THE MYTH OF NORMAL

Dr Gabor Maté

By Human Library Creator – Michaella Voss

The Myth of Normal is our second Bellbird Book Club read for 2024, continuing to expand our knowledge and understanding of mental health, addiction and trauma with more learning from author Dr Gabor Maté.

The Myth of Normal is a hefty 576 page read which attempts to challenge the prevailing understanding of “normal” health in the western world. Throughout this read, Maté provides a critical analysis around the state of population health and asks us all to question why, in a society with such advanced medical progress, we are seeing a rise in chronic health conditions. Like his other books, I found The Myth of Normal thought provoking to say the least, but also extremely heavy in places, and found myself personally disagreeing with some of the ‘deficit’ approach language used and information shared throughout the book. I cannot wait to delve into this review to share my personal insights, so let’s get into it!

The first part of this book is an exploration into the factors in society which are pervasively influencing population health but are not necessarily being addressed by the health care system. Maté speaks of a “toxic culture” endorsing both capitalism and colonialism, negatively impacting the health and wellbeing of the population in the western world. As humans, we have been designed now to see our worth as how productive we are as people. This constant, heightened state of arousal is not conducive to positive health. Even the system that is supposed to be aiding us is entrapped in the same way, being less involved in personal outcomes for those they serve, aspiring instead for high productivity, even at the expense of lessened care. I see this in my practice and imagine this remains an ongoing issue for a lot of us involved in helping professions, balancing contractual requirements with a person-centred approach.

As someone with a great interest in mental health related theories and modalities, one part of The Myth of Normal that truly interested me was the exploration of the “fawn response” and its connection with wellness. The fawn response is a lesser-known trauma response which an individual will use to disarm a perceived threat, often through the subjugation of one’s own needs.

Within The Myth of Normal, research is discussed which highlights individuals who identify as utilising the fawn response being more vulnerable in developing inflammatory diseases later in life. Maté discusses how women traditionally are taught to stifle or hide their true feelings, to be quiet and well behaved. From a feminist perspective, I think pervasive gendered norms are often quite invisible and I enjoyed how Maté uncovered these as being problematic for women’s health.

It would not be a Gabor Maté book unless it covered trauma in a comprehensive amount of detail. Trauma is yet again defined and explored in relation to negative health outcomes. Maté reminds us as readers of the impact of trauma in terms of influencing both negative psychological and physical health outcomes. As much as I agree with a holistic view of health and wellbeing and of course understand the impact of early adverse life experiences on the quality of health and wellbeing across an individual’s life span, there was something about The Myth of Normal that personally left me feeling rather uncomfortable. I think the pessimistic tone throughout the read, without offering any solutions to the current situation, left me feeling less inspired about the conditions of the human experience, something I personally struggle with as an “eternal optimist” but also a strengths-based practitioner. I have always been taught when providing population analysis to question the beneficence of my research and results: what is my research going to achieve and who might my research harm? We should question if there is any good for women and indigenous populations to be told that they are more likely to develop inflammatory diseases and die prematurely repeatedly throughout the book, especially when there are no real solutions offered around how to support a change of this condition?

I understand Maté’s passion and purpose for sharing this knowledge but do feel The Myth of Normal is a difficult read, with too much information to digest, some of which I think promotes more harmful than helpful rhetoric. Perhaps instead, the biggest positive take away, is that despite what the capitalist market sells to us all there is no such thing as “normal”. Diversity in the human experience is a beautiful thing and good health is subjective and different for all of us. From a systems approach, I think that the findings of this book should be absorbed at a higher, governance level in the hopes that policy makers may be able to critically analyse the downfalls of the current health care system and move towards a system that is more equitable and helpful for all.