When The Body Says No

INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER From renowned mental health expert and speaker Dr. Gabor Maté, this acclaimed, bestselling guide provides insight into the mind-body link between illness and health, and the critical role that stress and our emotional makeup play in an array of common diseases. In this accessible and groundbreaking book—filled with the moving stories of real people—medical doctor and bestselling author Gabor Maté shows that emotion and psychological stress play a powerful role in the onset of chronic illness, including breast cancer, prostate cancer, multiple sclerosis, Alzheimer's disease and many others. An international bestseller translated into over thirty languages, When the Body Says No promotes learning and healing, providing transformative insights into how illlness can be the body's way of saying no to what the mind cannot or will not acknowledge. With great compassion and erudition, Dr. Maté demystifies medical science and empowers us all to be our own health advocates.

#1 NATIONAL BESTSELLER NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER “This riveting and beautifully written tale has profound implications for all of our lives, including the practice of medicine and mental health.” —Bessel van der Kolk, MD, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Body Keeps the Score “Wise, sophisticated, rigorous and creative: an intellectual and compassionate investigation of who we are and who we may become. Essential reading for anyone with a past and a future.” —Tara Westover, New York Times bestselling author of Educated “The Myth of Normal is a book literally everyone will be enriched by—a wise, profound and healing work that is the culmination of Dr. Maté's many years of deep and painfully accumulated wisdom.” —Johann Hari, New York Times bestselling author of Stolen Focus “Gabor and Daniel Maté have delivered a book in which readers can seek refuge and solace during moments of profound personal and social crisis. The Myth of Normal is an essential compass during disorienting times.” —Esther Perel, psychotherapist, author, and host of Where Should We Begin From our most trusted and compassionate authority on stress, trauma, and mental well-being—a groundbreaking investigation into the causes of illness, a bracing critique of how our society breeds disease, and a pathway to health and healing. Gabor Maté’s internationally bestselling books have changed the way we look at addiction and have been integral in shifting the conversations around ADHD, stress, disease, embodied trauma, and parenting. Now, in this revolutionary book, he eloquently dissects how in Western countries that pride themselves on their health care systems, chronic illness and general ill health are on the rise. So what is really “normal” when it comes to health? For all our expertise and technological sophistication, Western medicine often fails to treat the whole person, ignoring how today’s culture stresses the body, burdens the immune system, and undermines emotional balance. In The Myth of Normal, co-written with his son Daniel, Maté brings his perspective to the great untangling of common myths about what makes us sick, connects the dots between the maladies of individuals and the declining soundness of society, and offers a compassionate guide for health and healing. The result is Maté’s most ambitious and urgent book yet.

1 The Bermuda Triangle 2 The Little Girl Too Good to Be True 3 Stress and Emotional Competence 4 Buried Alive 5 Never Good Enough 6 You Are Part of This Too, Mom 7 Stress, Hormones, Repression and Cancer 8 Something Good Comes Out of This Is There a "Cancer Personality"? 10 The 55 Per Cent Solution 11 It's All in Her Head 12 I Shall Die First from the Top 13 Self or Non-Self: The Immune System Confused 14 A Fine Balance: The Biology of Relationships 15 The Biology of Loss 16 The Dance of Generations 17 The Biology of Belief 18 The Power of Negative Thinking 19 The Seven A's of Healing Notes Resources Acknowledgments Index

INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER From renowned mental health expert and speaker Gabor Maté, MD, Scattered Minds explodes the myth of attention deficit disorder (ADD/ADHD) as genetically based—and offers real hope and advice for children and adults who live with the condition. In this breakthrough guide to understanding, treating, and healing attention deficit disorder, Dr. Gabor Maté, an adult with ADD and the father of three ADD children, shares information on: · The external factors that trigger ADD/ADHD · How to create an environment that promotes health and healing · Ritalin and other drugs · ADD in adults …and much more Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD/ADHD) has remained a controversial topic in recent years. Whereas other books on the subject describe the condition as inherited, Dr. Maté shows how our social and emotional environments play a key role in both the cause of and cure for the condition. In Scattered Minds, he describes the painful realities of ADD/ADHD and its effect on children as well as on careers and social paths in adults. While acknowledging that genetics may indeed play a part in predisposing a person toward ADD/ADHD, Maté moves beyond that to focus on the things we can control: changes in environment, family dynamics, and parenting choices. He draws heavily on his own experience with the disorder, as both an ADD sufferer and the parent of three diagnosed children. Providing a thorough overview of ADD/ADHD and its treatments, Scattered Minds is essential and life-changing reading for the millions of ADD/ADHD sufferers in North America today.

At some point in life, most of us will face health challenges of some kind. Whether it’s chronic back pain, the stiffness and pain of rheumatoid arthritis, or more serious illnesses, as we age our bodies often stop doing what they used to do with ease. In How To Say Yes When Your Body Says No, psychologist Lee Jampolsky examines how people become overwhelmed, and often unable to cope during a health challenge. He discusses the importance of focusing on inner work in addition to medical treatment, pointing out that the mental diet we feed ourselves has profound effects on our physical well-being. Jampolsky shares his personal health challenges, from spending months in a body cast as a young man to going deaf from an autoimmune disease. He shows how learning to alter one’s thoughts and beliefs about health is the key to physical well being. How to Say Yes When Your Body Says No is filled with meditations and exercises to develop an attitude of openness and healing, no matter what physical and emotional challenges we face.

In this timely and profoundly original new book, bestselling writer and physician Gabor Maté looks at the epidemic of addictions in our society, tells us why we are so prone to them and what is needed to liberate ourselves from their hold on our emotions and behaviours. For over seven years Gabor Maté has been the staff physician at the Portland Hotel, a residence and harm reduction facility in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside. His patients are challenged by life-threatening drug addictions, mental illness, Hepatitis C or HIV and, in many cases, all four. But if Dr. Maté’s patients are at the far end of the spectrum, there are many others among us who are also struggling with addictions. Drugs, alcohol, tobacco, work, food, sex, gambling and excessive inappropriate spending: what is amiss with our lives that we seek such self-destructive ways to comfort ourselves? And why is it so difficult to stop these habits, even as they threaten our health, jeopardize our relationships and corrode our lives? Beginning with a dramatically close view of his drug addicted patients, Dr. Maté looks at his own history of compulsive behaviour. He weaves the stories of real people who have struggled with addiction with the latest research on addiction and the brain. Providing a bold synthesis of clinical experience, insight and cutting edge scientific findings, Dr. Maté sheds light on this most puzzling of human frailties. He proposes a compassionate approach to helping drug addicts and, for the many behaviour addicts among us, to addressing the void addiction is meant to fill. I believe there is one addiction process, whether it manifests in the lethal substance dependencies of my Downtown Eastside patients, the frantic self-soothing of overeaters or shopaholics, the obsessions of gamblers, sexaholics and compulsive internet users, or in the socially acceptable and even admired behaviours of the workaholic. Drug addicts are often dismissed and discounted as unworthy of empathy and respect. In telling their stories my intent is to help their voices to be heard and to shed light on the origins and nature of their ill-fated struggle to overcome suffering through substance use. Both in their flaws and their virtues they share much in common with the society that ostracizes them. If they have chosen a path to nowhere, they still have much to teach the rest of us. In the dark mirror of their lives we can trace outlines of our own. —from In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts

Drawing on deep scientific research and Dr Gabor Mate's acclaimed clinical work, When the Body Says No provides the answers to critical questions about the mind-body link -- and the role that stress and our emotional makeup play in an array of common diseases such as arthritis, cancer, diabetes, heart disease, irritable bowel syndrome and multiple sclerosis. With dozens of case studies and stories including those of Lou Gehrig, Betty Ford and Lance Armstrong, Gabor Mate reveals 'The Seven A's of Healing' -- the principles for healing and prevention of illness from hidden stress.