Acclaimed Canadian physician and author Dr. Gabor Maté has worked for decades in Vancouver as a family physician, palliative care director, addiction clinician and observer of human health. Dr. Maté’s work has long focused on the centrality of early childhood experiences to the development of the brain and how those experiences can impact everything from behavioral patterns to physical and mental illness over the years.
In an interview with Democracy Now’s Amy Goodman, Dr. Maté shared this about the title of his latest book, The Myth of Normal: Trauma, Illness and Healing in a Toxic Culture:
My contention in this book is what we consider to be normal in this society is actually neither natural nor healthy. In fact, it’s a cause of much human pathology – mental and physical. And what we call people’s pathologies – abnormalities – are actually normal responses to what is an abnormal culture.