The Myth of Normal
A Community Gathering with Gabor Maté
Join Dr. Gabor Maté for an online discussion of his new book, The Myth of Normal: Trauma, Illness, and Healing in a Toxic Culture, co-written with his son Daniel Maté.
Over four decades of clinical experience, Dr. Gabor Maté came 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 its expertise and technological sophistication, Western medicine often fails to treat the whole person, ignoring how the toxicity of today’s culture stresses the body, burdens the immune system, and undermines emotional balance.
Hailed by Bessel van der Kolk as “an epic journey of discovery about how our emotional well-being, and our social connectivity (in short: how we live), is intimately intertwined with health, disease and addictions,” The Myth of Normal is a groundbreaking investigation into how modern-day society has accepted behaviors, ways of relating and belonging that breed disease by their very nature. Gabor brings his perspective to the 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.
Find out where to get your copy of The Myth of Normal here.
Presenter
Gabor Maté
Gabor Maté, M.D. is a specialist on trauma, addiction, stress and childhood development. After 20 years of family practice and palliative care experience, Dr. Maté worked for over a decade in Vancouver’s Downtown East Side with patients challenged by drug addiction and mental illness. For his groundbreaking medical work and writing he has been awarded the Order of Canada, his country’s highest civilian distinction, and the Civic Merit Award from his hometown, Vancouver. Gabor is also the creator of a psychotherapeutic approach, Compassionate Inquiry, now studied by thousands of therapists, physicians, counselors, and others in over 80 countries.