Gabor Mate

I'm so sorry. I hope real medical treatment is helping you.

Urghhh shudders

I was repeatedly told by someone who platforms him and is a huge groupie of his that my symptoms were trauma /trauma moving through the body / the process of healing.

Nothing was ever escalated despite being told it would be

Turns out I have a brain tumour.

Nobody is arguing its not one driver as you put it.

But it's patently ridiculous to claim all physical illnesses are to do with the mind/trauma.

Not only is false but it's dangerous.

I think it’s undeniable that emotional stress can be one driver to illness. However uncomfortable that makes us feel. The body and mind are inextricably linked.

it doesn’t mean it’s anyone’s fault. And some people are more susceptible to certain illnesses than other.

I don’t think he is a quack. It sounds a lot like common sense

Did Louise Hay say cystic fibrosis was caused by self pity? If she did say that it is nuts. Cystic fibrosis is there from the second the egg and the sperm join.

You reminded me of several visits to GP where I was repeatedly told I wasn't ill, I was depressed. All my symptoms were due to my depression. I wasn't depressed although I was fed up of the exhaustion, weight gain and aches and pains I was experiencing.

Eventually I saw the nurse practitioner and she actually listened to me, said she thought she knew what it was and did a blood test. 24 hrs later I got a call from the surgery to say the doctor needed to see me urgently. I had hypothyroidism and was immediately started on levothyroxine. Doctor commented that I must have been feeling awful (I'd told him often enough) I must have felt like I was swimming through treacle (quite a good description) and that we would need to gradually increase the meds as I couldn't go straight on to the dose I needed as it would be too much of a jump.

So personally I wish my doctor had stopped with the emotional mumbo jumbo and dealt with the physical issues in front of him. It would have spared me from 2 or 3 years of misery.

@TemporarilyshyAF I've never referenced a 'healing world' so I presume you've tagged me in error.

For what it's worth I took the mention of 'healing world' to mean the wider community of therapists, psychologists and self help types who focus on recovery and healing from trauma.

I find that hard to believe. We have a tendency to it in my family and I think it might be genetic. Unusually me and my siblings seem to have missed it which is funny as we are the ones who lost a parent as children and then went through issues with a step parent. If he was right I think we would be the most likely in the wider family to get it and we didn't, cousins with far less upset in their lives got it.

Another quack

That link says cancer is caused carrying hatreds. Incredibly offensive.

I was just about to mention Louise Hay.
She was so far ahead of her time.
So many of her 'causes' have resonated with me and things I have learned through decades of therapy to try and resolve complex childhood trauma.
Again she also gets criticised for what she says about eg cystic fibrosis.
I think there's a vast amount that we don't yet know about the root cause of many illnesses.

He is absolutely a quack.

Genetic diseases can be present at birth. So what suppressed female anger has a newborn boy with diabetes got?

According to Louise Hay, these are the causes:

Rheumatoid Arthritis: Feeling victimized. Lack of love. Chronic bitterness. Resentment. Deep criticism of authority. Feeling very put upon.

Diabetes: Longing for what might have been. A great need to control. Deep sorrow. No sweetness left.

Louise Hay’s List of Causes of Symptoms - Kate Strong | Intuitive Healing

I couldn't find autoimmune for myself but I did find lungs:

Lung: The ability to take in life. Depression. Grief. Not feeling worthy of living life fully.

^ I mean, I can relate to some of that, but whether it caused ^my autoimmune disease, that's something else!

Louise Hay - Wikipedia

There should be many many examples then within the 'healing world' of people being cured from progressive multiple sclerosis, crohns disease, lupus etc if they're just caused by 'undealt emotions ' . Is there any evidence at all of this?

😂

Wow! 😀

I have very rarely had back/neck trouble when when I do, I always see an osteopath.

I think the danger is saying that "all" autoimmune diseases are caused by stress/anxiety/trauma, and I think there are few medics/pyschologists etc who would claim that. There seems to be some evidence that some people develop some diseases because of stress/trauma etc, but that doesn't mean that every autoimmune disorder has that as its cause.

I don't think it's an "all are or none are" debate

Interesting.

Off my own back, when I was diagnosed, and without being influenced by anyone else, I felt so strongly stress was at the root of my issues. I felt it instinctively in my case. Now, I will never know for sure and I "knew" something was wrong long before I was diagnosed. I had just had one of the most stressful years of my life. You know those "stress calculators" where they add up points divorce/moving/close relative dying/depression etc. I had the full house - bingo!

The doctors could not see anything wrong to begin with. Later, my issues became more advanced and my deteriorating breathing became so obvious that it couldn't be ignored any longer. I delayed taking steroids even then though, which I regret now.

I was going to say similar, I am no expert but my understanding of epigenetics is that people have genetic potential for particular illnesses but then lifestyle factors can determine which genes are switched on and which are not.

To me it makes perfect sense that our emotional state causes illness, because our physical and emotional heath are inextricably linked.

Trauma doesn’t need to be a major incident, children can be significantly affected by a generally caring but often emotionally unavailable parent and this long term stress of course would affect physical and emotional health.

I haven’t read loads of Gabor Mate but I rate him, OP.

@koalaknickers Lots of them are chiropractors because chiropractic is based on techniques chanelled from a dead person!

It sounds crazy, but it is true. Myles Power does a good explanation:
https://mylespower.co.uk/2019/08/11/chiropractic-quackery-hiding-in-plain-sight-2/

What is 'the healing world' and how are type 1 diabetes and rheumatoid arthritis 'well known' to be caused by trauma? I'm interested.

He absolutely does not say adhd is a result simply of parental neglect

Ive read his book on adhd and he explains its an interaction if genetic condition with specific environmental factors. He has adhd as do his children he is very clear it is genetic.

Of course its also influenced by environmental factors and parenting

He is not a quack in the slightest

What if autoimmune disease is the switching on of a gene that you already had, but unsupressed anger or stress was ONE mechanism that could turn that gene on.
Like stress seems to make stuff worse right.

Lol I’m not saying I agree either way - just there’s a lot of stuff we don’t understand.
Like the role of prior Epstein Barr virus infection and it’s links to ME, MS, RA and Long Covid etc.

Could insulin inbalance also switch the gene on - like with something like HS which can be controlled in some cases with metformin and diet.

I am not against exploring other ideas myself. When I was diagnosed with an autoimmune disease that affected my ability to breathe, I was terrified, and the future looked pretty grim. I didn't want to go on steroids and delayed it longer than I should have. My lungs would be in better condition had I listened to my doctors.

But I still explored other ideas, looking for answers, trying to find out if I could help myself alongside the doctors' treatments.

I am not saying anything against Gabor Mate, as I don't know enough about him. But I do know that there are many charlatans out there taking advantage of people's fear and confusion when they are ill and making big bucks out of them, while simultaneously telling us that it is the doctors that are making big bucks out of us.

It's horrible to be ill and then to add insult to injury be preyed upon as well.

Here is a useful site to check out credentials of some people you may come across. Note how many seem to be chiropractors for some reason! They often have their own range of unregulated products to sell.

Home Page | Quackwatch

You need to go quite far down the page to get to specific names. I see someone I used to think had all the answers. Joseph Mercola, who has been told to stop making illegal claims. I think he lost his youTube account because of it? He had a range of products to sell too, if I remember correctly.

NB: Once again, I am not referring to Gabor Mate particularly in this post, just the whole thing in general.