Mate Gabor: In the Realm of the Hungry Ghost

Based on Gabor Maté’s two decades of experience as a medical doctor and his groundbreaking work with the severely addicted on Vancouver’s skid row, In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts radically reenvisions this much misunderstood field by taking a holistic approach. Dr. Maté presents addiction not as a discrete phenomenon confined to an unfortunate or weak-willed few, but as a continuum that runs throughout (and perhaps underpins) our society; not a medical „condition” distinct from the lives it affects, rather the result of a complex interplay among personal history, emotional, and neurological development, brain chemistry, and the drugs (and behaviors) of addiction. Simplifying a wide array of brain and addiction research findings from around the globe, the book avoids glib self-help remedies, instead promoting a thorough and compassionate self-understanding as the first key to healing and wellness. In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts argues persuasively against contemporary health, social, and criminal justice policies toward addiction and those impacted by it. The mix of personal stories—including the author’s candid discussion of his own „high-status” addictive tendencies—and science with positive solutions makes the book equally useful for lay readers and professionals.

Based on Gabor Mate’s two decades of experience as a medical doctor and his groundbreaking work with the severely addicted on Vancouver’s skid row, In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts radically reenvisions this much misunderstood field by taking a holistic approach. Dr. Mate presents addiction not as a discrete phenomenon confined to an unfortunate or weak-willed few, but as a continuum that runs throughout (and perhaps underpins) our society; not a medical condition distinct from the lives it affects, rather the result of a complex interplay among personal history, emotional, and neurological development, brain chemistry, and the drugs (and behaviors) of addiction. Simplifying a wide array of brain and addiction research findings from around the globe, the book avoids glib self-help remedies, instead promoting a thorough and compassionate self-understanding as the first key to healing and wellness.

In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts argues persuasively against contemporary health, social, and criminal justice policies toward addiction and those impacted by it. The mix of personal stories–including the author’s candid discussion of his own high-status addictive tendencies–and science with positive solutions makes the book equally useful for lay readers and professionals.

“A riveting account of human cravings, this book needs to get into as many hands as possible. Maté’s resonant, unflinching analysis of addiction today shatters the assumptions underlying our War on Drugs.”

—Norm Stamper, former Seattle Chief of Police and author of Breaking Rank: A Top Cop’s Exposé of the Dark Side of American Policing

“In this brilliant and well-documented book, Gabor Maté locates the source of addictions in the trauma of an emotionally empty childhood, making it a relational rather than a medical problem. Such a radical thesis of cause leads to human connection rather than traditional treatment as the cure. This passionate and compassionate book, filled with scientific evidence and personal narratives, should be on the shelf of every person interested in the pervasive challenge of addiction.”

—Harville Hendrix, PhD, author of Getting the Love You Want: A Guide for Couples and cofounder of Imago Relationship Therapy

„Dr. Maté’s latest book is a moving, debate-provoking, and multi-layered look at how addiction arises, the people afflicted with it and why he supports decriminalization of all drugs, including crystal meth.… [In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts] reads not only as a lively textbook analysis of the physiological and psychological causes of drug addiction, but also as an investigation into his heart and mind.”

—The Globe and Mail

 

„It’s time to give Maté … the Order of Canada for this erudite and sensitive book about the lives of Downtown Eastside intravenous-drug users, the neurobiology of addiction, and the folly of the war on drugs. It’s compulsively readable and packed with new scientific discoveries about addiction. If you know the parent or sibling of an addict—or the prime minister, for that matter—please give him this book.”

—The Georgia Straight

 

„I recommend this wonderful book for anyone struggling with the heartache of addiction personally or professionally. Dr. Maté makes the thought-provoking and powerful arguments that human connections heal; and that the poverty of relationships in the modern world contribute to our vulnerability to unhealthy addictions of all manner. His uniquely humane perspective—all too absent from much of the ‘modern’ approach to addictions—should be a part of the training of all therapists, social workers, and physicians.”

—Bruce Perry, MD, PhD, Senior Fellow, Child Trauma Academy, Houston, and coauthor of The Boy Who Was Raised as a Dog

 

„Gabor Maté’s connections—between the intensely personal and the global, the spiritual and the medical, the psychological and the political—are bold, wise and deeply moral. He is a healer to be cherished and this exciting book arrives at just the right time.”

—Naomi Klein, author of No Logo and The Shock Doctrine

 

http://www.powells.com/biblio/1-9781556438806-0