> Dr Gabor Maté, a retired family physician and among the most respected trauma experts in the world, boldly diagnosed Prince Harry with Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD), during a live interview.

> Having read the Duke of Sussex’s ghost-written memoir, Spare, Maté said that he had arrived upon “several diagnoses” that also included depression, anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder.

Dr Gabor Maté is popular on social media, podcasts, TV, and other media, but as evidenced by his cavalier approach to over-diagnosing everyone with everything he’s not really a good source for medical information. He’s been riding the wave of popularization of psychiatric conditions for years, and at this point appears to be stuck in an audience capture loop wherein his broad diagnoses continue to bring him more followers and a wider audience.

Dr Gabor Maté is a good litmus test for seeing where someone falls on the divide between actual medical literature versus pop culture usage of medical terms. People familiar with the research, literature, and clinical practice will groan when his name comes up, while those immersed in the TikTok world of self-diagnosis see him as a leader in the field.

There has been a long line of people following similar career paths of popularizing these conditions through cavalier diagnosis and promoting self-diagnosis or alternative medicine diagnosis practices. A decade ago, Dr. Amen was becoming famous for pushing ADHD diagnoses everywhere and pushing his (expensive!) brain scans on patients despite no supporting evidence. The current wave has focused on pushing authors like Dr Gabor Maté who are simply selling books, which scales more than visits to in-person clinics.