Special Collection: Transforming trauma with Gabor Mate

The renowned physician discusses the role of trauma in our lives, showing up as addiction, chronic disease and mental illness, and how recognising his own led to true healing. (R)

Dr Gabor Maté was born in Budapest to a Jewish family, just before Nazi tanks rolled into the city.

His mother risked handing him to a stranger on the street to try and get him to safety.

Many years later, after establishing himself as a successful physician in Canada, Gabor looked at the problems in his work and marriage and wondered if they were linked to that early trauma.

He uses his own experiences as a test case for the effects of trauma on the body and the body-mind connection. 

Dr Mate is internationally renowned for his ideas around the lifelong impact of trauma.

He believes it is contributing factor to rates of addiction, chronic disease, and mental illness, as well as ADHD.

His views are sometimes described as unorthodox by his critics, but Dr Mate argues that understanding trauma of all kinds allows for real healing, as has happened in his own life.

Further Information

The Myth of Normal: Trauma, Illness and Healing in a Toxic Culture by Dr Gabor Maté with Daniel Maté is published by Penguin Random House.

This episode of Conversations was first broadcast in 2025.

To binge even more great episodes of the Conversations podcast with Richard Fidler and Sarah Kanowski go the ABC listen app (Australia) or wherever you get your podcasts. There you’ll find hundreds of the best thought-provoking interviews with authors, writers, artists, politicians, psychologists, musicians, and celebrities.