Maté: Denial of Own Emotional Needs and Its Connection to Chronic Illness

In this lecture, Gabor Maté explores the connection between the denial of one’s own emotional needs and the development of chronic illness. Maté argues that when people habitually suppress their emotional needs — often as a survival strategy learned in childhood — the body bears the consequences.

This perspective aligns with what we know in psychotherapy about the body-mind connection and the psychosomatic dimension of suffering. The denial of emotional needs is not simply a psychological problem; it manifests in the body as inflammation, immune dysfunction, and chronic disease.