fifth person has high blood pressure. In Europe, hypertension is diagnosed in more than 30 percent of the population. And everywhere, adolescent mental illness is on the rise. So what is really �??normal�?� when it comes to health? Over four decades of clinical experience, Maté has come to recognize the prevailing understanding of �??normal�?� as false, neglecting the roles that trauma and stress, and the pressures of modern-day living, exert on our bodies and our minds at the expense of good health. For all our expertise and technological sophistication, Western medicine often fails to treat the whole person, ignoring how today�??s culture stresses the body, burdens the immune system, and undermines emotional balance. Now Maté brings his perspective to the great untangling of common myths about what makes us sick, connects the dots between the maladies of individuals and the declining soundness of society�??and offers a compassionate guide for health and healing. Cowritten with his son Daniel, The Myth Of Normal is Maté�??s most… (more)
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The vast majority of humanity is getting poorer by the day, no matter how many jobs they hold, as wages keep dropping, benefits keep getting cut, the environment keeps deteriorating. That this chronic state of stress is spreading even to the "well off" since the triumph of neoliberalism, is no news either. Note that "stress" here doesn't mean simply some vague "state of mind", akin to the "vapours" of Victorian damsels, but measurable physical state expressed in various kinds and degrees of discomfort, pain, illness. Hunger, fear, humiliation, rage, exposure to the elements, cold, heat, to say nothing of physical violence and chronic insecurity, all induce stress acutely and, over long term, chronically.
A society is doing only so well as its most disadvantaged citizens. Ask yourself what happens to those in yours. Why is poverty and food bank use on the rise in the wealthiest countries on Earth, the US, the UK, Canada? Why are we seeing a flood of homelessness and public displays of mental illness? At such blessed times when billionaires like Jeff Bezos, who restricts his workers' pee time and took Covid tax breaks, is rocketing off into space? Where's YOUR jetpack, mate?
When Maté says we're living in toxic and insane societies, he is merely being descriptive. All the conditions of our lives bent to the ideology of capitalist consumption are toxic and unhealthy. The social contract is broken, and we've destroyed the natural world before ever acknowledging its rights.
And we're witnessing wholesale destruction of humanity for the sake of the 1%. Capitalism turned our food, our work, our cities, our schools, into pure sh*t, but apparently we'll sooner go extinct, gullets filled with pills, than we'll manage to demand a society dignifying every human being.
Addendum: at the time of writing there is a disparaging review of the book by someone who doesn't seem to understand cancer biology. Nowhere does Maté say, suggest or imply that it's "all" the enviroment's doing. Most common cancers depend on several steps or discrete events in order to develop, and in this are greatly influenced by environmental factors. Genetic disposition for cancer may entail a more or less definite outcome. As for animals such as dogs, they are in fact subject to stress and used as models in a number of cases (as are rabbits, rats, mice etc.)
Sadly, I had to return the book to the library as soon as I had read it, so did not have time to write a detailed review.
His main
In the author’s own case, he tells us that in 1945 when he was 14 months old, his mother felt obliged to send him away to his aunt’s in order for him to live in relatively safe circumstances.
Dr Maté explains how losing his mother at such an early age resulted in such a trauma that it affected him for the rest of his life in such a way that he reacted unwarrantedly strongly to minor events which triggered his trauma.
I would highly recommend the book to every thinking person.
What I love about Gabor Maté is his ability to show true compassion. I don't think I have ever read an author who is as compassionate to people who are dealing with trauma (and we all are, whether we are aware of it or not). The trauma he describes is not only "the bad things that happen to us", but all of that withheld from us that should be a part of our human experience, even if we are seemingly happy. Maté is very open in identifying the toxic dynamic of current late-capitalist societal trends as being the core issue in the mental health crisis.
While these ideas are not new if these topics are something you are interested in and Maté has written about them before, this is by far the most comprehensive work on this subject with an incredible bibliography. It is scientific, but also philosophical and provocative. I don't agree with everything Maté claims in this book, but it is good to be challenged and reflect.
This is a seminal work that people should read and talk about.