Mindfulness Teacher
Dr. Gabor Maté
Physician, author, and teacher on trauma, addiction, and healing
- Trauma and healing
- Addiction and recovery
- The mind-body connection and stress
- Childhood development and attachment
- Compassionate Inquiry
- Self-compassion and emotional awareness
Dr. Gabor Maté is a Hungarian-born Canadian physician and bestselling author known for his work on trauma, addiction, stress, and the mind-body connection. Over his medical career he worked in family practice and palliative care in Vancouver and spent more than a decade as a physician in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside, work that shaped his view that addiction and many illnesses are rooted in unresolved emotional pain rather than in personal failing. He is widely recognized for bringing compassion, self-inquiry, and present-moment awareness into how we understand suffering and healing. Below you'll find Dr. Gabor Maté's practices and teachings shared on Mindfulness Exercises.
Born in Budapest in 1944, Maté trained as a physician in Canada and practiced for many years in Vancouver, including a long-running family practice, time in palliative care, and over a decade working with people facing addiction and mental illness in the city's Downtown Eastside. This frontline experience informs much of his writing and teaching, which consistently traces present-day struggles back to early experience and the stresses we carry in body and mind.
His books include Scattered Minds: The Origins and Healing of Attention Deficit Disorder, When the Body Says No: The Cost of Hidden Stress, Hold On to Your Kids: Why Parents Need to Matter More Than Peers (with Gordon Neufeld), In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts: Close Encounters with Addiction, and The Myth of Normal: Trauma, Illness and Healing in a Toxic Culture (with his son Daniel Maté). He was appointed to the Order of Canada in recognition of his work.
Maté developed a therapeutic approach called Compassionate Inquiry, which invites people to meet difficult emotions and memories with honest, present-centered attention rather than avoidance. This emphasis on slowing down, turning toward inner experience with compassion, and noticing how the body holds stress connects naturally to mindfulness and contemplative practice, which is why his teachings resonate with many who explore meditation as part of healing.