49 pages • 1 hour read
Gabor MatéIn the Realm of Hungry Ghosts
Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 2008A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Part 2Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Part 2: “Physician, Heal Thyself”
Part 2, Chapter 9 Summary: “Takes One to Know One”
Maté is at home working on a book when he receives a call about Mr. Grant, whose name is Gary. Gary has an ulcer on his big toe and the infection is serious, turning to gangrene. He tells Gary that if he doesn’t report for treatment the next day, he will have him involuntarily committed as mentally unfit.
Maté visits a record store, Sikora’s. He describes himself as a compulsive classical music shopper. His obsessive buying concerns Rae, his wife. Sometimes he lies to her about his spending habits, and wonders if he wants her to catch him. His secretive buying sprees lead to periods of shame and self-loathing. He often contrasts his obsessiveness with the addictions of his patients.
His buying has been a lifelong habit. He describes spending $8,000 in one week. Passions can become addictions, and the central question he asks himself and his patients is always, “Who’s in charge, the individual or the behavior?” (115). Maté often feels as if he is impersonating himself. The more obsessed he becomes, the more irritated he is with his teenage daughter, and the more ill-equipped he feels that he is to deal with her reasonable needs. The nagging of the compulsion creeps into all other areas of his life.
Maté considers the low point of his obsession the day when he left a pregnant woman, mid-labor, to go to Sikora’s to buy more music. His knowledge and public acknowledgement of his addictions has not (at this point in the book) helped him fight them. He continues to “choose patterns that darken my spirit, alienate those closest to me, and drain my vitality” (120).
Part 2, Chapter 10 Summary: “Twelve-Step Journal April 5, 2006”
Maté attends his first twelve-step group. He has never tried cocaine or opiates, and has only been drunk twice. He is nervous about possible recognition, given that he is a public figure and people view him as an authority on addiction. By attending the group and revealing his own happiness, obsessiveness, and lack of self-control, he is admitting that his own expertise has not helped him fight his own urges.
After, he meets Sophie, a woman whose baby he delivered 19 years prior. She tells him that he is in the right place as long as he has addictive behaviors: The details don’t matter to her.
Part 2 Analysis
Maté’s encounter with Gary is an introduction to the question, “Who’s in charge, the individual or the behavior?” (115). The potential gangrene in Gary’s toe is threatening to the point where Maté fears for the man’s safety, and the possible loss of the foot or leg. Gary’s issue—there is an untreated ulcer on his toe—is more obvious and immediate than many of the issues facing addicts. An advanced addiction can produce mannerisms and physical symptoms that are easy to detect, but much of the damage an addicts suffers is internal and emotional. This is not the case with Gary’s ulcer. And yet, Maté is not convinced that Gary will adhere to treatment long-term, even after threatening to commit him for reasons of mental unfitness.
Maté contrasts his obsessive shopping habit with Gary’s situation. Buying CDs obsessively—even $8,000 dollars’ worth in one week—is less damaging than gangrene, but the same question applies to Maté’s spending and Gary’s corporal neglect: Is either one of them actually in charge of their behavior? If Maté and Gary are both addicts, then how accountable are they for their actions? Part 3 explores this question in greater depth.
Maté’s shopping perpetuates a cycle that ensures periods of self-loathing, and of hiding his behaviors from his wife. Like a drug addict, deception and shame become parts of his identity when he is indulging in his habit. His statement that he often feels as if he is impersonating himself will reappear later in his chapters on the importance of self-awareness and self-compassion. Impersonating oneself requires, at minimum, enough awareness to realize that one’s actions do not always match one’s ideals and ambitions. In a way, Maté’s goal is to determine how accountable he should be for his compulsions, but not to take more responsibility for his actions than his history and neurology make possible for him.
The twelve-step meeting is a genuine attempt to confront his addictions to shopping and working. The meeting allows Maté to see that his story is not unique, and that there is indeed overlap between the nature of his compulsions and the appetites of hardcore drug addicts. Despite his credentials in the field of addiction, no one expects him to possess immunity to compulsive, obsessive behaviors. Sophie does not judge him for being at the meeting, even though she knows he is a trained physician who specializes in addiction. She recognizes his struggle as similar to hers.
Once Maté accepts that he may have less control over himself than he would prefer, he is prepared to outline the neurological and historical factors he considers responsible for his addictive state in Part 3.
Related Titles
By Gabor Maté
