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4.2 AVERAGE
4.2 AVERAGE
Very thorough research covering trauma and its long-lasting impacts on the body, the mind-body connection, and the many social/racial/gender/culture disparities in achieving health. If you read any Gabor Maté book, this one might be a good pick. For me, however, this text felt like a very large overview of his other books with a few additions (namely the inequality and justice pieces, the ways our society is disconnecting us further, and the inclusion of indigenous practices for healing, of which have been very colonized by the American mental health industry).
FYI - this is not an uplifting book. Feel-good, self-help it is not. It takes a much harder stance and requires the reader's full dedication to taking a good, hard look at our toxic, disconnected society and its impact on the ways we grow up and live our lives - from birth to adulthood. It covers fun topics like attachment and shame, toxic positivity and perfectionism, and has a great deal of parent blame (though also some compassion and empathy, too).
I was a bit more impacted by In The Realm of Hungry Ghosts, Maté's text on addiction processes, though this book covered that topic for several chapters. There were several great thinkers, books, and quotes mentioned in this book and it would be a great reference or starting point for anyone looking to learn more about trauma.
FYI - this is not an uplifting book. Feel-good, self-help it is not. It takes a much harder stance and requires the reader's full dedication to taking a good, hard look at our toxic, disconnected society and its impact on the ways we grow up and live our lives - from birth to adulthood. It covers fun topics like attachment and shame, toxic positivity and perfectionism, and has a great deal of parent blame (though also some compassion and empathy, too).
I was a bit more impacted by In The Realm of Hungry Ghosts, Maté's text on addiction processes, though this book covered that topic for several chapters. There were several great thinkers, books, and quotes mentioned in this book and it would be a great reference or starting point for anyone looking to learn more about trauma.
challenging
emotional
hopeful
informative
medium-paced
This book came to me by the recommendation of a psychology academic, and it’s a little out of my wheelhouse, so I was unsure of what to expect.
The beginning of the book leans heavily on how childhood trauma shapes our behavior as adults, and there is a part of me that automatically reflex-responds to that as “hippie bullshit” even though I’m a leftist and dated a psychologist for 8 years.
I think that in itself is worth examining! I hold onto a need to be tough and uninvested in my feelings to a degree that is harmful…I wonder where in my childhood that comes from…
But Dr. Gabor Mate soothingly reminds me throughout that he is a professional with more years of experience than my brother and I share in years of life, and past this childhood trauma cycle we engage with the topic on the cover—that so much of this shit is the fault of society and the poor conditions we face, from discrimination and the beating whip of soul-crushing capitalism to environmental decay and fall into fascism it brings. I would say, the good shit. It made me incredibly glad that my mom said she would read this.
I love that this book ends with the tale of the author healing through an ayahuasca retreat and the academic who originally recommended this to my partner is on an ayahuasca retreat in Hawai’i.
May the universe, in all its collapsing glory, someday grant me the resources for psychedelic transformation—another 5 years in therapy is not for me dawg.
The beginning of the book leans heavily on how childhood trauma shapes our behavior as adults, and there is a part of me that automatically reflex-responds to that as “hippie bullshit” even though I’m a leftist and dated a psychologist for 8 years.
I think that in itself is worth examining! I hold onto a need to be tough and uninvested in my feelings to a degree that is harmful…I wonder where in my childhood that comes from…
But Dr. Gabor Mate soothingly reminds me throughout that he is a professional with more years of experience than my brother and I share in years of life, and past this childhood trauma cycle we engage with the topic on the cover—that so much of this shit is the fault of society and the poor conditions we face, from discrimination and the beating whip of soul-crushing capitalism to environmental decay and fall into fascism it brings. I would say, the good shit. It made me incredibly glad that my mom said she would read this.
I love that this book ends with the tale of the author healing through an ayahuasca retreat and the academic who originally recommended this to my partner is on an ayahuasca retreat in Hawai’i.
May the universe, in all its collapsing glory, someday grant me the resources for psychedelic transformation—another 5 years in therapy is not for me dawg.
Gabor's latest book seems to be a clumping of every other book he has written. I feel like he repeated many things other people have been saying in the field of psychology for well over a decade and presenting it as new revelations. Our cultural conversations have already switched over to trauma as root causes, so I'm not sure what else this adds to the zeitgeist.
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
Soms in mijn irritatiezone: alle leed is terug te voeren op trauma met een grote of kleine letter T. Als je dat oplost kun je beter leven met lijden.
Ik denk dat lijden ook bij het leven hoort, in ieder geval bij mijn leven. De reden daarvoor weet ik ook niet. Ik denk ook niet dat je het kunt oplossen door je trauma's met kleine letter t erkenning te geven. Het is ook niet mogelijk denk ik om kinderen traumaloos te laten opgroeien in die zin.
Wel heel goed dat hij de vinger op de zere plek legt: de invloed van het kapitalisme en het neoliberalisme op onze geestelijke gezondheid.
Ook onderzoekt hij zijn nieuwsgierigheid naar geestverruimende middelen ten behoeve van gezondheid en gaat hij in gesprek met mensen die op wonderbaarlijke wijze genazen van allerlei nare ziektes: vaak heeft het te maken met een shift in perceptie.
Interessant boek, je blijft toch lezen.
Ik denk dat lijden ook bij het leven hoort, in ieder geval bij mijn leven. De reden daarvoor weet ik ook niet. Ik denk ook niet dat je het kunt oplossen door je trauma's met kleine letter t erkenning te geven. Het is ook niet mogelijk denk ik om kinderen traumaloos te laten opgroeien in die zin.
Wel heel goed dat hij de vinger op de zere plek legt: de invloed van het kapitalisme en het neoliberalisme op onze geestelijke gezondheid.
Ook onderzoekt hij zijn nieuwsgierigheid naar geestverruimende middelen ten behoeve van gezondheid en gaat hij in gesprek met mensen die op wonderbaarlijke wijze genazen van allerlei nare ziektes: vaak heeft het te maken met een shift in perceptie.
Interessant boek, je blijft toch lezen.
informative
reflective
fast-paced
One of my favorite books. A must read for anyone looking to learn more about themselves and others
I’m still digesting this book. It made me re-examine Western medicine and healthcare, my own upbringing, politics, pop culture and US history, in short. This book really flexed my ability to entertain a thought without accepting it. I felt like Mate gets a bit fanatical at times throughout this book but is that because I believe in this toxic non-reality that mainstream culture has imbued in us?! I don’t know.
I listened to this behemoth of a book. I am a big fan of Dr. Mate’s trauma work and research. I loved his concept of deeply questioning and critiquing of what is “normal” in our society and how these values actually lead to further disease and suffering. I appreciated his multiple levels of criticism from individual values all the way up to social determinants of health.
My criticism for him and all these big trauma “experts” like Bruce Perry, Bessel Van Der Kolk, Peter Levine is this. This is not a new conclusion and their work is not revolutionary. People of color, and particularly women of the global majority have been saying this. They have advanced many of these theories and have met w silence. They don’t get sweeping book tours or interviews on major networks. They don’t even get a footnote in Dr. Mate’s book. What a shame. Furthermore, the idea of a bio psycho social may be newly respected in the medical field but what about my social workers and public health Practitioners? We been understanding the body mind connection and the impact of society on our psyche. It feels a little silly he did not consult w folks on the ground who do not share his credentials.
He has some blind spots and as clinician, it’s worth noting.
My criticism for him and all these big trauma “experts” like Bruce Perry, Bessel Van Der Kolk, Peter Levine is this. This is not a new conclusion and their work is not revolutionary. People of color, and particularly women of the global majority have been saying this. They have advanced many of these theories and have met w silence. They don’t get sweeping book tours or interviews on major networks. They don’t even get a footnote in Dr. Mate’s book. What a shame. Furthermore, the idea of a bio psycho social may be newly respected in the medical field but what about my social workers and public health Practitioners? We been understanding the body mind connection and the impact of society on our psyche. It feels a little silly he did not consult w folks on the ground who do not share his credentials.
He has some blind spots and as clinician, it’s worth noting.
This is my book of the year. I read this slowly over two months, one chapter at a time for all of it to really sink in as well as for me to contemplate various things within it. I finished the final chapter fittingly on New Year's Eve.
This is, quite honestly, a life altering book for me on my own healing journey. Gabor would be someone on my list of people I would love to have the pleasure to meet one day and discuss his various ideas regarding our culture and society as a whole and how we can collectively work together to heal one another.
Quite simply, he takes all of us on a journey in his book on why Western medicine does not solely work to heal everyone and how he, as a medical doctor, thinks we need to take a more mind-body approach to it, meaning realize that a lot of mental and physical illnesses are a direct result to past or recent traumas along with addictions as well. His ideas of us having compassionate inquiries with ourselves and others are groundbreaking for me. I have so often wondered why a lot of people in our society push down their feelings/traumas and why they have so many coping mechanisms rather than face their inner feelings and selves. He explains quite thoroughly how until everyone faces these things head on, they will quite literally lead a rather unhappy existence and may even spiral into addictions and or mental health issues OR cancers/autoimmune diseases. He shows direct links to autoimmune diseases and high achievers; people who are go getters and workaholics who also may suppress childhood traumas.
I will say that if you aren't on your own healing journey, you may resist his ideas and dislike his book because your own coping mechanisms may be so firmly ingrained that you don't want to see any other way to live. For that, I have great empathy for those people because they can have a much more enriching life if they just believed in themselves more.
Overall, I hope every person in my life listens to or reads this book, for their own sake as well as for our community's/culture's sake. I will happily loan the book to anyone who wishes to borrow it and am ever so thankful that I added this book to my own collection. We have the power within us to change the toxic elements within ourselves and to give compassion and understanding to those around us who do and we together, can embrace healing together. It is the only way for us to have a better, more comfortably inclusive, emotionally attuned society in the future.
This is, quite honestly, a life altering book for me on my own healing journey. Gabor would be someone on my list of people I would love to have the pleasure to meet one day and discuss his various ideas regarding our culture and society as a whole and how we can collectively work together to heal one another.
Quite simply, he takes all of us on a journey in his book on why Western medicine does not solely work to heal everyone and how he, as a medical doctor, thinks we need to take a more mind-body approach to it, meaning realize that a lot of mental and physical illnesses are a direct result to past or recent traumas along with addictions as well. His ideas of us having compassionate inquiries with ourselves and others are groundbreaking for me. I have so often wondered why a lot of people in our society push down their feelings/traumas and why they have so many coping mechanisms rather than face their inner feelings and selves. He explains quite thoroughly how until everyone faces these things head on, they will quite literally lead a rather unhappy existence and may even spiral into addictions and or mental health issues OR cancers/autoimmune diseases. He shows direct links to autoimmune diseases and high achievers; people who are go getters and workaholics who also may suppress childhood traumas.
I will say that if you aren't on your own healing journey, you may resist his ideas and dislike his book because your own coping mechanisms may be so firmly ingrained that you don't want to see any other way to live. For that, I have great empathy for those people because they can have a much more enriching life if they just believed in themselves more.
Overall, I hope every person in my life listens to or reads this book, for their own sake as well as for our community's/culture's sake. I will happily loan the book to anyone who wishes to borrow it and am ever so thankful that I added this book to my own collection. We have the power within us to change the toxic elements within ourselves and to give compassion and understanding to those around us who do and we together, can embrace healing together. It is the only way for us to have a better, more comfortably inclusive, emotionally attuned society in the future.
This book is officially one of my favourites! Loved it