in the realm of hungry ghosts by dr gabor mate

Implicitly, we presume that these people are victims of their condition. We habitually use the rationality of cause and effect when talking about inanimate objects and human beings whom we don’t hold responsible for their actions - children, victims of natural disasters, and those with diseases. One either accepts it or does not based on what one considers as ‘rational.’ Historically there have been two forms of rationality that have dominated human thought - and the social policies resulting from it: causality and teleology. There is no way to ‘prove’ that Maté’s philosophy is correct. But it is precisely that - a philosophy, that is, a way of looking at the world which verifies itself. This, I think, is a fair summary of Maté’s medical philosophy. Addiction also has undesirable physical side effects which are amplified by social stigmas and legal prohibitions. Addiction succeeds in compensating for this deficit and in reducing the pain involved. The purpose of addiction is to compensate for trauma, often experienced in childhood, that has produced an emotional deficit and real physical and psychic pain. Kim HughesĪddiction is a purposeful activity, not a disease or even a condition to be cured. When it comes to combating the drug trade and the ravages of addiction, society can use all the help it can get. It's not easy reading, but we ignore his arguments at our peril. Maté looks to the root causes of addiction, applying a clinical and psychological view to the physical manifestation and offering some enlightening answers for why people inflict such catastrophe on themselves.įinally, he takes aim at the hugely ineffectual, largely U.S.-led War on Drugs (and its worldwide followers), challenging the wisdom of fighting drugs instead of aiding the addicts, and showing how controversial measures such as safe injection sites are measurably more successful at reducing drug-related crime and the spread of disease than anything most major governments have going.

Maté's most dire patients who steal, cheat, sell sex, and otherwise harm themselves for their next hit. As Maté observes, 'Those whom we dismiss as 'junkies' are not creatures from a different world, only men and women mired at the extreme end of a continuum on which, here or there, all of us might well locate ourselves.' In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts begins by introducing us to many of Dr. His book is a powerful call-to-arms, both for the decriminalization of drugs and for a more sympathetic and informed view of addiction. Diligently treating the drug addicts of Vancouver's notorious Downtown Eastside with sympathy in his heart and legislative reform in mind can't be easy. He would probably dispute it, but Gabor Maté is something of a compassion machine.

In the realm of hungry ghosts by dr gabor mate