I have been reading the Myth of Normal by Gabor Mate and Daniel Mate which talks about trauma and mental illness in our society and just how much that is impacted by our everyday living. This book was recommended to me by a patient at work and I can say it hasn’t disappointed. The book touches on all aspects like parenting, childhood trauma, politics, obesity, covid and just overall lots of other things that have impacted society as a whole. The book is over 500 pages long and I won’t be able to fully summarize it as much as I want but I will give a summary on one of the chapters.
Chapter 26 talks about the 4 As and I want to touch upon each one and the details behind it pertaining to the book and overall trauma and mental health in our society. The 4 As are Authenticity, Agency, Anger, and Acceptance. Most of these are self explanatory but I will summarize it the best I can. Authenticity in this chapter talks about how much the real things are advertised. An example used by the author is someone performing what they're thinking is real for a crowd or camera but their actions are not able to convince them how they would have wanted it to. To the author “Authenticity is not a concept but something lived and experienced”. Basically what’s authentic is not hard to miss when you see it. To the author we strive for authenticity and an image but we can’t do that without first fully accepting ourselves.
The 2nd Term Agency is referred as “the capacity to freely take responsibility for our existence and responsibility of the decisions that affect our lives”. Not having agency is seen as a form of stress. Having agency is seen as a powerful form of healing and something to where they see themselves healing from what they are going through as their own responsibility and not to put the blame on others. An example used is a counselor who has worked at hospitals and talked about how the people who followed instructions were seen as the good ones and the ones who always asked questions were seen as the annoying ones. What was learned though was the ones who asked questions and always questioned the orders of their doctors were seen as the ones who were in control of their healing and did better long term.
They are active and will do everything to make sure they are in control of their health and not put it in the hands of others. The goal of this chapter was for individuals to step into their freedom and realize how much of a choice they have in who and how they will be in life. The 3rd A is Anger and even though this is self explanatory, the author pushed for differentiating healthy anger from others. Healthy anger is seen as a “boundary defense activated when we perceive a threat to our lives or our physical and emotional integrity”. Healthy anger is used depending on the situation and is used when needed.
After it is used, it disappears and reappears when it is needed again. The difference between healthy anger and regular is this kind is not intended to harm anyone. It is just a natural state that individuals can turn to when they come into moments of doubt or moments of threat. The last A is Acceptance. Acceptance in this instance is the author talking about letting things be the way they are without needing to control the outcome. This is not a form of surrender or giving up but understanding that in some instance recognizing that “things cannot be other than how they are”. Another thing talked about with acceptance is accepting how hard it can be to accept things the way they are. To the author “True acceptance denies or excludes no aspect of how it is, not even our impulse to reject how it is”.
In the case of acceptance sometimes we may not know how we feel about certain things or our reactions are all over the place. In the end one thing that is distinctive is accepting that something is happening does not mean conceding that it should happen. Just because something is happening and is been tolerated doesn’t necessarily mean that morals or values should be changed and the wrong things should. We should still do our best to do away with what is not right. This book has changed my life in every way and I would recommend it to anymore. Here is a link for anyone interested, you won’t be disappointed.
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