Gabor Maté to speak in Comox Valley

The Comox Valley Child Development Association is bringing Dr. Gabor Maté to the Comox Valley to present two workshops on Feb. 24 and 25.

Dr. Maté is a physician and author. As a public speaker, he addresses professional and lay audiences all over North America.

His four books are all Canadian bestsellers, published internationally in nearly 20 languages, the most recent, In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts: Close Encounters with Addiction.

Gabor has worked as a family practitioner and as medical co-ordinator of the Palliative Care Unit at Vancouver Hospital, caring for the terminally ill. He is currently working in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside with patients challenged by hard core drug addiction, mental illness and HIV.

He was recently featured in a CBC Nature of Things episode for his travels to the Amazon to explore the use of ayahuasca tea in addiction treatment.

Gabor’s interests encompass childhood developmental issues, adolescent mental health, and parenting issues. His books include Scattered on Attention Deficit Disorder and Hold On To Your Kids: Why Parents Need to Matter More Than Peers.

He has a unique view of stress and the mind/body unity in health and illness that he outlines in When The Body Says No: Exploring The Stress/Disease Connection. His next book The Bully Syndrome: The Making and Unmaking of Bullies and Victims, co-written with Dr. Gordon Neufeld, will be published in 2012.

The Saturday full-day presentation Kids in Chaos: Child Development in a Stressed Society will be based on Dr. Maté’s four best-selling books. It will focus on child/brain development, attachment, the parent/child relationship, and the apparent loss of resilience in our children.

There are still seats available for this workshop, which will be of interest to community professionals working with children and teenagers as well as parents, grandparents and family members.

The Friday evening presentation will focus on addictions and new approaches to treating addictions based on an understanding of the biological and socio-economic roots of addiction, e.g. early adversity (stress, mistreatment, and particularly childhood abuse).   Due to the smaller venue of this workshop, it is already sold out.

For registration information for the Saturday workshop, contact the Comox Valley Child Development Association at 237 Third St. in  Courtenay, phone 250-338-4288 or visit www.cvcda.ca.

— Comox Valley Child Development Association