From CBC: “Family physician Dr. Gabor Maté doesn’t hold back when asked about his regrets as a parent. ‘The fact is that when my kids were small, I was a workaholic physician, very much respected in the community and well remunerated,’ he told The Current’s Matt Galloway. ‘But I wasn’t emotionally available for my children… Because of my workaholism, when you’re at home, you’re irritable because you’re in withdrawal, and that’s what my kids experienced.’
. . . ‘It’s considered normal in our society that children don’t see their parents the whole day, and the people they do see are not emotionally nurturing caregivers,’ he said. ‘It’s considered normal in this society for people to work in stressful jobs that impose mental and physical burdens on their systems.’
‘What I’m saying is that what is considered to be normal in our society in many cases is unhealthy and unnatural for human health and for optimal healthy human development.’
That point is one of the main focuses of Gabor and [his son] Daniel’s new book, The Myth of Normal: Trauma, Illness and Healing in a Toxic Culture. Released on Sept. 13, the book untangles some misconceptions about what makes people sick, and offers a guide for health, healing and challenging perceptions of normalcy and trauma.
‘My intention in this book is that people should understand themselves and they should understand the conditions that shape their lives, their thoughts, their relationships, their health, their illness,’ Gabor said.”
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