The Myth of Normal: Trauma, Illness and Healing in a Toxic Culture

by Gabor Maté MD

later. In the Berkeley study, participants were shown films normally expected to elicit disgust, such as burn patients being treated or an arm being surgically amputated. Some participants were specifically instructed not to reveal emotions when watching, while the control group was free to express emotion by means of facial or body movements. On a number of physiological measurements, the suppression group showed heightened activation of their sympathetic, or fight-or-flight, nervous system: in other words, a stress response.[9] There may be certain situations where a person, for perfectly valid reasons, deliberately chooses not to express how he feels; if one does it habitually or under compulsion, the impact is more than likely to be