About Dr. Gabor Maté

Born in Budapest, Hungary in 1944, Gabor Maté emigrated to Canada with his family in 1957. After graduating with a B.A. from the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, and a few years as a high school English and literature teacher, he returned to school to pursue his childhood dream of being a doctor.

Dr. Maté ran a private family practice in East Vancouver for over twenty years. He was also the Medical Co-ordinator of the Palliative Care Unit at Vancouver Hospital for seven years.

Currently he is the staff physician at the Portland Hotel, a residence and resource centre for the people of Vancouver's Downtown Eastside. Many of his patients suffer from mental illness, drug addiction and HIV, or all three.

Dr. Maté has had regular medical columns in The Vancouver Sun and the national Globe and Mail.

Widely recognized for his unique perspective on Attention Deficit Disorder, and his firmly held belief in the connection between mind and body health, he is a sought-after speaker and seminar leader on these topics. He has lectured at the University of California (Berkeley and San Francisco), at Alabama State University, at McGill University, at Washington State University and has addressed many groups of physicians and health care providers, educators, psychologists, therapists, parents and other members of the lay public. In 2009 he was an invited presenter for the Standing Senate Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs in Ottawa.

He is the author of four books, all Canadian bestsellers:

• When the Body Says No: The Cost of Hidden Stress

• Scattered Minds: A New Look at the Origins and Healing of Attention Deficit Disorder

• The third book, Hold on to Your Kids: Why Parents Need to Matter More Than Peers, he co-authored with developmental psychologist Gordon Neufeld.

• Most recently published is In The Realm of Hungry Ghosts: Close Encounters With Addiction