The Hungry Ghost
A Biopsychosocial Perspective on Addiction, from Heroin to Workaholism
This webinar was recorded and is now available as a Talk on Demand. Click here for more details.
Saturday 16 January 2021 - A Live Webinar
A Webinar with Dr Gabor Maté
- Includes a recording of the event with access for a year (14 days post the event)
- Bookings close at 9.00am GMT Wednesday 13 January
For twelve years Gabor Maté was the staff physician at a clinic for drug-addicted people in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside, where he worked with patients challenged by hard-core drug addiction, mental illness and HIV, including at Vancouver Supervised Injection Site.
READ MORE...In his most recent bestselling book, In The Realm of Hungry Ghosts, he shows that their addictions do not represent a discrete set of medical disorders; rather, they merely reflect the extreme end of a continuum of addiction, mostly hidden, that runs throughout our society. The book draws on cutting-edge science to illuminate where and how addictions originate and what they have in common.
In this live webinar for Confer, Gabor will discuss how he has come to understand what is often claimed to be the source of addictions. He has discovered that this is not found in genes but in the early childhood environment where the neurobiology of the brain’s reward pathways develop and where the emotional patterns that lead to addiction are wired into the unconscious. Stress, both then and later in life, creates the predisposition for addictions, whether to drugs, alcohol, nicotine, or to behavioural addictions such as shopping or sex.
Helping the addicted individual requires that we appreciate the function of the addiction in someone’s life. More than a disease, he will propose that it is a response to a distressing life history and current life situation. Once we recognise these roots – and the lack the addict strives (in vain) to fill – we can develop a compassionate approach toward them, one that stands the best chance of restoring that person to wholeness and health.
FULL PROGRAMME
17.00 GMT (09.00 PST)
Introductions and Zoom Housekeeping
17.05
Part I
Gabor will consider the following topics:
- What is the source of addictions?
- What happens chemically and physiologically in the brains of people with substance dependency or behaviour addiction?
Pause for audience Q&A
- The false “blessings” of addiction as experienced by the addict (eg as emotional anaesthetic, as personality booster or social lubricant)
- The development of the addicted mind: how early childhood experiences shape the brain
18.15
Discussion
18.45
Break
19.00
Part II
- The social basis of addiction in economic, cultural and political dislocation and disempowerment
- How much choice does the addict really have, and how much responsibility?
Pause for audience Q&A
- Developing a therapeutic relationship in which healing is possible
- How to encourage the addict to take responsibility
- The prevention of addiction, both in adolescence and before
20.00
Discussion
20.30
End