In The Realm Of Hungry Ghosts Summary

Many have tried to figure out the main cause for drug addiction and abuse. A Hungarian born American-Canadian Dr. Gabor Mate has spent his career coming up with a theory to answer this age old question. Dr. Mate has become extremely well known from his book “In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts” about his work in Vancouver downtown eastside of which he has been doing for over twelve years, as well as from going around Canada and the United States giving numerous talks on this topic including a TedTalk. I will go into further detail on his theory and counter arguments against his theory disproving his theory for the one cause on substance abuse.

Dr. Mate discusses his theory stating that childhood trauma is the cause of addiction. Mate believes this

Goffman’s theory states that in order to become and have a ‘normal’ or ‘unspoiled’ identity, one must have a better and brighter view of one self in order to recover their spoiled identity. This argument has been linked to Goffman's classic work “Stigma: Notes on the management of a spoiled identity”. Goffman’s theory also discusses how you can overcome drug abuse which requires individuals to adapt to multiple roles, such as a friend or joining a team where you can become a member. Goffman believes that if you can adapt a dramaturgy, an upstage and backstage in an everyday life, it can allow for the healing to begin. This gives us a better understanding how we might recover and work on building a better self-identity (Neale, Nettleton & Pickering 2010). Goffman describes two different identities in his dated, but relevant book in stigma, the “virtual social identity’ as well as the ‘actual social identity”. “Virtual social identity refers to the assumptions strangers hold about a given individual, whereas actual social identity is the identity he or she in fact possesses” (Neale, Nettleton & Pickering

Mate has done many interviews on his research and in his interview here in Vancouver with Maurice Agha, he discusses how its beneficial for him to be dealing with people living on the downtown eastside of Vancouver because he has addictions as well, for an example compulsive buying (Agha 2013). He finds this to be helpful because it is easier for his patients to relate to him because they are both addicts, just of different things. I also think this is helpful to a certain extent, however, many might find his opinions and help controversial because he has not been able to completely overcome his addiction, so how is he in the right place to help others with