Original price was: $49.95.$19.99Current price is: $19.99.
| 5 star | 85% | |
| 4 star | 14% | |
| 3 star | 0% | |
| 2 star | 0% | |
| 1 star | 0% |
The instant New York Times bestseller
By the acclaimed author of In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts, a groundbreaking investigation into the causes of illness, a bracing critique of how our society breeds disease, and a pathway to health and healing.
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?
Over four decades of clinical experience, Maté has come 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 our expertise and technological sophistication, Western medicine often fails to treat the whole person, ignoring how today’s culture stresses the body, burdens the immune system, and undermines emotional balance. Now Maté brings his perspective to the great 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. Cowritten with his son Daniel, The Myth Of Normal is Maté’s most ambitious and urgent book yet.
New item(s) have been added to your cart.
As both an MD and a trauma survivor, Mate is eminently qualified to examine 'normal'. His insights, suggestions for healing, and compassionate understanding are priceless. His son's editing and assistance in the writing has contributed to the explanation of his theories, I think, based on other Mate works I've read. Mate gives him credit for this.
The reader can learn more in one week of reading this book than s/he can in many weeks (or years) of psychotherapy, although Mate doesn't discourage therapeutic support by any means. Journaling, meditation, breath work, and other healing modalities are also mentioned as potential contributors to healing.
It's a very big, sometimes daunting book, but it is worth every moment spent reading it, whether you are a survivor, parent of a survivor, patient of any sort, practicing physician, or physician wannabe. Medicine must at some point begin to see its own flaws, including not giving enough credibility to its patients for their wisdom and insights about themselves.
I've been thinking for several years about how, as a society, we've "normalized" so many things that are truly insane... but because they've become so prevalent, we behave as if they are "normal" and become numb to the insanity, violence, anger, destruction, etc... we are perpetuating on ourselves, each other, and this glorious planet we inhabit.
It was good to know my thinking wasn't off the mark, and to know that there is research to back it all up!
Dr. Gabor Maté and his son, Daniel, created a brilliant read... so eye-opening and thought-provoking about dis-ease, trauma, normalization of things that are not normal, and what it means to truly heal. It will shift your thinking about what modern medicine is capable, what the root causes of so many of our illnesses are, and give you insights, exercises, and practices with which you might initiate your own healing journey.
This is a powerful read!
This is not an easy book; and I highly recommend it.
FYI, I bought the book but also listened to the audio book, narrated with exceptional insight and skill, by Gabor’s son, Daniel Maté. I cannot praise this book enough!!! Thank you with all my heart for writing it and putting it out into the world! I truly believe it will help a LOT of people!
The author refrains from parent-blaming or bashing, which I am glad about - instead points to the ways in which parents are increasingly stressed in this society, BY this society - and also encouraged to believe that their role is less important than their child's peers.
However I say this book is depressing because it lacks political solutions and does not tackle the notion of political will and politics.
It also I feel lacks a gender analysis. Women are particularly hard hit and disadvantaged by lack of priorities accorded to a holistic view of health - and so I would advise anyone reading this to check with the book called
'The Motherhood Manifesto'.
Very grateful!
One of the key themes of the book is the idea that mental health issues and addiction are often the result of underlying traumas or stressors that have not been properly addressed. Maté argues that our society's emphasis on individual responsibility and the denial of the role of societal and environmental factors in these problems only serves to perpetuate them.
Throughout the book, Maté presents a number of case studies and examples to illustrate his points, including his own experiences working with patients struggling with addiction, mental illness, and other issues. He also discusses the role of the medical and mental health industries in perpetuating the myth of normal, and offers alternatives for more holistic, trauma-informed approaches to care.
Overall, "The Myth of Normal" is a thought-provoking and deeply compassionate examination of the ways in which our society's ideas about what is "normal" contribute to the suffering of many individuals. It offers a powerful critique of the status quo and a call to reexamine our assumptions about mental health, addiction, and what it means to be "normal."
This ambitious book seeks to span the immense breadth of connecting personal physical health with personal emotional health in the context of the vast fabric of society: culture, belief systems, politics and economics, etc. And while Dr. Gabor Maté emphasizes how vital the formative years of childhood are in shaping our personal emotional and physical health, and in the larger context in shaping the collective emotional and physical health of society, he makes it abundantly clear that he is in no way blaming or shaming parents!!!! We are all doing the best we can with the cultural conditioning and early subconscious programming that shaped our OWN early development!!!
Honestly, I couldn't finish any chapter without putting the book down several times, closing my eyes, and with hand on my heart, breathing deeply as I was flooded with a river of feelings, memories and longings overflowing its banks. For me, it was like Roberta Flack's song, "Killing Me Softly."
If this book shakes you up and makes you confront your own cherished belief systems that have kept you comfortably adapted to a sick society and blind to its deeply entrenched madness, this is good. Dr. Maté's magnum opus is one of the great works in history that holds the power to help you heal your life, and in so doing, heal the world.
This is not one of those. The author harkens to many ideas and theories but always adding something new and insightful to the mix.
You will find something to highlight in every parapgraph.
Thank you, so much, Dr. Mate!
Thank you for the inspired guidance !
In the Introduction, Maté gives a summary of his reasons for writing the book, and he explains his basic premise: “It is my contention that by its very nature our social and economic culture generates chronic stressors that undermine well-being in the most serious of ways,”.
In Part 1 – ‘Our Interconnected Nature’, Maté begins by discussing trauma, and the lasting effects of traumatic experiences, even ones from infancy. He also explores the body-mind connection, with the contention that our physical wellbeing is even more linked to our thoughts than most people realize. Maté cites various research studies and examples from his professional life to further illustrate his points. He quotes various neuroscientists and geneticists, and he explains how outside influences even affect our immune systems.
In Part 2, Maté discusses early life and the developmental needs of children. He covers the effects of stress, even in the womb before the child is born. He gives some perspective on childbirth, early stages of development, parenting styles, the effects of screentime, and cultural norms.
In Part 3 Maté gives his thoughts about diseases and addictions potentially being adaptations to the environment. He discusses various types of addictions, and some myths and misconceptions about mental illnesses.
Part 4 shifts the focus to society as a whole, and the ways that modern societies can be a source of stressors that lead to illness. Maté covers economic stress, dislocation and loneliness, neuromarketing, Big Food and Big Pharma, inequalities of race, class, and gender, and political division.
In Part 5 Maté wraps up by offering some ideas about healing and wholeness. He talks about the four A’s: Authenticity, Agency, Anger and Acceptance. He offers his thoughts about compassion, and how to learn from modern diseases. He discusses how to improve self-awareness, and how to learn to say “No”. Maté also talks about psychedelics and spirituality, before giving a few final words about the path to a healthier future society.
Overall, I liked this book. I was intrigued by Maté’s take on these lesser-studied large scale issues, and I thought that he made some very good points. This topic is difficult to write a very scientific book on though, because there are so many vague concepts and multi-faceted issues, that it becomes almost impossible to prove some of his assertions. I think that there is some good advice here towards the end of the book, and many parts really encouraged me to think more deeply; but also, the general concept of society/culture contributing to illness is such a broad topic that it is hard to really feel like there are great solutions. Still, I don’t regret reading this one.
Dr Mate synthesizes his previous works on trauma, parenting, addiction and more in this book. The myth of normal refers to all the ways we are hurting ourselves, as individuals and as societies, which we are unaware of and therefore think are " normal" . The " toxic culture" referred to in the subtitle goes way beyond physical toxins to include all the ways we are disconnected from our authentic selves and from each other. He writes extensively about the failure to address trauma and connect mind and body in modern medicine, and many other aspects of our society where we are sabotaging ourselves.
I love that Dr Mate, currently 78, is still an optimist and is so passionate about his vision of a world where we are connected to our true selves and to each other.