chris679639

For awhile now people have asked me what Escape the System is really about. Is it about psychiatry? Addiction? Mental health? Cults? Institutions? The answer is... Not really. Those are simply the places where I keep seeing the same thing happen. Escape the System has always been about one question: What happens to a human being when they gradually forget who they are? One of my earliest memories is going to the Buffalo Zoo with my mother. I was sick as a kid for years, so we went often....

Published in 2008, In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts by Gabor Maté has become one of the most influential books in the addiction field. Drawing on his experiences working with people struggling with severe substance use in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside, Maté argues that addiction is fundamentally rooted in emotional pain and trauma. The book has been widely praised for its compassion. Rather than viewing people with addictions as morally flawed, weak, or lacking willpower, Maté encourages readers...

Some books become popular because they tell people what they desperately want to believe. NOT because the evidence behind them is actually that strong. The Body Keeps the Score became one of the most influential mental health books of the modern era because it offered something emotionally irresistible to modern culture: a framework that explained suffering in a way that felt validating, scientific, compassionate, and morally clear all at once. And to be fair, part of the book absolutely...