Dr. Gabor Maté: “When the Body Says No: Understanding the Stress-Disease Connection”
AMY GOODMAN: You talk about emotions like anger sharing with our immune system the same role of defending our boundaries, saying when we repress emotions, we may also repress our immune defenses. How does that play out in various diseases?
DR. GABOR MATÉ: Well, when I looked at the kind of people that would be coming under my care in palliative care, but also the kind of people who would get sick when I was in family practice, a number of salient characteristics presented themselves. One was the repression of anger. People didn’t know how to express negative emotion. They were afraid to do so or did not know when they were angry. People who were pleasers, they tried to always not to disappoint other people. They never knew how to say no. They took on everything without a murmur, because they saw their role as always being the caregivers and the caretakers. And they had an exceedingly powerful sense of duty, role and responsibility.
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Wow...that is a really amazing piece linking disease of the body and dis-ease of the heart and soul. And, especially sobering to a caregiver who has raised another caregiver all too well in you....I have learned over the years how to express my anger a bit but am still far from protecting my borders....I think us women are definitely at a higher risk.
ReplyDeleteBut then, I always have the opposite voice that reminds me that in giving, I get so much and that compels me to say YES yet again and reach out again. How do I know when I have crossed the boundary?