Gabor Maté was arriving at Vancouver airport one day when his phone lit up with a text from his wife, Rae. She asked if he still wanted a lift home, and mentioned she hadn’t yet left their house. The physician, mental health expert and bestselling author, who was 71 at the time, replied brusquely: “Never mind.” So enraged was he, as Maté writes in his new book, The Myth of Normal: Trauma, Illness & Healing in a Toxic Culture, that, when he got home, he “growled a hello” and then “barely made eye contact” for the next day. “Is this...