I'm grateful the good doctor is also a brilliant writer, so we can benefit from his ability to make honest observations and bring together evidence that emotional wellness is a major player in every human's physical health. This book can be a great help to individuals - patients seeking answers as well as those intending to help them heal.

For me it is great to read about a medical doctor who has seen the connection between mental and emotional issues and disease. So if you have a trauma within you, it will sooner or later affect you in some way. Dr Maté shows with own studies, patient records and insights how actually healing can take place when correcting the original emotional issue.

This is worth the read and learning about how stress can affect the body. It's very eye opening. If you have stress and chronic pain or other health issues in your life definitely order the book or listen on audible.

I liked the inclusion of historical and more current research supporting the author's conclusions about the connection between emotional health and physical health. Based on my background as a scientific researcher and current scientific writer, I would have liked to see even more discussion of the scientific foundations of the claims and—more importantly—consideration of alternate explanations for the trends observed and a conclusion with directions for future research. As someone who identifies as having many personality traits the book notes as problematic, I appreciated the last chapter's guidance on how to heal. I recommend this boom for anyone who feels the stress of their environment—e.g. job or personal relationships—may be harming their health. "When the Body Says No" carries sobering evidence that we may be underestimating the harm we experience. It also carries hope and pointers for healing. It may be an important part of the support we need to make difficult but healthy changes in our professional and personal lives.

I think it’s an excellent book with a lot of great information. I do think you have to take it with just a grain of salt though. There are young children who get disease and obviously they have not had life traumas. But I can totally see how stress and trauma can cause disease

I have read and listened to Dr Gabor Mate for a while, and this book is worthwhile, especially for anyone with an illness. He explains, scientifically, how people with certain personality traits are more likely to develop certain illnesses. Other topics are also explored, but I find this one particularly interesting. Page 127: “While we cannot say that any personality type causes cancer, certain personality features definitely increase the risk because they are more likely to generate psychological stress.”

Amazing information, anyone who would like to know more on the minds connections to illness needs to read this. Full of so much great information

All arrived in great condition

Excelente servicio

In this excellent book, Dr Maté clearly conveys the factors causing stress in the first place and, by doing so, he opens genuine possibilities to tackle the root causes of diseases rather than just their symptoms. This in itself provides the possibility for sustainable, long-term recovery. This book equips the reader with some precious intellectual self-defense in recognizing faulty assumptions about the relationship between body, emotions and illness. For example, it becomes clear to the reader that tackling chronic illnesses by treating only the bodily symptoms (an attitude still rampant in a significant part of mainstream medicine) is not the optimal approach; similarly, Dr. Maté clarifies that relying just on the will power (mind over matter) can be dangerous too, especially when one‘s inner resources are over-estimated. I applaud the respect Dr. Maté shows for the human body and its ability to convey messages that our conscious mind, conditioned by a progressively less natural way of living, sometimes struggles to acknowledge. A disease can be, in some instances, the last resort that the body has to tell us to change our ways in order to fulfill the natural needs which have been neglected, often in order to conform to what other people have demanded. Attachment is one of those crucial needs. Dr. Maté argues that the quality of the attachment each one of us receives in childhood is a key variable determining how safe and grounded we feel when dealing with the world in adulthood. In other words, the more we felt unconditionally loved in childhood, the more we are likely to be able to cope with stress in adulthood, and less are the chances we are going to be overwhelmed by the demands of the environment around us. For the sake of survival, a child has no choice but to conform to the adults demands: if necessary, he will overlook his needs in order to obtain the approval necessary by the adults to guarantee his survival. If a child is forced to take this kind of adjustment, he will likely become an adult re-enacting the same pattern (mostly unconsciously) in any relationship and situation he is going to face. He is not likely to be able to say no, even if his basic needs are not met while constantly pleasing others: so at one point his body is likely to say no for him by triggering the disease process. This appears to be a bleak picture for those of us caught in that trap. However, I believe Dr. Maté’s work provides hope by showing a path towards recovery which outlines and respects the natural laws that govern the human body-emotional complex. A sustainable, long-term recovery passes through the achievement of emotional competence, defined as the ability to deal appropriately with one’s own feelings and desires. Ultimately, this involves that we learn how to listen to our deep needs and to fulfill them without jeopardizing other people’s needs. We learn to find the balance between autonomy and attachment. We learn to become authentic individuals, and fulfill Nature’s ultimate plan for us, as beautifully explained by Dr. Maté in p. 196: “Nature’s ultimate goal is to foster the growth of the individual from absolute dependence to independence – or, more exactly, to the inter-dependence of mature adults living in community. Development is a process of moving from complete external regulation to self-regulation, as far as our genetic programming allows. Well-self-regulated people are the most capable of interacting fruitfully with others in a community and of nurturing children who will also grow into self-regulated adults. Anything that interferes with that natural agenda threatens the organism’s chances for long-term survival.“ This book is not only useful for people affected by chronic diseases. It is extremely helpful also for the ‘healthy‘ person to live his life more fully and more vibrantly by understanding and embracing the principles that allow him to embark in the natural development journey and, in doing so, maximizing the chance of long-term health. Finally, I found the approach provided by Dr Maté highly compatible with the work of Marshall Rosenberg (Non Violent Communication - NVC), which I recommend to everyone willing to build his emotional competence, because of its emphasis on empathy, feelings and needs. I find the NVC approach could be very useful in the attempt of emancipating oneself from certain mental conditioning that can cause some of the inner mechanisms that Dr. Maté describes in this book as threatening to the overall wellbeing of the individual.

Grandes insights para comprender la psicologia individual en relacion a nuestra vida. Muy recomendable para todos los publicos , divulgativo y ameno

Dr Gabor Maté é fantástico! Sua visão holística acerca da saúde e da medicina, sua concepção de que mente e corpo devem ser visto e tratados como uma unidade inseparável, fazem dessa obra mais do que um livro, uma experiência. Pode ser meio pesado em alguns trechos por haver descrições minuciosas de processos fisiológicos, mas até isso vale a pena pelo aprendizado.

I used this book to research health