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

by Gabor Maté

The dominant assumption in our culture is that genetic inheritance determines the better part of our destiny, who we are, what we suffer from, and what we are capable of. In 2000, at a White House briefing, Bill Clinton proclaimed the findings of the Human Genome Project “the most wondrous map ever produced by humankind,” adding that “today we are learning the language in which God created life.” The new science, the soon-to-be ex-president predicted, “will revolutionize the diagnosis, prevention and treatment of most, if not all, human disease,” leading to cures for conditions like Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, and cancer “by attacking their genetic roots.”[*] Two decades later, we know that little of the sort has happened.[1] And for good reason: genes are not, in fact, life’s language, any more than a scrambled alphabet or a randomly arranged dictionary is a Shakespeare play, or a musical scale is equivalent to a John