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

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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? DR. GABOR MATÉ: Well, as your question implies, trauma can be induced in people in a number of ways. It could be a single dramatic event — the death of a parent, a tremendous loss in life, a terrible explosion. You know, it occurs that way sometimes. And those are relatively easy to identify, and then, actually, they’re easier to deal with. Gabor Maté articulates bluntly, brilliantly and passionately what all of us instinctively know but none of us really want to face: the entire social construct of the world we’re living in is deeply flawed,withtoxicitieson every level. Yet though the book makes clear what’s so terribly wrong, it also points to how we can make it right. Matéis a guide through the dangerous forest of our minds and our society, not letting us ignore the darkness but ultimately showing us the light. The Myth of Normal is exactly what we need.” –Marianne Williamson, New York Times bestselling author, A Return To Love

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. I have no idea ‘what’ I’m suppose to do with sooooo much ongoing negativity… sooooo much homelessness and despair ….. soooo much detail ….. for which I’ve little power to honestly do anything about the general shitty conditions of modern life. So what’s going on here? For Dr. Maté, it exemplifies what happens when two fundamental human needs – attachment and authenticity – are put in conflict. Attachment is your core need for emotional proximity and love. But you also need to be the author of your life, guided by a deep knowledge of your authentic self. 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.They would write comments in each patient’s chart like, “Probably has ALS, she is too nice,” or “No way, he is NOT nice enough.” To the astonishment of the neurologists, these predictions were almost always correct. DR. GABOR MATÉ: And so, the question is: Can we be human beings in the midst of civilization? Because what we call civilization demands the denial of human needs. 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 a) Peterson, a clinical psychologist (although his massive popularity was spurred by politicized media from his 2016 YouTube videos critiquing a Canadian gender identity discrimination bill). 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.

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? 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?Myth: a traditional story, especially one concerning the early history of people or explaining some natural or social phenomenon, and typically involving supernatural beings or events 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? Now, what actually happened here? All that happened was that my artist wife, typical of an artist, was the middle of creative flow in her studio, and she forgot that her husband was arriving home at the airport. What was triggered in me, however, was the wound of a 1-year-old infant who was abandoned by his mother in an effort to save my life, actually, but the meaning I made of it is that I wasn’t lovable, that I wasn’t wanted. And even 71 years later, when this woman on whom I’m relying to be there for me doesn’t show up, the woundedness of a 1-year-old infant shows up. And that’s what my friend Peter Levine calls “the tyranny of the past.” And so, these early wounds — in my case, the sense of abandonment — could still show up seven decades later over a relatively trivial incident. AMY GOODMAN: The trailer for the film The Wisdom of Trauma, featuring Dr. Gabor Maté, who is our guest for the hour. He’s just written a new book with his son Daniel titled The Myth of Normal: Trauma, Illness, and Healing in a Toxic Culture. Dr. Maté will be appearing tonight in New York City at the 92nd Street Y. On Thursday, Democracy Now!’s Nermeen Shaikh and I spoke to Gabor Maté. I began by asking him about the pandemic and the book title, The Myth of Normal. addicting them to unhealthy substances—sugar, salt, fat, drugs, and tobacco—while polluting the environment and ultimately destroying the planet.