The Myth of Normal: Trauma, Illness, and Healing in a Toxic Culture

“Trauma is not what happens to you but what happens inside you.”

Part of Maté’s definition is that trauma underscores much of the illness in contemporary society. What defines trauma, according to Maté, is not the objective event itself or its severity. Rather, trauma is distinguished by the continuing and damaging effects a certain event has on an individual’s life.

“We can perhaps treat human biology as strictly self-contained in an artificial setting like a medical laboratory or pathology theatre, but not in real life.”

Maté suggests that it is possible to treat the human body in isolation in a theoretical, abstract setting. However, in terms of what matters to understanding the nature of disease, the human body cannot be viewed in isolation from the mind or its social context. This idea forms the basis of both Maté’s distinct approach to pathology and his critique of Western medicine.

“Another lamentable feature of Western medical practice—not universal, but all too often seen—is a power hierarchy that casts physicians as exalted experts and patients as the passive recipients of care.”

Along with its rigid distinction between body and mind, Western medicine typically places the patient in the passive role of ingesting pills or being subject to surgery. Maté argues that a more productive approach to healthcare positions patients as active participants in their own recovery.

“Children often receive the message that certain parts of them are acceptable while others are not.”

Maté criticizes the common way of childrearing in Western society: Instead of receiving unconditional love, children are taught that love is conditional upon conforming to certain socially acceptable behaviors. Such conditioning, according to Maté, leads to problems in later life as individuals suppress their own feelings and desires to secure social validation.

“For most of our evolutionary past until about ten thousand to fifteen thousand years ago- human being lived in small-band hunter-gatherer groups.” 

Maté uses a description of pre-modern human beings to defend his view of human nature and human needs. According to Maté, the most fundamental human need is one for social connection and intimacy. Such a need is rooted in our evolutionary past, when we lived in small groups or clans and positive social interaction and reciprocity were essential to survival.

“An angry child should sit by himself until he calms down.”

This is the view of popular psychologist and social commentator Jordan Peterson. According to Peterson, parents should use sanctions and punishment to mold the behavior of children in line with what is socially acceptable. However, Maté argues that such conditioning creates trauma and stores up psychological problems for children later in life.

“Present-day medical practice contradicts the wisdom of Nature and of the human body.”

Maté criticizes modern obstetrical practices that treat the pregnant woman’s body as merely a biological object that can be mechanically controlled and influenced. This approach ignores the spiritual and personal aspects of childbirth and leads to trauma for both the mother and the child.

“We arrive at the bookshelf already lost, seeking direction.”

Maté argues that human beings have an innate and prerational skill in rearing children. However, this skill has been forgotten and obscured by the demands of modern society, which prioritizes economic performance and adaptation over family cohesion. One symptom of this is the current obsession with books in which experts explain to parents how best to raise their children.

“The corporate siege of immature minds has exploited and exacerbated the void created by the loss of connection.”

As parents in the West often do not have the time or energy to bond with their children, children look to other sources for connection and intimacy. This can come from peers or from products and brands marketed to children, as corporations are able to exploit and sell products to "fix" the lack of intimacy that they, on a societal level, have helped create.

“They may take on some features of disease: a dysfunctional organ, tissue damage […] physical symptoms, impairment of certain brain circuits, cycles of remission and relapse, even death.”

Maté discusses one of the dominant theories when it comes to addiction, which is that addiction is a disease. This view is justified in part by the fact that addiction does share many similarities with more standardly understood physical diseases. However, Maté argues, this view of addiction, while not entirely wrong, misses the ways addiction is related to social and personal psychology and circumstances.

“He found in his addictions ‘a kind of love and acceptance.’”

Maté paraphrases David Navarro, guitarist from the Red Hot Chili Peppers, on his explanation of why he takes drugs. According to Navarro, taking drugs was a means to achieving the human connection and warmth in his life that was otherwise lacking. This corroborates Maté’s claim that addiction is neither a result of individual “bad choices” nor an isolated “disease” but an attempt to fill a void created by the absence of meaningful human intimacy.

“It is yet another myth that in our world there is a category we can label ‘addicts’ […] and then, neatly segregated from ‘those people’, there are the rest of us ‘normal’ folks.”

The most radical aspect of Maté’s analysis of addiction is that addiction is not a discreet phenomenon that affects a small group of individuals, but rather it is a spectrum in which almost everyone in contemporary Western society is caught with some degree of psychic and physiological dependency.

“The assumption that guided his treatment was the same one that dominates much of medical thinking: such torments are caused by a biological disease of the brain.”

Maté describes the experience of comedian Darrell Hammond with the medical profession when he sought help for his psychiatric problems. The response of the medical profession was to assume that his mental distress was simply the result of an imbalance or malfunction of chemicals in the brain and to administer drugs to try and correct those imbalances.

“What I experienced at that moment was a happy jolt […]. It is a medical condition, like diabetes or irritable bowel syndrome.”

British author Johann Hari’s account of how he felt when his psychological distress was diagnosed as bipolar disorder. Labelling of his symptoms in this way came as a relief to Hari since it gave him some certainty about his condition and how to address it. However, this certainty became illusory when after a period of time, the drugs he was prescribed ceased to work.

“Everybody knows there is no finesse or accuracy of suppression.”

Maté explains how many psychological problems stem from a coping mechanism in childhood: Confronted with adverse circumstances and unable to either fight or flee them, children deal with the situation by repressing their natural frustration and anger. This response is adaptative; however, it also leads to the repression of “positive” emotions, like joy and happiness, which can result in depression later in life.

“Many health problems, he said, are ‘not, strictly speaking, public health problems at all. They are questions of lifestyle […] the result of millions of individual decisions.’”

Maté quotes former British prime minister Tony Blair, who states that issues like addiction and diabetes are the result of individual bad decisions and therefore not a concern for society or the state. Maté takes Blair’s view as emblematic of the contemporary neo-liberal view of illness that absolves society and policymakers of any responsibility for health outcomes.

“As materialism promises satisfaction but, instead, yields hollow dissatisfaction, it creates more craving.”

Maté frames the materialism and consumerism of Western society in terms of addiction. Like a drug, consumerism and materialism promise to fill the void left by meaningful human connection. However, they never quite succeed in filling this void and thus encourage consumers to keep chasing this connection through further consumption.

“Their aim is to market happiness in a bottle.”

Maté discusses the emerging subdiscipline of neuroscience, neuromarketing, which utilizes the method and insights of neuroscience to create addictive behaviors in consumers, and thus keep them buying the product. Part of this is done through direct chemical means and part through marketing that suggests the product in question will fulfill some unmet human need.

“No matter where you go, you’re always aware of your otherness within a room.”

Maté quotes Helen Knott, a woman of mixed Indigenous, Canadian, and European descent and author of In My Own Moccasins. Knott’s experience is symptomatic of the experience of Indigenous peoples within a dominant white culture: They are constantly aware of their race and how they are being perceived in a way that is stressful and trauma-inducing.

“Girls and women are much more likely to be subjected to it, even sold the seductive idea that there is empowerment in it.”

Maté is discussing sexual objectification within contemporary society. He describes how women are subjected to this objectification and suffer more from it than men, as society and the media objectify the female body more so than men's. However, this fact is obscured by a societal ideology that encourages women to see their own objectification as an expression of choice and power.

“I am not speaking about some ultimate spiritual Truth; nor am I referring to purely intellectual verities or verifiable facts.”

Maté explains how one achieves authenticity and therefore healing by pursuing and realizing the truth, which is rooted in confronting one’s own experiences honestly and is distinct from either religious or scientific truth, which purports to be objective.

“It leads people to question everything they had thought about themselves.”

Maté is exploring the salutary value of disease in terms of individuals using it to achieve authenticity and healing. Although, argues Maté, it would be wrong to wish disease on anyone or desire it for oneself, it can nonetheless be a useful, though not necessary, prompt and teacher in achieving self-realization. This is because disease and illness can take us away from the ordinary flow of the world and the socially constructed self that is created and imposed there.

“The white man goes into his church and talks about Jesus […] but the Indian goes into his tipi and talks to Jesus.”

Maté quotes Indigenous chief Quanah Parker on the topic of psychedelics. While people within white Christian culture talk about Jesus and God, they are often distanced from their religion on an experiential level. In contrast, in part through the use of psychedelic substances, people from Indigenous cultures often have a direct spiritual connection with the world and nature, which is associated with traditional deities.