Medical Doctor, Trauma Survivor, Speaker, Author, Educator

Gabor Maté is a licensed Canadian physician (MD) who graduated from the University of British Columbia in 1977. He practiced family medicine for over 20 years and served as the medical coordinator of the Palliative Care Unit at Vancouver Hospital for seven years.

His career later shifted to specialize in trauma, addiction and childhood development, notably working for twelve years as a staff physician in Vancouver's /Downtown Eastside with patients suffering from addiction, mental illness and HIV. While he is an expert in these fields and best-selling author, he is not a licensed psychotherapist, psychologist, or pschiatrist. His work synthesizes medical practice with psychological insights and existing research.

His personal experience with trauma is very tragic as well. He was born in 1944 in war torn Hungary to a Jewish family. He was just an infant when the Nazi army was invading their country, so his mother handed him to an American missionary to save his life. Gabor however only felt rejected and abandoned.  Even though he was returned to his mother once it was safe, the wound had registered and was deeply felt by his nervous system then and still continues to impact his life in his eighties. This is not just a area of study for him. He has lived through it himself.