“The chief and most damaging of the competing attachments that undermine parenting authority and parental love is the increasing bonding of our… — Gabor Maté Child Copy Share Image
“If development unfolds optimally and the child makes headway in becoming her own person, the need for attachment wanes. As it does,… — Gabor Maté Child Copy Share Image
“Peer-oriented kids are repelled by similarity to their parents and want to be as different as possible from them. Since sameness means… — Gabor Maté Children Copy Share Image
“Despite the intervening six decades of scientific inquiry since Selye’s groundbreaking work, the physiological impact of the emotions is still far from… — Gabor Maté Early childhood Copy Share Image
“Any passion can become an addiction; but then how to distinguish between the two? The central question is: who’s in charge, the… — Gabor Maté Addiction Copy Share Image
“Why do we despise, ostracize and punish the drug addict when as a social collective we share the same blindness and engage… — Gabor Maté Copy Share Image
“Every day in the United States about 130 people die of overdoses. Which is to say that every month you have the… — Gabor Maté Addiction Copy Share Image
“Beauty Junkies is the title of a recent book by New York Times writer Alex Kuczynski, “a self-confessed recovering addict of cosmetic… — Gabor Maté Addiction Copy Share Image
“That people do judge themselves so harshly reflects low self-esteem, not low achievement. Self-esteem, we must realize, is the quality of self-respect… — Gabor Maté Deepest feelings Copy Share Image
“Culture is a vehicle for true self-expression. The flowering of individual creativity takes place in the context of culture. When a child… — Gabor Maté Children Copy Share Image
“What, then, is addiction? In the words of a consensus statement by addiction experts in 2001, addiction is a “chronic neurobiological disease…… — Gabor Maté Addiction Copy Share Image
“Our immune system does not exist in isolation from daily experience. For example, the immune defences that normally function in healthy young… — Gabor Maté Health Copy Share Image
“The experience of stress has three components. The first is the event, physical or emotional, that the organism interprets as threatening. This… — Gabor Maté Copy Share Image
“Addiction is a human problem that resides in people, not in the drug or in the drug’s capacity to produce physical effects,”… — Gabor Maté Addiction Copy Share Image
“In Separation, the second volume of his great trilogy on attachment, John Bowlby described what had been observed when ten small children… — Gabor Maté Anxiety depression Copy Share Image
“The oft-observed relationship between stress, impaired immunity and illness has given rise to the concept of “diseases of adaptation,” a phrase of… — Gabor Maté Civilized society Copy Share Image
“There's a real waning of human contact and increasing alienation. The more friends you have on Facebook, the more alone you are.… — Gabor Maté Copy Share Image
“The nuclear family is said to be the basic unit of society but is itself under extreme pressure. Divorce rates have soared.… — Gabor Maté Children Copy Share Image
“The biology of potential illness arises early in life. The brain’s stress-response mechanisms are programmed by experiences beginning in infancy, and so… — Gabor Maté Adult life Copy Share Image
“The other mind entity is what we call the impartial observer. This mind of present-moment awareness stands outside the preprogrammed physiological determinants… — Gabor Maté Buddhism Copy Share Image
“Not only do we avert our eyes from the hardcore drug addict to avoid seeing ourselves; we do so to avoid facing… — Gabor Maté Addiction Copy Share Image
“The major impairments of ADD — the distractibility, the hyperactivity and the poor impulse control — reflect, each in its particular way,… — Gabor Maté Attention deficit disorder Copy Share Image
“In the cloudy swirl of misleading ideas surrounding public discussion of addiction, there’s one that stands out: the misconception that drug taking… — Gabor Maté Addiction Copy Share Image
“Humans never outgrow their need to connect with others, nor should they, but mature, truly individual people are not controlled by these… — Gabor Maté Child Copy Share Image
“One of my earliest memories is from around age three or four—sitting in a dress by myself playing with a doll. I… — Gabor Maté Healing process Copy Share Image
“What is peer orientation? Orientation, the drive to get one's bearings and become acquainted with one's surroundings, is a fundamental human instinct… — Gabor Maté Child Copy Share Image
“While all of us dread being blamed, we all would wish to be more responsible—that is, to have the ability to respond… — Gabor Maté Fear Copy Share Image
“The addict’s reliance on the drug to reawaken her dulled feelings is no adolescent caprice. The dullness is itself a consequence of… — Gabor Maté Conscious awareness Copy Share Image
“Despite the superficial similarities created by global technology, the dynamics of peer-orientation are more likely to promote division rather than a healthy… — Gabor Maté Racism Copy Share Image
“We must all accept responsibility for our actions, else the world becomes unlivable. Yet it would be a tremendous social advance if… — Gabor Maté Accountability Copy Share Image
“Addictions, even as they resemble normal human yearnings, are more about desire than attainment. In the addicted mode, the emotional charge is… — Gabor Maté Addiction Copy Share Image
“It’s a subtle thing, freedom. It takes effort; it takes attention and focus to not act something like an automaton. Although we… — Gabor Maté Conscious awareness Copy Share Image
“Harm reduction is often perceived as being inimical to the ultimate purpose of “curing” addiction—that is, of helping addicts transcend their habits… — Gabor Maté Addiction Copy Share Image
“Violent atrocities by teenagers against one another have become the stuff of headlines: at Columbine High School in Colorado; in Tabor, Alberta;… — Gabor Maté Bullying Copy Share Image
“Children displaced from their families, unconnected to their teachers, and not yet mature enough to relate to one another as separate beings,… — Gabor Maté Children Copy Share Image
“Everyone has had the experience of suddenly feeling intense physiological and psychological shifts internally at trading glances with another person; such shifts… — Gabor Maté Attention span Copy Share Image
“Just how important a close moment-to-moment connection between mother and infant can be was illustrated by a cleverly designed study, known as… — Gabor Maté Brain development Copy Share Image
“Although parents and teachers are forever telling children to “grow up,” maturation cannot be commanded. One cannot teach a child to be… — Gabor Maté Child Copy Share Image
“The repeated finding that people with happier, less troubled thought patterns can suffer more illness seems to defy common sense. The general… — Gabor Maté Brain Copy Share Image
“Some people, a relatively small minority, are at grave risk for addiction if exposed to certain substances. For this minority, exposure to… — Gabor Maté Addiction Copy Share Image
