In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts

The award-winning bestseller on the root causes of addiction – and how to heal it – from the author of When the Body Say No, Dr Gabor Maté

‘[Maté] is a healer to be cherished’ Naomi Klein, bestselling author of The Shock Doctrine

'One of the most important, wise and compassionate voices in the world on addiction. Everyone should read this profound book' Johann Hari, author of Lost Connections

What causes addiction? And how can we truly heal from it?

In his profound and compassionate book, leading voice in trauma and addiction recovery, Dr Gabor Maté, explores the psychology of addiction and the path to self-understanding and healing.

As one of the world’s most revered thinkers on the psychology of addiction, his radical findings – based on decades of work with patients challenged by catastrophic drug addiction and mental illness – are reframing how we view all human development.

In his groundbreaking work, now updated with a new chapter on the Opioid crisis, Maté takes a holistic and compassionate approach to addiction, whether to alcohol, drugs, sex, money or anything self-destructive. He presents addiction not as a discrete phenomenon confined to a weak-willed few, but as a continuum that runs through (and even underpins) our society; not as a medical ‘condition’, but rather the result of a complex interplay of personal history, emotional development, and brain chemistry.

Distilling cutting-edge research from around the world, Maté avoids glib self-help remedies, instead promoting self-understanding as the first key to healing and wellness.

Blending personal stories and science with positive solutions, and written in spellbinding prose, In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts is a compassionate must-read that has transformed how we think about healing, trauma, and addiction.