Dr. Gabor Mate

Eminent physician, author, and speaker Dr Gabor Maté is one of the world’s leading voices on childhood development, stress, and the causes and treatment of addiction. His books on these subjects have been translated into at least twenty-five different languages and, as a speaker, he is so in demand that he has to be booked years in advance. Now retired from practice, his tireless work has focused on the link between mental and physical health. He explores the effects that childhood trauma and stress can play in a person’s health later in life and their role in causing addiction and/or disease.

Maté’s medical views also inform his view on society. He has argued that the rise in ADHD and stress levels amongst children is due, at least in part, to a disconnect between children and parental nurture. His views on treating addiction are similarly likely to cause a debate; he is in favour of methods such as safe-injecting sites and believes that society needs to change to fight addiction as a whole. He has shared these views in his series of evocatively-titled books: Scattered Minds, When the Body Says No, Hold on to Your Kids, and In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts.

Dr Maté himself had a childhood no one would envy: Born in Budapest during World War II, he is a Jewish Holocaust survivor whose immediate family were either killed by or suffered at the hands of the Nazis. Relocating to Canada as a child, he was a medical practitioner in East Vancouver for over two decades, working with people suffering from addiction, HIV, and mental illness.