What Teachers Can Learn from In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts
You have taught the student who cannot sit still, who disappears into a phone the moment attention drifts, who shows up defensive or checked out for reasons the classroom rarely explains. The easy read is defiance or laziness, and the easy response is a consequence written up in a folder somewhere. Gabor Maté, MD, who spent his career treating people with severe addiction, offers teachers a different lens on behavior that looks like a discipline problem but might be something else entirely underneath.
Maté's central claim is that compulsive behavior, whether toward a substance, a screen, food, or anything else, is usually an attempt to manage pain that had no better outlet. For a teacher watching a student spiral, that reframe changes the first question from what is wrong with this kid to what is this behavior trying to solve.
The whole book, compressed
This edition works through 4 core lessons — take them one at a time, not all at once.
What's different for your conditions
Tap whichever ones sound like you. Nothing here is sent or saved — it's just for your own noticing.
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The core lessons, applied to you
Rethinking the "disruptive student"
Maté argues that what reads as defiance or disengagement is often a young person managing pain, boredom, anxiety, or something at home, in the only way currently available to them. A teacher who assumes the behavior itself is the whole problem may miss the more useful question underneath it.
A classroom still needs functioning structure, and one student's pain cannot be allowed to derail everyone else's learning.
When a pattern repeats, ask the student privately what is going on before escalating to a formal consequence.
Where the pattern might start
Maté contends that early adversity and chronic stress shape how a developing brain handles stress and reward, making compulsive coping more likely later in life. This is his clinical interpretation, drawn from years of direct patient care, not a settled scientific fact; other researchers point to genetic or neurobiological factors as well, and the field has not resolved which matters most for any given student, so no teacher can or should try to diagnose a student's home life or brain development.
Speculating about a student's family situation without evidence can do real harm and is not your call to make.
Notice patterns and refer them to a counselor rather than trying to explain the cause yourself.
Choosing connection over the referral slip
Maté's most practical claim is that punishment and shame deepen the pain driving compulsive behavior, while connection creates the conditions for change. In a school, that might mean a quiet check-in before a discipline form, without abandoning consequences entirely.
Some behavior genuinely requires formal intervention to keep a classroom safe for everyone.
Pair any consequence with one sentence that keeps the relationship open, such as naming that you are still on their side.
The conditions students carry in with them
Maté also points to isolation, inequality, and disconnection as recurring backdrops to severe addiction, more often than any single explanation fully accounts for on its own. For teachers, that suggests a struggling student's behavior may reflect conditions far outside the classroom, at home or in a wider community, not a fixed trait of the child. This book does not argue for any specific school policy or program; how institutions should respond to these patterns remains a genuinely open, contested question.
Compassion for a struggling student can pull against the practical need to keep a classroom functioning for everyone else, and curiosity about a student's history can tip into overstepping a role that belongs to trained counselors and families. Holding both at once, structure and warmth, is the daily balancing act teaching actually requires, and few training programs prepare anyone fully for it.
Name one thing, honestly
- Which "disruptive" student might actually be showing you pain rather than defiance? - Where do you default to consequence before you default to a quiet question? - What would a connection-based response look like in your next difficult moment?
Good. Now look back at the "Try this" line under whichever lesson feels most connected to what you just wrote, and treat that as this week's actual assignment — not all 4 at once.
The practices from this edition
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Run this for seven days
Pair any consequence with one sentence that keeps the relationship open, such as naming that you are still on their side.