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

“Chronic illness—mental or physical—is to a large extent a function or feature of the way things are and not a glitch.”

A central aspect of Maté’s argument in The Myth of Normal is that illness is not an individual aberration or dysfunction but a reflection of the unhealthy and unnatural conditions of society as a whole. In this way, Maté distinguishes his position from the mainstream view of disease in Western medicine.

“Trauma is not what happens to you but what happens inside you.”

Part of Maté’s definition is that trauma underscores much of the illness in contemporary society. What defines trauma, according to Maté, is not the objective event itself or its severity. Rather, trauma is distinguished by the continuing and damaging effects a certain event has on an individual’s life.

“We can perhaps treat human biology as strictly self-contained in an artificial setting like a medical laboratory or pathology theatre, but not in real life.”

Maté suggests that it is possible to treat the human body in isolation in a theoretical, abstract setting. However, in terms of what matters to understanding the nature of disease, the human body cannot be viewed in isolation from the mind or its social context. This idea forms the basis of both Maté’s distinct approach to pathology and his critique of Western medicine.