DR. GABOR MATÉ: Yes. So, healing, again, if you look at the word origins, which I often do, comes from a word for wholeness. So healing actually is a movement towards our wholeness. Now, if trauma is a split from ourselves, for example, a split from our bodies, as in the case of V, who had to disconnect from her body to survive her childhood, then healing is that reconnection with ourselves. And if trauma is not the terrible things that happened to us, but trauma is the wound that we sustained and are carrying, that’s a very positive message, because it means that that wound can be healed at any time. You see, if the trauma is what happened to me, now 77 years ago, that my mother gave me to the stranger, that will never not have happened. But if the trauma is what I made it mean, the wound that I sustained, that I wasn’t a lovable, worthwhile human being, that wound can be healed at any moment in all of us. Gabor and Daniel Maté have delivered a book in which readers can seek refuge and solace during moments of profound personal and social crisis. The Myth of Normal is an essential compass during disorienting times.” — Esther Perel, Psychotherapist, Author and Host of Where Should We Begin 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? For world-renowned physician Dr. Gabor Maté, the answer lies in trauma and chronic stress. In fact, these factors often underlie much of what we call disease. 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?

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. The Myth ofNormal is a detailed and wide-ranging look at what we all need to know–but all too often fail to live into–when it comes to human health, sanity, maturation, and happiness. It’s also a clear-eyed examination of the benefits, triumphs, limitations, and blind spots of our health andmental health care system.” –Resmaa Menakem, bestselling author of My Grandmother’s Hands, The Quaking of America, and Monsters in Love

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Basically I felt it was sooo gloomy— so completely haywire itself — I don’t believe that the spilling the beans on the truth - sooooo much of it in one book — TOO MANY ISSUES— vomiting everything wrong — will make much of a difference to anyone. And then it’s a matter of letting go of those patterns. And that takes some kind of work, usually therapy or some kind of spiritual work or psychological work, some kind of different way of taking care of ourselves. Usually it takes some inquiry, what I call a compassionate inquiry, of looking at ourselves with real curiosity: What is causing me to live the way I’m living? And why is it not working for me? The Myth of Normal” is a transformative and compassionate exploration of the concept of normality and its impact on individuals and society. Daniel Maté and Gabor Maté challenge societal norms, promoting a culture of acceptance and inclusivity. Through their expert insights and personal stories, they shed light on the harmful consequences of striving for an elusive idea of normalcy. This book invites readers to embrace their uniqueness and redefine their understanding of what it means to be “normal” in a diverse and complex world. About the Authors: 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]

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. And very often there needs to be a wake-up call. Now, COVID could have been a wake-up call for this culture, but I don’t think it will have worked that way. It should have, but it didn’t, because of the nature of this society to transformation. The resistance to social transformation in this culture is so deep that the COVID lessons, I don’t think, have been learned, nor will be applied. On the individual level, very often it’s an illness, whether of a depression, an anxiety, a psychiatic diagnosis, a relationship breakup or a physical illness, like an autoimmune disease or malignancy, that works as the wake-up call. So there’s got to be some kind of event that happens that says to us, “Mmm, this is not working.” We need to understand why not and need to move past it. b) Maté’s “toxic culture” of capitalism/colonialism (society dominated by a volatile economy driven by the singular, asocial value of private profits) forcing constant dislocation, colonizing communal social relations and leaving behind normalized alienation.NERMEEN SHAIKH: — come to mean something quite different. I mean, in the Greek origin, it referred to a physical injury or a physical wound. But in psychiatry, in the work of Freud, in psychoanalysis, in medical literature generally, now trauma is understood as a wound to the mind. And in our society, psychological woundedness is very prevalent, and it’s rather an illusion to believe some people are traumatized and others are not. I think there’s a spectrum of trauma that crosses all layers and all segments of society. Naturally, it falls heavier on certain sections — on people of color, people with genders that are not fully accepted by society, people of economic inequality who suffer more from inequality — but the traumatization is pretty general in our culture. NERMEEN SHAIKH: Dr. Maté, could you elaborate on what you’ve been talking about now, namely the relationship between individual — the effects of an individual and social trauma? You said in a recent interview, quote, “Being left with an emptiness and insatiable craving creates addiction in the personal sense, and capitalism in the social sense.” And both these are taken to be coping mechanisms for the experience of trauma. If you could explain?

Human nature,” Maté points out, is a term normally used in a negative context. He disputes the idea that people are naturally aggressive and selfish, saying that these attributes are the product of a toxic society, whereas it is natural for humans to need connections with those around them. Children are profoundly influenced by their connection to parents and other caregivers, and studies have shown that those who receive more affection in their early years experience less anxiety and distress later in life. A child’s health is also profoundly affected on a physical level by the stress the mother experiences before and during childbirth. Workaholism, unresolved trauma contributors to decline in overall health, says Canadian doctor in new book Now, the emptiness that you refer to, in a society that tells you that you’re not enough, that you’re not good enough, that you don’t look good enough, that you don’t have enough, that you don’t own enough, that you haven’t attained enough, creating this sense of emptiness is the fuel that runs the consumer society, where never is there enough. You always have to have more and more. You have to attain more and more, obtain more and more. So, basically, it’s a highly addictive culture that feeds off people’s addiction to drive its profits.

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And that does it for our show. To see all our interviews with Dr. Maté, you can go to democracynow.org. DR. GABOR MATÉ: Yeah, that’s the trauma. In other words, by the time you were 5 years old, you were completely alone. addicting them to unhealthy substances—sugar, salt, fat, drugs, and tobacco—while polluting the environment and ultimately destroying the planet. RUSSELL BRAND:* So, you’re sort of a bit like in The Matrix when Neo sees everything’s made out of numbers. You look at people, and you see all their trauma and damage.

In Mee Ok’s case, the trauma of separation and sexual abuse was so painful and alarming that she had to disconnect entirely from her memories and her emotional self. At some point, she learned that working hard and being useful was a safe way to gain acceptance. Applied to medicine, this requires a new paradigm: biopsychosocial medicine. In other words, social health far broader than a 15-minute doctor visit when things are already falling apart for symptomatic, drug-induced relief/isolated interventions. 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?NERMEEN SHAIKH: And, Dr. Maté, explain how you understand, as you say in the book, that the term “trauma” has Greek origins, but that it’s — The other thing that V has done is she became a powerful activist. And that social engagement, which connects her to people and has given such deep meaning to her life and her activity, that’s a powerful healing modality, as well. And I talk about that in the book. And V is such a noble and inspiring example of that. We need trauma-informed medical care, trauma-informed education. If we had a trauma-informed society, we would have a society that looks much more compassionate. Born 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. Then there’s our birth practices. In North America now, the cesarean section rate is approaching 40%. Now, modern obstetrics is miraculous in its capacity to save lives, and it should be applied about 10 to 15% of cases for the benefit of the infant or the mother. But the 40% C-section rate and the mechanization of birth — natural birth, as evolved by nature, was designed to produce a bonding experience for mother and infant, including the release of bonding chemicals that will bring them together for a lifelong relationship. When we medicalize birth, we interfere with it. We mechanize it. We create fear around it. We’re actually interfering with the mother-child bond, on which the child’s healthy development develops.