In this video Dr. Gabor Maté talks about the Myth of “Normal” in Psychological Disorders and links this to what we value in our society and how that promotes a separation from ourselves.
He explains how mental distress and pathology exists in a continuum. It’s a mythology to think there is the ‘normal’ and the ‘abnormal’. The traits that we categorize as ‘disorder’ are present in almost everybody.
What we call ‘disorder’ appears to be a concept that is manufactured by our culture that chooses to break the connection.
“Disease is not an isolated phenomenon of an individual. It’s a culturally constructed paradigm.”
A society that cuts us off from our connection to ourselves and ignores our emotional needs, generates pathology. The very nature of our economic system is to place value not on who you are, but on how you are valued by others.
“What we value is not who people are but what they produce or what they consume.”
If you don’t’ produce or consume, you are totally devalued in our society, hence our rejection of old people for example.
“The very nature of this materialistic society promotes that separation from ourselves.”
“There is an intelligence in nature and in creation that if we ignore we create suffering for ourselves and for other people.”
Recognizing and connecting to that nature is how we could define spirituality.
