Recommended by: Preisha Jain

Mental illness and chronic disease are on an unstoppable rise. How did we get here? And what lies ahead for us?
'It all starts with waking up... to what our bodies are expressing and our minds are suppressing.'
In this life-affirming book, Gabor Maté connects the dots between our personal suffering and the relentless pressures of modern life – showing that ill health is a natural reflection of our disconnection from our true selves. Drawing on four decades of clinical experience, and stories of people transforming their bodies and minds, Dr Maté offers a hopeful pathway to reconnection and healing.

Contents: Introduction Why Normal Is a Myth ( And Why That Matters ) - I
Part I: Our Interconnected Nature
Chapter 1 The Last Place You Want to Be: Facets of Trauma - 15
Chapter 2 Living in an Immaterial World:
Emotions , Health, and the Body - Mind Unity - 37
Chapter 3 You Rattle My Brain: Our Highly Interpersonal Biology - 52
Chapter 4 Everything I'm Surrounded By:
Dispatches from the New Science - 59
Chapter 5 Mutiny on the Body:
The Mystery of the Rebellious Immune System - 68
Chapter 6 It Ain't a Thing: Disease as Process - 85
Chapter 7 A Traumatic Tension: Attachment vs. Authenticity - 96
Part II: The Distortion of Human Development
Chapter 8 Who Are We Really? Human Nature, Human Needs - II5
Chapter 9 A Sturdy or Fragile Foundation: Children's Irreducible Needs – 123
Chapter 10 Trouble at the Threshold: Before We Come into the World - 136
Chapter 11 What Choice Dol Have? Childbirth in a Medicalized Culture –
Chapter 12 Horticulture on the Moon: Parenting Undermined - 160
Chapter 13 Forcing the Brain In the Wrong Direction:The Sabotage of Childhood - 179
Chapter 14 A Template for Distress: How Culture Builds Our Character - 197
Part III: Rethinking Abnormal: Affilctions as A
Chapter 15 Just Not to Be You: Debunking the Myths About Addiction – 211
Chapter 16 Show of Hands: A New View of Addiction - 2
Chapter 17 An Inaccurate Map of Our Pain: hat We Get Wrong About Mental Illness - 235
Chapter 18 The Mind Can Do Some Amazing Things: From Madness to Meaning - 253
Part IV: The Toxicities of Our Culture
Chapter 19 From Society to Cell: Uncertainty , Conflict, and Loss of Control - 275
Chapter 20 Robbing the Human Spirit: Disconnection and Its Discontents - 286
Chapter 21 They Just Don't Care If It Kills You: Sociopathy as Strategy - 297
Chapter 22 The Assaulted Sense of Self: How Race and Class Get Under the Skin - 311
Chapter 23 Society's Shock Absorbers: Why Women Have It Worse - 329
Chapter 24 We Feel Their Pain: Our Trauma - Infused Politics - 343
Part V: Pathways to Wholeness
Chapter 25 Mind in the Lead: The Possibility of Healing - 361
Chapter 26 Four A's and Five Compassions: Some Healing Principles - 374
Chapter 27 A Dreadful Gift: Disease as Teacher - 390
Chapter 28 Before the Body Says No: First Steps on the Return to Self – 408
Chapter 29 Seeing Is Disbelieving: Undoing Self - Limiting Beliefs – 422
Chapter 30 Foes to Friends: Working with the Obstacles to Healing – 430
Chapter 31 Jesus in the Tipi: Psychedelics and Healing – 447
Chapter 32 My Life as a Genuine Thing: Touching Spirit - 463
Chapter 33 Unmaking a Myth: Visioning a Saner Society - 481
Acknowledgments - 499 Notes - 503 Index - 546