February 2007 ISSUE
Q&A: Dr. Gabor MatE
Sustainability of Human Resources Presenter
 |
What does a frontline doctor in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside have to share with the membership of APEGGA? Plenty — when his name is Dr. Gabor Maté, a Canadian best-selling author on the subject of how hidden stressors make people sick.
Dr. Gabor Maté, a world-renowned author and speaker, returns to the APEGGA Annual Conference, this time to present on the mind/body connection and on addictive personalities in the workplace.
The Budapest-born doctor continues to treat the drug addicts and other patients of Vancouver’s notorious Downtown Eastside. Dr. Maté is the staff physician at the Portland Hotel, a residence and resource centre where many of his patients suffer from mental illness, drug addiction, HIV — or all three.
He has just completed his fourth book — this time tackling, suitably enough,
the issue of addiction.
“I am still not clear about this calling — part obligation and duty,
part response to suffering,” Dr. Maté has written. “My patients
are among the sickest, the neediest and the most neglected of any people in this
country. All their lives, they have been neglected, abandoned and self-abandoned,
time and again.”
So, what will the decidedly healthier audience at the conference learn?
“Many of us live with hidden stresses that burden both our private lives and our careers,” explains Dr. Maté. “The more we can recognize them, the freer we can be to achieve our true goals in all aspects of our lives, professional and personal.”
We asked Dr. Maté a series of questions. His answers follow.
To find out more about this year’s APEGGA Annual Conference Professional Development Program offerings, see the centre section of this edition of The PEGG or visit www.apegga.org.
Q Give us a sense of the response you’ve received from your books.
A What has been unexpected is the wide-ranging international interest in my books. When the Body Says No, on the subject of emotional stress and health, has now appeared in 10 languages on five continents. I’ve had invitations to give talks all the way from Philadelphia, to IKEA executives, to Tokyo, to a conference of Japanese health counsellors.
Hold On To Your Kids, on maintaining the parental relationships with our children in the midst of our busy culture, has appeared in the U.S., in Germany and in Israel.
As for In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts, my recently completed book on addiction, the feedback has been totally enthusiastic — both from myself and my wife. It will be published next January.
Q Any new revelations in your life and work since we last talked?
A Working on the addiction book led me to face how driven and addictive my own behaviours have been. I believe there is only one addiction process, whether it manifests in the lethal substance dependencies of my Vancouver Downtown Eastside patients, the frantic self-soothing of overeaters or shopaholics, the obsessions of gamblers, sexaholics and compulsive Internet users, or in the socially acceptable and even admired behaviours of the workaholic. The brain research on addiction shows that as well.
QAny changes in your work situation?
A I’ve spent much of last year with my primary focus on writing the book, but now I’ve returned to medical work. As times goes on, I’m doing a lot more travelling for purposes of my favourite activity: giving presentations and semin-ars regarding each of my four books, including even the yet-to-be- published one on addiction.
Q Is society getting more open to what you profess?
AThe research data indicating the unity of mind and body
grows exponentially every year, and increasingly I’m receiving invitations
from physicians and other health care professionals to present my views.
As to society in general, there is always more of a broad-minded interest in
new ways of understanding things on the part of the public than amongst narrowly
specialized professionals.
Q Your experience with us last year — how receptive was the audience?
A I anticipated facing a much more reserved and less open-minded
audience than turned out to be the case. People responded candidly, with interest,
humour, and a lot of willingness to share their personal stories and concerns
with me and with the other participants.
I tremendously enjoyed the APEGGA event and am looking forward to this year’s
conference in Calgary.
Q What’s next in your career, writing or otherwise?
A For the first time in five years, I’m not having to go home at night with a book to write — it’s been three in a row. Feels great, and as much as I love writing, I’m not even going to contemplate beginning a new book until after the publication of Hungry Ghosts next January.
My plan actually is to catch up with myself spiritually: to find the calm centre within rather than to put my energies into new external adventures. That, and to be invited on Oprah so as to become rich and famous!
Q Anything else you would like to add that isn’t covered here?
A The message that is driven home to me wherever I turn and whatever I do is that nothing and no one exist in isolation from the rest of the universe. Whether at work, in relationships, in creative endeavour, in parenting, and in illness and health, we are all part of a much greater whole.
We ignore at our peril our connection with everything that is. Thus the North American ideal of the “rugged individualist” has the virtue of encouraging enterprise and self-reliance, but it’s also dangerous if taken too far — dangerous to the self and to the community.
It’s a lesson our society has yet to assimilate, even though the teaching is all around us in the form of the many social and environmental challenges we now face.