What can we do to do to address the overwhelming anxiety in our lives right now? What can we do to be kinder to ourselves, to be in a better position to effect positive change, as therapists and as human beings? Physician, trauma expert, and bestselling author Gabor Maté offers his perspective.

According to physician and author Gabor Maté, too many healthcare professionals take a biological, individualized approach to treating mental health issues, like anxiety, depression, and addiction, that fails to account for myriad environmental factors. In this clip from his Networker Symposium keynote address, he makes the case for a more expansive form of care.

By Gabor Maté - Several years ago, I began to receive inquiries about what I knew regarding the use of ayahuasca in the healing of addiction. Since then, I've developed deep respect for the collaborative power of shamanic medicine allied with the insights and practice of depth psychology. Respect may be too mild a word—awe hits closer to the mark.

In his opening keynote, Canadian physician Gabor Maté called on therapists to expand their frame of reference and recognize how their job is too often a kind of mopping up after the cruelties and injustices of the larger systems that shape our lives.

A practitioner trained in the orthodox Western model of medicine develops a deep respect for the healing power of psychedelic plants and shamanism. What he discovers is not magic but an often astonishingly rapid pathway to self-realization.