Gabor Maté

This should be required reading for everyone who encounters people struggling with addictions, and all addicts struggle. Mate tells stories about patients he has known as the physician to many drug addicts and alcoholics, but he also tells of his own and others behavioral addictions. He is sensitive to the people he describes as people and honest about the times his awareness of themas troubled and traumatized people slips into judgement. I have ordered my own copy because this book is inspiring and filled with excellent ideas about harm reduction and addiction.… (més)

Full of information and insight, some of which I knew and believed in broadly, but with much less specific knowledge. This is a book that will convnce your parents of the importance of harm reduction and broad drug decriminalization, but may be less useful if you already have a strong understanding of those concepts.
Dr. Maté does occasionally overreach in his analysis--particularly, I noted, in his understanding of overeating as an "addiction"; the passages in which he posits this are some of the most consistently under- or unsourced sections of the book. I also think this book could have used a tighter edit, as it is sometimes repetitious.… (més)

This book gives the best diagnosis of the state of our society through the prism of mental health. It is by no means an easy read (took me months to get through it, chapter by chapter) and doesn't provide an easy way out, so it's not a prophetic answer to all our troubles. But if you want to have a better understanding of why things are so bad and why a holistic, systemic change is the only way out - this is a book for you.
What I love about Gabor Maté is his ability to show true compassion. I don't think I have ever read an author who is as compassionate to people who are dealing with trauma (and we all are, whether we are aware of it or not). The trauma he describes is not only "the bad things that happen to us", but all of that withheld from us that should be a part of our human experience, even if we are seemingly happy. Maté is very open in identifying the toxic dynamic of current late-capitalist societal trends as being the core issue in the mental health crisis.

While these ideas are not new if these topics are something you are interested in and Maté has written about them before, this is by far the most comprehensive work on this subject with an incredible bibliography. It is scientific, but also philosophical and provocative. I don't agree with everything Maté claims in this book, but it is good to be challenged and reflect.
This is a seminal work that people should read and talk about.… (més)