Talk:Gabor Maté

David Suzuki program
www.youtube.com/watch?v=V9cT9rcJGdg NEW5 days ago - 31 sec - Uploaded by CBCtv Dr. Gabor Maté works with addicts in Vancouver's Downtown ... The Nature of Things (David Suzuki)by cosmicwoman6106 views ... Ottawahitech (talk) 17:08, 14 November 2011 (UTC)

Link to Spanish article
https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gabor_Maté Please someone add it to the language links, I get an error :( Irenru (talk) 19:55, 17 November 2013 (UTC) Irenru

Documentary Films
It's worth noting that Gabor Mate has appeared in at least three documentaries: "Ayahuasca: Vine of the Soul", "The Jungle Prescription", and "Zeitgeist: Moving Forward." Blind Donkey (talk) 03:33, 28 November 2014 (UTC)

Also: "In Utero: The Still Face Experiment". Blind Donkey (talk) 02:56, 10 January 2017 (UTC)

Criticism Section
I am removing the criticism section for two reasons. 1) The quote by Peele in the criticism section is incendiary and over the top. The article Peele uses as evidence "against" Mate actually strongly supports part of Mate's position and is 2) Because it is included without sufficient context, it reads basically as an ad hominem smear.

If you wish to reinstate a criticism section on this page, I would recommend that you spell out the criticism. And in doing so, I'd recommend considering the following:

As I see it, Peele has three criticisms.

1) He says that Mate overemphasizes the influence of Adversarial Childhood Experiences on addiction. However, is germane to note is that the article Peele cites to make his case against Mate supports Mate and not Peele [Felitti 2004 http://www.acestudy.org/files/OriginsofAddiction.pdf ] Felitti's whole article is oriented to make the strong case that ACE's are important to understanding and explaining addiction.  Peele mischaracterizes Felitti's findings, saying that they show a "relatively minor elevation" in addiction numbers based upon ACE's.  But, for example, Felittli's finding is that "Population Attributable Risk* (PAR) analysis shows that 78% of drug injection by women can be attributed to adverse childhood experiences. For men and women combined, the PAR is 67%."  This is not "relatively minor".

To reemphasize: Peele states that Mate focuses on "one very questionable source of addiction" (Adverse Childhood Experiences). And the article he cites against Mate? That very article says that "unrecognized adverse childhood experiences are a major, if not the major, determinant of who turns to psychoactive materials and becomes ‘addicted’." (!!!)

2) Peele criticizes a second point, that ACE's cause biochemical changes (Peele characterizes this as Mate's contention). Peele writes:

"[Mate] then relates this theoretical point of view to studies connecting stress, abuse and lack of love and attachment to not only life problems (as they have been for some time) but to deficiencies in people's ability to process endorphins and dopamine -- the neurochemicals in our bodies that provide us with both pleasure and pain relief."

This might be a more legitimate, specific criticism to include. I don't know Mate's work, so I don't know if it is a fair characterization of what Mate claims.

3)Peele criticizes Mate's embrace of the therapeutic use ayahuasca. He does so because A) it seems to clash with 2, above, and B) because it may not be the best use of resources for helping people.

However, given the low quality of the article by Peele (see above) I don't really think this is high-quality material to be citing here. But if you want to include it in a criticism section, please make the points being criticized clear, and include the grounds for criticizing them. Thank you. Pigkeeper (talk) 14:58, 19 October 2015 (UTC)


 * I have made an edit to provide some balance, without reinstating a full criticism section. It's the first edit I've ever made so first I'd really appreciate patient/kind feedback if anyone is willing, especially if I've cited correctly.
 * Because Mate doesn't publish in any peer reviewed journals, it's hard to find peer responses and critiques, but that doesn't mean his work should be entirely uncriticised, especially as there is a lot of evidence that there are better and less harmful approaches than the ones he advocates, for some (maybe many) people. Trauma has become very fashionable, but WHO has reversed previous guidance on "emotional debriefing" and "psychological debriefing" for trauma because good studies proved conclusively that this was doing more harm than good. Andyraytaylor (talk) 10:02, 8 March 2023 (UTC)
 * His view that ADHD is caused by early trauma, and can be "cured" is also very controversial - there is a lot of evidence for genetic factors in ADHD, and for the benefits of the right dose of the right medicines, but I'm not clear if that evidence can be linked to in a biography page. Andyraytaylor (talk) 10:09, 8 March 2023 (UTC)
 * The only "evidence" for ADHD being genetic is based on bullshit twin studies.
 * There may be some genetic predisposition, but even people with those genes raised in an optimal environment won't get ADHD. Gogeeuhoh (talk) 03:28, 12 August 2023 (UTC)
 * Your edit to the criticism section looks appropriate to me. You maintained NPOV, a cardinal virtue, and avoided the well-intentioned mistakes of previous editors of the section. Good work! Justanotherjeff (talk) 19:42, 19 September 2023 (UTC)
 * If anyone can simply correct any citation format error, that would also be fine. The citation is to Psychology Today and the edit is at the end of Writing and Views. Andyraytaylor (talk) 10:07, 8 March 2023 (UTC)

Requested move 30 November 2019

 * The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion. 

The result of the move request was: Moved. (non-admin closure) Cwmhiraeth (talk) 14:11, 7 December 2019 (UTC)

Gabor Maté (physician) → Gabor Maté – Far more notable than the other two.|Gabor_Mat%C3%A9_(physician)|G%C3%A1bor_M%C3%A1t%C3%A9_(athlete)|Gabor_Mat%C3%A9 Unreal7 (talk) 10:55, 30 November 2019 (UTC)
 * Support – Is both the primary topic, and he doesn't use the accent on "Gábor" like the others do. Gábor Máté can remain a disambiguation page while this one is moved to Gabor Maté. – Thjarkur (talk) 22:09, 30 November 2019 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Accents
Earlier today, an IP editor changed every instance of "Maté" to "Máté", on the grounds that this is how it is spelled in Hungarian.

I assume that if Dr. Maté still lived in Hungary, he would spell his name with an accent on the 'a'; however, he moved to Canada when he was a child. Per his own website, he spells it with an accent on the 'e' but not on the 'a'.

We will update our article on him iff he updates the spelling on his website. DS (talk) 16:53, 16 June 2023 (UTC)


 * And this is the reason why people do not support Wikipedia. It's simply can not be trusted. 82.31.5.239 (talk) 22:42, 26 June 2023 (UTC)
 * "Wikipedia cannot be trusted, because their policy is to spell people's names the way that those people want, instead of the way I want."
 * Okay. DS (talk) 01:45, 27 June 2023 (UTC)

Gabor Mate and Hungarian Names?
The man can spell his name however he wants -- it's his name. Ok, got that out of the way. But it is Hungarian cultural custom to put a surname first and given names last. That would mean it's not Dr Mate but Dr Gabor, given name Mate (Matthew?). Cf: Zsa Zsa Gabor and Eva Gabor. Gabor is a family name, not a given name, normally. I think the question deserves at least an acknowledgement of the deviation from cultural practice and maybe an explanation, like "Dr Mate's father was Mr Gabor and when the family arrived in Canada, ..." etc etc. Or however it got switched. 70.51.90.97 (talk) 12:47, 6 August 2023 (UTC)


 * This is a valid point. Do you have a source we can cite? DS (talk) 13:39, 6 August 2023 (UTC)


 * No, not yet. My wife is reading his book and we just had a debate about it! I came here to find out. 70.51.90.97 (talk) 16:05, 6 August 2023 (UTC)


 * Google reveals several historical and contemporary figures named Aron Gabor, confirming that Gabor is a family name. Dr Gabor Mate may count one or more of these Aron Gabors in his ancestry and that is why his son got that name. But there is only one Aaron Mate and that is Gabor Mate's own son. And he is known by that name. So it's not an error in Wikipedia -- it really is Dr Mate. But that translates as Dr Matthew! Somewhere, the names got reversed. And that should be explained. 70.51.90.97 (talk) 16:13, 6 August 2023 (UTC)
 * You're probably right, but we'd need a source that's not "in the opinion of one Wikipedia editor". DS (talk) 12:22, 12 August 2023 (UTC)
 * No, we would need a reliable source to justify presenting his name differently than he does publicly, in his books, his articles, on his own website, etc. - or a source to justify treating 'how his name is presented' as a notable fact about his life, worthy of inclusion in a BLP. He is referred to as "Dr. Mate" in his Wikipedia article, because ALL of the existing citations support that arrangement, because that is the name he goes by. We do not need some kind of historical citation, explaining how and why this man ended up with the first name of Gabor, just because it's also a common surname in his culture, or why he doesn't tend to list his name in the Hungarian style of "Surname Given-Name." That is original research, which is not appropriate for a Wikipedia BLP, unless secondary sources are taking note of it. CleverTitania (talk) 13:05, 24 September 2023 (UTC)

Relevance of Chinese longitudinal study in criticism section?
Not being a subject matter expert, I cannot understand the relevance of the paragraph describing a longitudinal Chinese study. It seems to come out of nowhere and there is nothing in it that relates to Maté's work. Could someone who understands the topic add context and connection? PeterWhittaker (talk) 15:37, 29 November 2023 (UTC)

His views on Israel-Palestine conflict
Need to include a section on Gabor's views on the Israel-Palestine conflict. They are relevant to who he is as a public intellectual. Source material available on his latest appearance on Piers Morgan show as well as other well known podcasts. Kvwiki1234 (talk) 19:02, 30 November 2023 (UTC)


 * Especially since the page is categorized under . So a section on his anti-zionist views must be included in the page. Kvwiki1234 (talk) 19:05, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

Bonkers on bonkers ?
This is an ad hominem opinion which attacks his reputation rather than providing a substantive critical evaluation. He might be right but its not a good way to go about substantive criticism of a person’s work. Its not informative, just a prejudicial judgement. 220.233.44.22 (talk) 09:19, 21 April 2024 (UTC)