Description

"When we have been prevented from learning how to say no, our bodies may  end up saying it for us." -Gabor Mate

In this accessible and ground-breaking book - filled with the moving stories of real people - medical doctor and bestselling author Gabor Mate shows how stress and our emotions can help cause chronic illness.

Western medicine achieves spectacular triumphs when dealing with acute conditions such as fractured bones or life-threatening infections. It is less successful against ailments not susceptible to the quick ministrations of scalpel, antibiotic or miracle drug. In When the Body Says No, Dr Mate summarises the latest scientific findings about the roles stress and individual emotional makeup play in the causation of cancer and other chronic illnesses. He argues that knowledge of how this causal relationship works is essential to healing. With the help of dozens of moving and enlightening case studies and vignettes drawn from his two decades as a family practitioner and palliative care specialist, he provides poignant insights into how disease is often the body's way of saying 'no' to what the mind cannot or will not acknowledge.

About the Author

Dr Gabor Mate, a physician from Vancouver, Canada, first came to international prominence as the author of Scattered Minds, a bestselling book about attention deficit disorder. He has been a general practitioner for over twenty years and a palliative care specialist, and is currently a staff physician at a facility for street people in Vancouver's downtown eastside.