Now, we can make two assumptions. Either there’s some accidental, totally unexplainable rise in childhood pathology that has no specific reason whatsoever for its instigation, or we can recognize that we live in a toxic culture that, by its very nature, affects children development in such unhealthy ways that children are increasingly mentally unbalanced and desperate to the extent that they’re cutting themselves and even trying to kill themselves. In this brilliant, compelling and groundbreaking book, Gabor Maté unveils the societal trance that has blinded us to the death-grip of pervasive trauma in our world. He shows that this is not our ‘personal’ trauma. It is sourced in a culture that undermines meeting our basic needs for connection, authenticity and meaning. Drawing on his decades of pioneering clinical work, fascinating contemporary science and contemplative wisdom, Maté offers us a way to bring clear seeing and a greatness of heart to the crisis of our times.” –Tara Brach, author of Radical Acceptance and Radical Compassion Addiction, which has historically been misunderstood as the result of the addict’s bad choices or as a disease, is really a way of coping with suffering. Doctors who treat addicts should ask what benefit the drug, alcohol, or other substance or behavior confers on the addict and what type of suffering is being palliated. Instead, both doctor and patient are often all too willing to treat addiction and other mental problems from a purely biological standpoint, since this means that they do not have to do the hard work of examining the trauma in the patient’s life. People are so unwilling to face these traumas that their mind often concocts alternative narratives to explain the emotional scars they bear. These stories people tell themselves serve a purpose at the time but are often damaging in the long run. DR. GABOR MATÉ: Well, the impact of inequality has been studied by Sir Michael Marmot, who’s a British epidemiologist, and he’s former head of the World Medical Association. And they talk about a social gradient, that the lower social class you are, the greater the risks to your health. And this has been known for decades.

So the last and longest section of the book explores what we called pathways to healing, or pathways to wholeness. That’s the meaning of healing. There are many different pathways. There’s no one size fits for all. It needs to begin with the recognition that how we’re living and how we are relating to ourselves and others is not healthy. It may be the norm in this culture, but it’s neither healthy or natural, and there are better ways. And the same thing is true for our culture. And the essential first step is what I call being disillusioned. Now, people usually think of disillusionment as discouraging and somewhat negative. No. Would we rather be illusioned or disillusioned? Would we rather see the world through rose-colored glasses, not seeing what’s in front of us, or would we rather deal with reality the way it is? In the final chapter, I quote James Baldwin, the great, great James Baldwin, who said that not everything that’s faced can be healed, but nothing that’s not faced can be healed. People are much more lonely and isolated than they used to be. Literally, it causes inflammation in the body and suppresses the immune system. ex. see Ch.8 of This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. The Climate: The institution [ The Royal Society, the pioneering scientific academy founded in 1660] was at the forefront of Britain’s colonial project, sponsoring voyages by Captain James Cook (including the one in which he laid claim to New Zealand), and for over forty years the Royal Society was led by one of Cook’s fellow explorers, the wealthy botanist Joseph Banks, described by a British colonial official as “the staunchest imperialist of the day.” [emphases added]--Instead of only critiquing science’s values (Peterson), what is capitalism’s value system? (See later). Furthermore, Peterson can only counter his vague science-materialism by proselytizing the immaterial values of the Christian Bible, a non-solution when he accepts capitalism (will the Bible be sufficient for capitalist profit-seeking, besides selling Peterson’s self-help books and filling arenas for megachurches? What will this do to traditional values?). The sad irony is that Peterson also blames “postmodern/neo-Marxist” ideology for destroying his traditional values, when the only Marxist book (pamphlet, really) he seems bothered to read identifies the capitalist culprit: Constant revolutionising of production, uninterrupted disturbance of all social conditions, everlasting uncertainty and agitation distinguish the bourgeois epoch [i.e. capitalism, with its singular endless profit-seeking, competition’s “creative destruction”, boom/bust volatility] from all earlier ones. All fixed, fast-frozen relations, with their train of ancient and venerable prejudices and opinions, are swept away, all new-formed ones become antiquated before they can ossify. All that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned, and man is at last compelled to face with sober senses, his real condition of life, and his relations with his kind. [- The Communist Manifesto; emphases added; sadly, the last bit has not occurred for reactionaries like Peterson] Human’s uniquely long infancy is particularly vulnerable to trauma. Human infants are so undeveloped for so long that the typical defensive responses of fight or flight are not available. So, the remaining survival mechanism to trauma is freeze: suppression (in a sense, self-blame) is more tolerable than fearing the environment (esp. the parents) is dangerous with no escape.

Trauma, Illness, and Healing in a Toxic Culture

NERMEEN SHAIKH: And, Dr. Maté, you speak in the book about unresolved traumas. So, in the examples that you’re giving now, or indeed in the case of trauma more generally, if one can speak generally about trauma, what kinds of practices can lead, if at all, to the resolution of a trauma?

Born in Korea to a single mother, she was given up for adoption at six months. She was then taken in by an evangelical couple in the US, who raised her in a strict environment. For years, she suffered sexual abuse by her adoptive father –memories of which she’d repressed.

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What we’re looking at here is the mass engineering of addiction. And we’re not talking conspiracy theory. This is conspiracy reality. That’s how it works. But, of course, from the point of view of profit, it works, because people are going to buy junk foods, that are going to kill them or make them ill. But these companies don’t care. They just want — it’s not that they’re trying to kill you, as I say in one chapter of the book; they just don’t care if you die, because what really matters is profit. So, this society runs on people’s sense of deficient emptiness, where more and more is what they think is needed to fill that hole inside themselves. Workaholism, unresolved trauma contributors to decline in overall health, says Canadian doctor in new book DR. GABOR MATÉ: Yeah, I just want people to see the truth. Solutions arise out of people when they confront themselves with the truth, when they’re not afraid of the truth.

DR. GABOR MATÉ: Well, we need to begin right at the beginning. And the beginning is actually in the womb. Now, we already know, from multiple, multiple studies — not even controversial — that the more stress there is on pregnant women, the greater the impact, even decades later, on the well-being of the infant. So, how are we looking after pregnant women? The average physician — I mean, I was trained as a medical doctor — to this day, the average physician, when they’re trained in prenatal care, they’re not trained to ask about the woman’s emotional states. They’re not trained to ask about: “How are you doing? How is your relationship? How is your work stress? What can we do to support you?” We only look after the body, and we separate the mind from the body. We know that stresses on the woman can already have an impact on the infant.AMY GOODMAN: Gabor, I was wondering if you could take some time and talk about your own journey from trauma and how it shaped you, as an infant in Nazi-occupied Hungary to where you are today, and how that has influenced who you are. The Myth of Normal is an astonishing achievement, epic in scope and yet profoundly down to earth and practical.I believe it will open the gates to a new time where we come to understand that our emotions, culture, bodies and spirits are not separate and wellness can only come about if we treat the whole being. I will read this book again and again.” –V (formerly Eve Ensler), author of The Vagina Monologues and The Apology AMY GOODMAN: Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman, with Nermeen Shaikh, as we continue our conversation with Dr. Gabor Maté, the acclaimed Canadian physician and author. We spoke about his new book, The Myth of Normal: Trauma, Illness, and Healing in a Toxic Culture.

The Myth of Normal presents a unique perspectivein viewing what we see as ‘normal” and opens up a way to wake up to what is real and authentic in our lives. Gabor and DanielMaté have written a compellingbook which will challenge your views and help lift the veil of illusion to what is truly happening in your mind and in your body.” –Sharon Salzberg, author of Lovingkindness and Real Happiness While listening to 18 hours of the cultural causes of illnesses and disease —and how society is failing us….. In The Myth of Normal, Gabor Maté exposes what happens when society becomes the addict, and how can we heal as a society. This is a book for our times–no, rather it is the book for our times. An illumination to therapists and healers, it is much more than that…Read and discover.” –Peter A Levine, author of Waking the Tiger and In an Unspoken VoiceBorn in Budapest, Hungary in 1944, he is a survivor of the Nazi genocide. His maternal grandparents were killed in Auschwitz when he was five months old, his aunt disappeared during the war, and his father endured forced labour at the hands of the Nazis. Gabor Maté's internationally bestselling books have changed the way we look at addiction and have been integral in shifting the conversations around ADHD, stress, disease, embodied trauma, and parenting. Now, in this revolutionary book, he eloquently dissects how in Western countries that pride themselves on their health care systems, chronic illness and general ill health are on the rise. So what is really "normal" when it comes to health?