The Myth of Normal: Trauma, Illness & Healing in a Toxic Culture

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Supporters of Dr Maté include Dr Rangan Chatterjee, Bessel van der Kolk, Johann Hari and Esther Perel. He was recently featured in the highly publicised livestream conversation with Prince Harry where they discussed loss, trauma and the importance of healing.

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? AMY GOODMAN: Gabor Maté, your book comes out at an extraordinary time, given your topic, and I know it took you years to write. But now in the pandemic, you have, according to the CDC, hospitals reported a 24% increase in mental health emergencies for children between the ages — Western countries invest billions in healthcare, yet mental illness and chronic diseases are on a seemingly unstoppable rise. Nearly 70% of Americans are now on prescription drugs. So what is '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. 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.

This is the split self: there are the parts of you that you believe are acceptable, and there are others you reject. When Mee Ok learned to reconnect with those once rejected parts, she began to heal. Today, she is off all medications and can walk, travel, and even hike again. DR. GABOR MATÉ: That’s exactly what I’m saying. And these are the people that our society rewards with power. 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? 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.Somewhere in the book one of Gabor's patients said that addiction saved his life and it shook me to tears. I spent my whole life blaming all my flaws and downfalls on my addictions. They were the reason I wasn't well-educated and didn't go to University, the reason I lost friends and disgraced family, but in all honestly, my vices are the only reason I stayed alive. That unendurable pain and confusions as a 16-year-old is the reason I found refuge in alcohol and drugs and they became the soft pillow I'd cry into every night. 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?

As Mee Ok began to confront her past, she realized how much emotional pain she had been stuffing down. To cope, she had learned to channel her energy into being hyperfunctional and indispensable at work, often carrying the pressures of everyone around her. 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 Loveb) 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. Maté suggests some writing exercises, first to identify the early signs that you are at odds with your body before disease sets in and then to deal with feelings of unworthiness. These feelings, he points out, are often derived from early childhood, a period in which a great deal of information is absorbed without being critically evaluated, in a process similar to hypnosis. However debilitating feelings like guilt and self-loathing may be, they have much to teach people. They arose because they were useful at the time as a defense against something even more frightening, and they should be regarded as friends or teachers who have served their purpose rather than as enemies. So, we have to look for those conditions, not in the individual mind or brain or personality of the child or youth; we have to look at them in the social conditions that drive children in those directions. And unfortunately, in the public conversation around it, it’s all about the pathology and how to treat it, and it’s not about the social or cultural causes that are driving children in those desperate directions.

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. The Myth of Normal” is a powerful and enlightening book that challenges the conventional notions of normality and presents a compelling case for embracing individual uniqueness. Daniel Maté and Gabor Maté skillfully navigate the complex terrain of societal expectations, highlighting how the pressure to conform to a narrow definition of normal can lead to suffering, discrimination, and mental health issues. He emigrated to Canada with his family in 1957. After graduating with a B.A. from the University of British Columbia in Vancouver and a few years as a high school English and literature teacher, he returned to school to pursue his childhood dream of being a physician. 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.b) Maté’s challenge of “toxic culture” (capitalism/colonialism/bigotry/old science’s reductionism) with decolonization to rebuild communal relations/social values, incorporating new science’s holistic systems understanding (specifically: trauma-informed biopsychosocial medicine). I’ll refer to this as “old science” and use this section to fill in the big picture context which Maté only hints at. Old science’s powers of discovery relied on deconstruction (we can visualize with words like “dissecting”, “atomizing”, etc.); weaponized by cancerous, asocial profit-seeking, this led to a reductionist materialism: humans were reduced to labour (an input for capitalist production) which was reduced to body parts and mechanized with machines to maximize profits in the “dark Satanic mills” (William Blake, 1808) of the Industrial Revolution. We can also witness society’s anxieties of tragedy (esp. loss of human control) in this great transformation of old science’s reductionist mechanization in Frankenstein (1818). NERMEEN SHAIKH: Dr. Maté, if you could also talk about another aspect, another way in which society might exacerbate individual trauma? You talk in the book — you’re critical in the book about this idea that people should simply push through it, this idea of resilience. What are the effects of that orientation towards trauma? And if you could link it also with what you’ve just said about the way in which the medical establishment and Western medicine understands the question of psychic wounds?