Gabor Maté

“Collect them before you direct them.”

— Gabor Mate

Autonomy is impossible as long as one is driven by anything.

— Gabor Mate

“Judgment or blaming is not the point. Understanding is.”

— Gabor Maté

“The question is never “Why the addiction?” but “Why the pain?”

— Gabor Maté

“The attempt to escape from pain, is what creates more pain.”

— Gabor Maté

“Passion creates, addiction consumes.”

— Gabor Maté

“No society can understand itself without looking at its shadow side.”

— Gabor Maté

Not why the addiction, but why the pain.

— Gabor Mate

We may not be responsible for the world that created our minds, but we can take responsibility for the mind with which…

— Gabor Mate

“Being untempered — unable to tolerate mixed feelings at the same time — is the hallmark of the immature.”

— Gabor Maté

... While nervous tension may be a component of stress, one can be stressed without feeling tension.

— Gabor Mate

“One effect of peer orientation is that the love and nurturance we have for our children cannot get through.”

— Gabor Maté

“The United States contains less than 5 percent of the world’s population but houses nearly a quarter of the world’s prisoners.”

— Gabor Maté

“I needed to write, to express myself through written language not only so that others might hear me but so that I…

— Gabor Maté

It is impossible to understand addiction without asking what relief the addict finds, or hopes to find, in the drug or the…

— Gabor Mate

“Loneliness has been similarly associated with diminished immune activity in a group of psychiatric inpatients.”

— Gabor Maté

“Environment does not cause ADD any more than genes cause ADD. What happens is that if certain genetic material meets a certain…

— Gabor Maté

“Without attachment, the parent succeeds at most in cowing a child into obedience, at the price of grave damage to the relationship…

— Gabor Maté

“Counterwill is an instinctive, automatic resistance to any sense of being forced. It is triggered whenever a person feels controlled or pressured…

— Gabor Maté

“The mind emanates from the interface between neurophysiological processes and interpersonal relationships. Experience selectively shapes genetic neuronal potential and thus directly influences…

— Gabor Maté

In the real world there is no nature vs. nurture argument, only an infinitely complex and moment-by-moment interaction between genetic and environmental…

— Gabor Mate

“Shame is the deepest of the “negative emotions,” a feeling we will do almost anything to avoid. Unfortunately, our abiding fear of…

— Gabor Maté

“Do I live my life according to my own deepest truths, or in order to fulfill someone else’s expectations? How much of…

— Gabor Maté

“Dismissing addictions as “bad habits” or “self-destructive behaviour” comfortably hides their functionality in the life of the addict. It is impossible to…

— Gabor Maté

“When a child becomes so attached to her peers that she would rather be with them and be like them, those peers,…

— Gabor Maté

“What [my patients] care about is my presence or absence as a human being. They gauge with unerring eye whether I am…

— Gabor Maté

“We see that substance addictions are only one specific form of blind attachment to harmful ways of being, yet we condemn the…

— Gabor Maté

“North American society tries to bury many problems under tons of medications, preferring to ignore the social and cultural causes of people’s…

— Gabor Maté

“Not all addictions are rooted in abuse or trauma, but I do believe they can all be traced to painful experience. A…

— Gabor Mate

“We have seen that the individual’s brain circuits are decisively influenced by the emotional states of the parents, in the context of…

— Gabor Maté

“Selye discovered that the biology of stress predominantly affected three types of tissues or organs in the body: in the hormonal system,…

— Gabor Maté

“Peer-oriented children live in a universe of severely limited and superficial attachments. The quest for sameness being the least vulnerable way of…

— Gabor Maté

“Being cut off from our own natural self-compassion is one of the greatest impairments we can suffer. Along with our ability to…

— Gabor Maté

“The first reason why peer-oriented children have to harden emotionally is that they have lost their natural source of power and self-confidence…

— Gabor Maté

“Environmental influences also affect dopamine. From animal studies, we know that social stimulation is necessary for the growth of the nerve endings…

— Gabor Maté

“Peer-oriented young people thus face two grave psychological risks that more than suffice to make vulnerability unbearable and provoke their brains into…

— Gabor Maté

“In response to the intensifying cruelty of children to one another, schools all over this continent are rushing to design programs to…

— Gabor Maté

“Opiates don't only relieve physical pain, they also relieve emotional pain. It turns out that the same part of the brain that…

— Gabor Maté

“The indispensable foundation of a rational stance toward drug addiction would be the decriminalization of all substance dependence and the provision of…

— Gabor Maté

“Maturation in the psychological realm involves the differentiation of the elements of consciousness — thoughts, feelings, impulses, values, opinions, preferences, interests, intentions,…

— Gabor Maté