Gabor Maté seminar – for medlemmer af Kreds København & Frederiksberg

Den 25. september 2024 har vi den udsøgte fornøjelse at kunne byde på et heldagsseminar med den verdensberømte læge og psykotraumatolog Gabor Maté.

Bio:

Gabor Maté (pronounced GAH-bor MAH-tay) is a retired physician who, after 20 years of family practice and palliative care experience, worked for over a decade in Vancouver’s Downtown East Side with patients challenged by drug addiction and mental illness. The bestselling author of five books published in nearly 40 languages, including the award-winning In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts: Close

Encounters With Addiction, Gabor is an internationally renowned speaker highly sought after for his expertise on addiction, trauma, childhood development, and the relationship of stress and illness. For his ground-breaking medical work and writing he has been awarded the Order of Canada, his country’s highest civilian distinction, and the Civic Merit Award from his hometown, Vancouver. His most recent book, The Myth of Normal: Trauma, Illness and Healing in a Toxic Culture is a New York Times and international bestseller.

Gabor’s foredrag vil centrere sig om AD(H)D og hvordan det vestlige samfund materialisme og adskillelse af krop og sind skaber lidelse:

Beyond The Medical Model: A Biopsychosocial View of Attention Deficit Disorder and other Childhood Developmental Disorders

Based on the book Scattered Minds: A New Look at the Origins and Healing of Attention Deficit Disorder

(U.S. title: Scattered: How Attention Deficit Disorder Originates And What You Can Do About It)

The diagnosis of attention deficit disorder, or AD(H)D (with or without hyperactivity), is burgeoning. Nearly three million children in the U.S. take stimulant medications for this condition, while in Canada the number of Ritalin prescriptions has more than quintupled in the last decade.

The prevailing medical model of ADHD views it as an inheritable illness. In his bestselling Scattered Minds Gabor Maté rejects a narrow genetic perspective – and this despite the fact that he has been diagnosed with ADD himself, as have two of his children. He shows that while genetic predisposition may play a role, it is by no means decisive.

Neurobiological research has clearly demonstrated that the development of the human brain is not genetically determined but rather is significantly influenced and shaped by the environment. An increase in societal and parental stress, affecting the developing highly susceptible brains of infants -- as opposed to some sudden, highly implausible proliferation of an “ADD gene” on a large scale -- is responsible for the increasing number of cases now being diagnosed among children and adults.

Such a biopsychosocial view has profound implications for the treatment of AD(H)D and related developmental disorders in both children and adults. The circuitry and physiology of the brain are affected by the environment not only during critical periods of early childhood development, but throughout the human lifetime. Medications may be part of the overall treatment plan, but they should not necessarily be the primary, and never the only, line of treatment. Too often, symptom-control approaches actually undermine what should be the long-term goal: neurobiological and psychological development.

Trauma, Illness & Healing in a Toxic Culture

Based on The Myth of Normal: Trauma, Illness and Healing in a Toxic Culture

Half of North American adults suffer from chronic illness - a fact Western medicine views largely in terms of individual predispositions and habits.

Western medicine imposes two separations, neither tenable scientifically. First, it separates mind from the body, largely assuming that most chronic illnesses have nothing to do with people's emotional and psychological experiences. And yet, a large and irrefutable body of research has clearly shown that physiologic and behavioural functioning of human beings can be understood only if we integrate our body functions with those of the mind: functions such as awareness, emotions, our interpretations of and responses to events, and our relationships with other people. Second, Western practice views people's health as separate from the social environment, ignoring social determinants of health such as class, gender, economic status, and race. Such factors, in reality, are more important influences on health and longevity than individual predispositions and personal factors such as genes, cholesterol levels, blood pressure and so on.

This talk shows how a society dedicated to material pursuits rather than genuine human needs and spiritual values stresses its members, undermines healthy child development and dooms many to chronic illness, from diabetes to heart disease, from autoimmune conditions to cancer.