Gabor Maté
Gabor Maté is a retired physician who, after 20 years of family practice and palliative care experience, worked for over a decade in Vancouver’s Downtown East Side with patients challenged by drug addiction and mental illness. The bestselling author of four books published in over thirty languages, including the award-winning In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts: Close Encounters with Addiction, Gabor is an internationally renowned speaker highly sought after for his expertise on addiction, trauma, childhood development, and the relationship of stress and illness. For his groundbreaking medical work and writing he has been awarded the Order of Canada, his country’s highest civilian distinction, and the Civic Merit Award from his hometown, Vancouver. To learn more, join his e-news list at www.drgabormate.com
When the Body says No
Dr Gabor Mate explains effects of the mind-body connection on stress and disease. Drawing on scientific research and the decades of experience as a practicing physician, he offers explanation about the effect of the mind-body link on illness and health and the role that stress in an array of common diseases. He promotes learning and healing, providing transformative insights into how disease can be the body’s way of saying no to what the mind cannot or will not acknowledge. Such understanding implies purposefulness of human behavior. Since we understand human organism as a closed system and behavior as the indivisible whole of internal process of acting, thinking, feelings and physiological processes that are intertwined and indivisible , and characterised by creativity we consider idea of mind-body very close to our approach. Both concepts (mind-body and total behavior) underscore the indivisibility of the mental and physical, meaning that the concepts of behavior and organism are equal.
John Brickell
John Brickell DC is a Doctor of Chiropractic, a counsellor/psychotherapist and coach (specialising in Choice Psychology, Reality Therapy & trauma treatment); and is a certified practitioner working in association with the ‘SIRPA’ organization – dedicated to recovery/healing from psycho-physiological distress and chronic pain. He is the co-author of two books and numerous publications in Choice Theory psychology, Reality Therapy, and in the field of psycho-physiological stress.
John is a Senior Faculty member of the William Glasser International institute and Director of Faculty Development for the William Glasser Institute UK. He has taught CT/RT in North America, the Far East, the Middle East, in several European countries and throughout the UK.
As well as currently focusing on counselling and supporting people with Chronic Pain, John has a wide experience as an independent counsellor/psychotherapist, and was for several years a drug and alcohol addictions counsellor in the city of Milton Keynes, in the UK.
‘They Can’t Find Anything Wrong’
Integrating CT/RT into the Recovery from Chronic Pain
Chronic Pain is now the leading cause of disability, affecting more than 30% of people worldwide, according to some studies. And usually, patients, most of who will have seen numerous doctors, consultants and physical therapists of various kinds, will declare that they’ve seen lots of specialists and had an array of treatments, often over many years, but still ‘they can’t find anything wrong’.
This presentation session will focus, broadly speaking, on
- How to determine if someone has chronic pain that is not “structural” but a Total Behaviour/‘mind-body disorder’ (if you’ll excuse the labelling !!)
- the many challenges of working in this area;
- how Choice Theory psychology and the practice of Reality Therapy can be integrated into the “recovery” process (and not just “pain management” process) from such a stressfully chronic and life-diminishing disorder