We learned a few days ago: Prince Harry is preparing to participate in a live discussion with Gabor Maté, Canadian doctor and best-selling author, knowledgeable about child development.
Produced by Penguin Random House (the publishing house of Prince Harry's book), this hour-long conversation will take place online Saturday, March 4 at 5 p.m. a ticket (whose purchase value was 17 pounds sterling, or approximately 20 euros).
According to information from the
Evening Standard
, the Duke of Sussex, 38, and Dr Maté, 79, will address a whole host of themes.
Among others: loss, mourning or even personal healing.
At the end of which, a session open to the public will take place during which each spectator will have the possibility of submitting a question to the prince exiled in California.
But a few days before this interview, we wonder.
Who is this Dr Mate really?
Could he be Meghan and Harry's new guru, as some claim?
And what exact connection is there between the Sussexes and the author of
Hello Again: A Fresh Start for Parents and Their Adult Children
(read, “A fresh start for parents and their adult children”), soon in bookstores ?
We take stock.
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Abandoned during the war
Born in Hungary on January 6, 1944, Gabor Maté experienced a particularly traumatic episode.
When he was a baby, his mother - of Jewish origin (his grandparents were murdered in Auschwitz) - entrusted him to strangers for more than a month to bring him to safety.
This experience would have developed in him a fear of abandonment, a trauma that would have pursued him into adulthood and that he would not hesitate to address later in his research.
At the age of 12, the Hungarian emigrated to Canada.
A few years passed and the young man began his career, first as a secondary school English and literature teacher.
Then, after several years of exercise, Gabor Maté decides to return to the benches of the university.
He then joined McGill University College of British Columbia, in Vancouver, from which he graduated with a doctorate in general medicine in 1977. It was there that he met Rae, his wife since 1969.
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psychedelic substance
Throughout his career, Gabor Maté follows many drug addicts, and specializes in addictions.
Undoubtedly more unusual fact: he firmly defends the decriminalization of drugs.
He himself used ayahuasca
-
a hallucinogenic preparation originating in South America - to treat patients suffering from addiction and mental illness during dedicated retreats, during which he worked with a Peruvian shaman.
Although there is evidence to suggest his methods help relieve symptoms, he came under fire from Canadian authorities in 2011, who threatened to arrest him.
That same year, however, Dr. Maté saw his work crowned with an award from the city of Vancouver as well as the Order of Canada (the highest civilian honour).
According to the
Evening Standard
, Dr. Gabor Maté still lives in Vancouver (Harry and Meghan's first vacation spot after Megxit), with his wife.
Together they have three children.
One of them, Aaron Maté, is a journalist and wrote
Hello Again
with his father .
His daughter Hannah is, meanwhile, a doctoral student in psychology, we read in the English press.
Influence on social networks
Although he has officially retired as a doctor, Gabor Maté frequently speaks in public at conferences or in podcasts, when he is not busy writing books... A man of his time, the doctor also has an active Instagram account, followed by no less than 1.2 million followers.
In these publications, we see him facing the camera addressing various subjects such as pleasing people, childhood traumas (always and again) or how to overcome suffering.
And there is no doubt that these themes spoke to Prince Harry, visibly still traumatized by the death of his mother Diana and an entire life in the service of the British monarchy.
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