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The Myth of Normal

A$35.00
(Trade paper)
In stock - dispatches within 2-3 business days

Overview
"This riveting and beautifully written tale has profound implications for all of our lives, including the practice of medicine and mental health." --Bessel van der Kolk, MD, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Body Keeps the Score
"Wise, sophisticated, rigorous and creative: an intellectual and compassionate investigation of who we are and who we may become. Essential reading for anyone with a past and a future." --Tara Westover, New York Times bestselling author of Educated

"The Myth of Normal is a book literally everyone will be enriched by--a wise, profound and healing work that is the culmination of Dr. Mat's many years of deep and painfully accumulated wisdom." --Johann Hari, New York Times bestselling author of Stolen Focus
"Gabor and Daniel Mat have delivered a book in which readers can seek refuge and solace during moments of profound personal and social crisis. The Myth of Normal is an essential compass during disorienting times." --Esther Perel, psychotherapist, author and host of Where Should We Begin?
From our most trusted and compassionate authority on stress, trauma and mental well-being--a groundbreaking investigation into the causes of illness, a bracing critique of how our society breeds disease, and a pathway to health and healing.


In the richest, most technically advanced, most health-obsessed society ever, all is not well. Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, chronic illnesses were on the rise. Nearly seventy percent of Americans are on at least one prescription drug; more than half take two. In Canada, every fifth person has high blood pressure. In Europe, over thirty percent of the population suffers from hypertension. And everywhere, adolescent mental illness is on the increase. So what is really "normal" when it comes to health?
Over four decades of clinical experience, Gabor Mat has come to recognize this version of "normal" as misleading, neglecting the roles that trauma and stress, and the pressures of life in the modern world, exert on our bodies and our minds at the expense of good health. For all its expertise and technological sophistication, Western medicine often fails to treat the whole person, which in turn stresses the body, burdens the immune system and undermines emotional balance.
Now, Mat brings his perspective to the great untangling of commonly held myths about what makes us sick, and connects the dots between personal suffering and the pressures of modern-day living. Filled with stories of people in the grip of illness or in the triumphant wake of recovery, The Myth of Normal is Gabor Mat's most life-affirming and urgent book yet.
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