The myth of normal – trauma, illness & healing in a toxic culture

Gabor Maté With Daniel Maté

Renowned physician and addiction expert Gabor Maté talks about how culture influences the trauma we see today. Ever growing numbers of people with anxiety, depression, ADHD and more. Why has the trend continued? Are today’s societal and technological developments influencing such trends?

Gabor Maté is extremely well qualified to talk about this topic, given he has over four decades of experience helping people with addiction, and penning several books on trauma and addiction. Yet this is still an ambitious book, and I was glad to see it weighs in at 500 pages to do the task adequately.

A complex set of issues

The first chapters review some of the traditional views in a modern context, exploring how the repression of trauma works and leads to a host of potential mental health problems. The authors review the psychosomatic link of trauma, mind and body: that trauma is not just all in your head, as some of the evidence Maté shares shows, people with mental health issues are far more likely to suffer from physical diseases. Nor is mental health wholly a physical disease – a historical view that is now generally disregarded.

Another chapter expands this to the effects of the environment: mental health problems are not just in your head or your physical self but shaped by the world around a person. Maté still finds time to bring in the impact of childbirth – such as stress on the mother during pregnancy influencing the predilection for the baby to suffer from mental health issues later, as well as attachment theory, and the problems of western consumerist capitalism on mental health. Later chapters involve the roles of sexism, racism, and psychedelics. I told you it was ambitious!

We’re entering a territory where people are inclined to disagree with one another, so I’ll aim to stay objective but clearly state how politics is raised in the book. Maté argues that modern western society is partly responsible for the growth of mental health problems. This was also argued in books such as the journalist Johann Hari’s Lost Connections. This is the thrust of this book, as implied by the title, the myth of normal. It is the cultural setting that is helping mental health issues grow, through a loss of focus on nature, an emphasis on personal achievement, money, and possessions. Technology decreases our human contact, and as displayed by the lockdowns during COVID and associated increases in mental health issues. Maté's views are clearly explained – and I know some readers might get turned off when debating political nuances of some of these trends, but for the most part I found the blend of personal experience, viewpoint and scientific research well argued. It’s just that often, as soon as politics, religion or controversies come up in a more scientific book, it can turn people off and is therefore something to be aware of.

It might be quite daunting for somebody not familiar with the literature around addiction, trauma and mental health issues – suffice to say they are all inter-related. The book reads well though: despite the potential for being confronted with many new topics. Astute readers will find it an engaging journey from how our needs aren’t being met from childhood to a cultural tendency to provide inadequate answers to meeting our needs. It hardly comes across as surprising when laid out like this that these issues are growing.

Even for somebody who is moderately familiar with the literature on this subject, the book reads well and goes at a pace. It has a knack for bringing in figures – sometimes critically - such as Johann Hari, Jordan Peterson, Tony Blair, Greta Thunberg or personal stories (anonymous or not) of people who have suffered trauma, addiction and the other issues explored. These references aren’t prolix, and are used when necessary.

I have to be careful of bias when reviewing a book like this, as it is arguing a view I strongly subscribe to. I do believe that modern culture has a problem with creating mental health issues, and that, as Maté mentions, the pushing of drugs to temporarily resolve an issue – where temporarily is potentially a patient’s entire life, rather than exploring the deeper meaning and causes of these issues is part of the problem. Drugs have a place, but if they’re not addressing the underlying root of illness then more has to be done – often in combination with a prescribed drug. But really the issue is addressing the cultural influence: growing up in an environment with constant technology, consumerism and declining human contact is having widespread and nefarious effects, that need more recognition from books such as this.

A diagnosis, not a solution

This book then is a diagnosis: by Maté’s own admission, he cannot provide all the answers. The book actually feels as if it starts off many conversations: it touches on the themes I’ve mentioned – environment, modern society, personal anecdotes and examples, but also Maté’s personal experiences, some brief advice for confronting trauma, and his viewpoints on certain figures or approaches. It is a personal diagnosis by an expert, rather than a completely objective and scientific book. This helps to make it readable, but it does mean there are quite a lot of varying chapters here which readers may find erratic. Personally, being familiar with some of the literature, I found it read well, but sometimes did wonder if I’d have preferred it to be more objective. Either way, the book is a review of the current landscape and it’s associated problems, and in this goal it is mainly successful.

Final score

In summary then this is a book that will be eye-opening for some. There is quite a lot to take in here, and this book can’t afford to lay out the nuances of all the problems and touchpoints it brings up. What it does do, though, is produce a call of urgency for addressing a culture that seems to be contributing to mental health problems – and for that it is a worthy read.

8/10