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A review by studenison
The Myth of Normal: Trauma, Illness, and Healing in a Toxic Culture by Gabor Maté
3.0
Delighted and disappointed in equal measure here - Maté's central claim is, of course, a hugely relevant, even urgent one: we need to radically re-envision how our culture works to promote well-being and connection over atomization and destructive capitalistic individualism. We also need to see healing as a more holistic process, involving mind, body, and society (in his awkward terminology, this gets various labels). Entirely agree with this much, and its importance.
If the book stuck to these central ideas, with some illustrative examples (of which there are plenty), it would be an excellent work. However, he ventures well outside of his areas of expertise, and offers up over-simplistic analyses of issues well beyond his forte. These, as with some of the potentially dangerous medical claims in the text, often rely on a few cherry-picked studies and observations, mixed in with quotes from other pop-science and pop-psychology authors, whom Maté insists on calling 'my friend and colleague' ad nauseam (as if his credentials aren't well enough established to obviate name-dropping on such a scale...).
If the book stuck to these central ideas, with some illustrative examples (of which there are plenty), it would be an excellent work. However, he ventures well outside of his areas of expertise, and offers up over-simplistic analyses of issues well beyond his forte. These, as with some of the potentially dangerous medical claims in the text, often rely on a few cherry-picked studies and observations, mixed in with quotes from other pop-science and pop-psychology authors, whom Maté insists on calling 'my friend and colleague' ad nauseam (as if his credentials aren't well enough established to obviate name-dropping on such a scale...).