Plot

A renowned doctor's personal odyssey from rebellious youth to influential healer reveals profound truths about trauma, ego, and self-acceptance as he confronts his own past while helping others face their demons.

Physician, Heal Thyself offers a searingly intimate portrait of the celebrated expert on addiction, stress, and trauma, Dr. Gabor Maté. Physician Heal Thyself follows Gabor's life's journey, from his start as a young contrarian to a contemporary icon. At its core, the film is a quietly powerful meditation on the human experience that reveals no amount of money, love, or intellect can bring peace to a troubled soul without sharing pain, vanquishing ego, and accepting one's messy, wonderful, imperfect self.

Dr Gabor Maté has become one of the world's most influential thinkers about addiction, trauma and childhood development on the back of books like In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts, The Myth of Normal and When the Body Says No. He's pioneered the idea of Compassionate Inquiry as a therapeutic approach, and worked for over a decade on Vancouver's Downtown Eastside. In Asher Penn's Physician, Heal Thyself Dr Maté shares not only his theories, but also his personal story: his difficult early childhood in Hungary, immigrating to Canada, his experience as a journalist for the Ubyssey, and his early reputation as a contrarian. Maté candidly discusses his own struggles with pain, his complicated behaviours and fractured relationships. Physician, Heal Thyself offers hope and comfort, encouraging us to own our failings, share our struggles, and accept our imperfections.—Vancouver International Film Festival