A Neuropsychobiological Framework for Memory, Trauma, and Endogenous Healing: The Body as the Unconscious

Abstract

This paper proposes a unified neuropsychobiological framework centered on the core hypothesis that the physical body functions as the psychological unconscious, storing traumatic memory somatically. It explores the neurobiological underpinnings of this concept through a critical analysis of Memory Reconsolidation (MR) as the brain’s innate healing mechanism. This process is regulated by the interdependent functions of three key homeostatic systems: the Endogenous Opioid System (EOS), which mediates dissociative states; the Endocannabinoid System (ECS), a central network for healing and regulation; and a hypothesized Endogenous Psychedelic System (EPS), which may work synergistically to bring embodied memories into conscious awareness for resolution. This paper argues that addiction is not a primary disease but a transdiagnostic, trauma-related dissociative response—a stalled attempt at self-healing. By understanding these interconnected systems, a new paradigm for therapeutic intervention emerges, one that shifts from symptom management to leveraging the body’s inherent capacity for trauma resolution.

1.0 Introduction: A Call for a New Integrated Paradigm

Prevailing frameworks in psychiatry and psychology often treat addiction, trauma, and dissociation as distinct, compartmentalized phenomena. This siloed, symptom-focused approach, rooted in a quantitative and industrial paradigm, fails to capture their profound interconnectedness and the systemic nature of human suffering. Such fragmentation has led to treatment models that address symptoms in isolation while overlooking the unified, underlying etiology. This paper challenges these established paradigms by introducing a unified model grounded in the concept that “the physical body is the psychological unconscious,” a principle that links these disparate experiences through specific, interacting neurobiological systems (O’Brien, 2023a).

This paper’s central thesis posits that addiction is not a primary disease but a transdiagnostic, trauma-related dissociative response (O’Brien, 2023a). This adaptive, though often maladaptive, survival strategy is mediated by the interdependent actions of the brain’s innate memory reconsolidation processes and its key regulatory networks: the endogenous opioid, cannabinoid, and hypothesized psychedelic systems. By reconceptualizing addiction as a stalled attempt at self-healing—a compulsion to repeat trauma in a desperate search for resolution—we can move beyond models of pathology and toward a more integrated, humane, and effective paradigm of care.

This new framework begins with a foundational shift in understanding where and how the mind stores its deepest wounds.

2.0 A Foundational Paradigm Shift: The Body as the Psychological Unconscious

To develop a truly integrated model of mental health, it is strategically essential to reconceptualize the unconscious. Moving beyond the constraints of mind-body dualism, this framework identifies the physical body as the locus of the psychological unconscious, providing a tangible, biological basis for understanding how traumatic memory is physically encoded, stored, and expressed (O’Brien, 2023a). This perspective is not metaphorical; it asserts that unresolved psychological material resides as a physical reality within the body’s tissues and pathways.

Trauma is stored as an enduring imprint in the body’s somatic pathways, musculature, and hormonal systems. This “somatic encoding of fear and helplessness” results in a chronic dysregulation of the nervous system, leaving the body’s alarm system persistently activated (O’Brien, 2023a). An individual in this state lives with a persistent, embodied feeling of being under threat, and their coping mechanisms—including addiction—become profound, physical responses to this internal chaos. By failing to account for this embodied unconscious, conventional psychology has missed a core aspect of human suffering.

The neurobiological basis of this process lies in the dysregulation of the brain’s memory systems during a traumatic event. The amygdala, which processes and stores emotional memory, becomes overactive and “keeps the score” of the intense fear and distress (van der Kolk, 2014). Simultaneously, the hippocampus, responsible for contextualizing memories with time and place, often exhibits reduced activity (van der Kolk, 2014). This imbalance prevents the proper integration of the traumatic experience, leading to the formation of fragmented, decontextualized memory traces. These are not coherent narratives but powerful, embodied emotional and sensory reactions that exist outside of linear time, ready to be triggered in the present.

Understanding how these embodied memories are formed is the first step; the next is to explore the brain’s natural process for healing them.

3.0 Memory Reconsolidation: The Brain’s Innate Mechanism for Healing

Memory Reconsolidation (MR) is the natural neurological process through which the brain heals from trauma and is the core mechanism underlying all effective therapeutic processes (Ecker, Ticic, & Hulley, 2012). Rather than being a specific technique, MR is an inherent capacity of the nervous system. When a traumatic memory is reactivated, it becomes temporarily malleable, creating a brief neurobiological window of opportunity for it to be updated with new, conflicting information before it is re-stored, or reconsolidated, without its original emotional charge.

The process of Memory Reconsolidation involves three essential steps (Ecker et al., 2012):

1. Step 1: Activation: The targeted traumatic memory is reactivated, bringing it from stable, long-term storage into a temporary, labile state where it can be modified.
2. Step 2: Contrast/Conflict: While the memory is labile, new, conflicting information or a “mismatch experience” is introduced. This new input must be powerful enough to contradict the old learning, signaling safety, resolution, or a different outcome.
3. Step 3: New Acquired Knowledge/Integration: The brain synthesizes the old memory with the new information. The updated memory is then re-stored in a stable, long-term form, but its emotional and physiological charge has been neutralized. The learning from the experience is retained, but the pain is released.

This framework extends the concept of traumatic memory to include “addiction memory” (O’Brien, 2023a). The initial, overwhelming experience of drug use—whether euphoric or terrifying—can be registered by the nervous system as a trauma. This intense memory becomes stuck, creating a powerful, implicit drive to repeat the experience.

This leads to what can be described as a “dissociative looping and addictive ride” (O’Brien, 2023a). The addictive act is, in effect, an unconscious and desperate attempt to initiate the Memory Reconsolidation process by reactivating the traumatic “addiction memory” (Step 1). However, the cycle fails because the act of using the substance is a reenactment of the original trauma, which cannot provide the necessary “mismatch experience” of safety and resolution (Step 2). Instead of being updated, the memory is simply re-consolidated with its original distressing emotional charge, reinforcing the compulsion to repeat.

Understanding why this innate healing process becomes stalled requires an exploration of the endogenous systems that regulate pain, pleasure, and consciousness itself (Step 3).

4.0 The Endogenous Regulatory Systems: A Unified Biological Framework

To fully grasp the dynamics of trauma, dissociation, and addiction, it is critical to understand the body’s innate regulatory systems. These complex networks are not merely passive responders to external stimuli but active participants in managing internal states and facilitating healing. This section deconstructs the distinct yet profoundly interdependent roles of the endogenous opioid, endocannabinoid, and hypothesized endogenous psychedelic systems in this process.

4.1 The Endogenous Opioid System (EOS) and the Addiction to Trauma

The Endogenous Opioid System (EOS) plays a critical role in initiating the healing process through its mediation of peritraumatic dissociation. During an overwhelming or life-threatening event, the brain releases endogenous opioids (endorphins) to numb both physical and emotional pain. This activation creates a vital physiological window, a dissociative state that allows the individual to survive the experience. Dissociation, from this neurobiological perspective, is the start of the healing process—an adaptive survival mechanism (O’Brien, 2023a). However, this powerful, pain-numbing state can itself become the object of a conditioned bond. An individual can become “addicted to trauma” (van der Kolk, 1985), forming a dependency on the dissociative state mediated by their own opioid system as a primary means of regulating overwhelming internal chaos. While the opioid system initiates a dissociative escape from pain, the body possesses another key network, the Endocannabinoid System, that regulates pleasure, relief, and homeostasis in this state.

4.2 The Endocannabinoid System (ECS) as an Innate Healing Network

Discovered formally in recent decades, the Endocannabinoid System (ECS) is now understood to be a central healing and regulatory system in the body. It is deeply involved in modulating brain reward functions, learning, memory, emotion, pain, and facilitating neurogenesis. Cannabis functions as a healing agent through its interaction with the ECS, providing pleasure and relief that can temporarily soothe the dysregulation caused by trauma. When used to manage unresolved trauma, this relief can fuel habit formation, as the brain learns to seek this external source to activate a system designed for internal homeostasis. Yet, even the combined regulatory functions of the EOS and ECS may not be sufficient to bring deeply held traumatic memories to the surface for resolution, leading to the hypothesis of a third, synergistic system.

4.3 The Endogenous Psychedelic System (EPS) Hypothesis

This framework posits the existence of an innate Endogenous Psychedelic System (EPS). This hypothesis suggests that the body can produce its own psychedelic compounds, such as N,N-dimethyltryptamine (DMT), and that endogenous cannabinoids may also play a role in this system (O’Brien, 2023a). The proposed function of the EPS is to operate synergistically with the EOS. Following the initial pain-numbing dissociation created by opioid activation, the EPS may induce altered states of consciousness. This altered state serves to disrupt rigid ego defenses and force implicit, body-held traumatic memories—the unconscious—into conscious awareness, making them available for processing and resolution.

These systems do not operate in isolation; their interdependence is key to understanding both healthy functioning and the dysregulation that manifests as addiction.

5.0 The Neurobiology of Interdependence and Dependence

Understanding the individual functions of the endogenous opioid, cannabinoid, and psychedelic systems is crucial, but their true significance emerges from their interaction. It is the dysregulation of this interdependent network that leads to the psychological expression of symptoms. This section synthesizes the preceding points to illustrate how addiction develops as a conditioned dissociative state, a biological process that has been scientifically and logically overlooked for centuries.

Addiction, within this framework, is defined as a “conditioned bond to a dissociative state” (O’Brien, 2023a). This dependence is not on a substance per se, but on the internal state the substance helps to achieve. This bond is forged and fueled by the powerful interplay of the body’s endogenous systems. The numbing, dissociative effects mediated by the Endogenous Opioid System provide an escape from the pain of trauma. Concurrently, the pleasure, relief, and regulatory functions of the Endocannabinoid System reinforce the behavior, creating a powerful cycle of conditioning that operates largely beneath conscious awareness. The addictive behavior becomes a compulsive, unconscious attempt to regulate a dysregulated nervous system by leveraging these innate mechanisms.

The transdiagnostic efficacy of Low-Dose Naltrexone (LDN) in treating both addiction and dissociation offers compelling pharmacological support for this integrated model (Ellickson-Larew et al., 2020). Naltrexone is an opioid antagonist, and its effectiveness at low doses across a range of conditions points to the “biological unity of dissociation and addiction” (O’Brien, 2023a). By modulating the Endogenous Opioid System, LDN appears to disrupt the conditioned bond to the dissociative state that underpins both phenomena, reinforcing the hypothesis that they share a common neurobiological pathway.

A clear understanding of these interdependent neurobiological systems has direct and profound implications for the development of more effective therapeutic treatments.

6.0 Therapeutic Implications and Analysis

The neurobiological framework established in this paper necessitates a paradigm shift in therapeutic approaches—moving away from symptom management and toward trauma resolution. Treatment must evolve to work with the body’s innate healing capacities rather than against them. This section analyzes the implications for therapeutic intervention, with a particular focus on psychedelic care as a mechanism designed to catalytically engage these endogenous systems.

Psychedelic care emerges as a powerful catalyst for Memory Reconsolidation. The primary mechanism of action for classical psychedelics involves the activation of 5-HT2A serotonin receptors, which enhances neuroplasticity and creates ideal conditions for updating traumatic memories (Fattore et al., 2018; Krediet et al., 2020). Simultaneously, these compounds quiet the brain’s Default Mode Network (DMN), the neurological substrate of the ego and rigid, ruminative thought patterns (Palhano-Fontes et al., 2015; Feduccia & Mithoefer, 2018). This temporary dissolution of rigid defenses allows for the emergence of unconscious, embodied memories that are stored in the body. In this state, phenomena often dismissed as “hallucinations” can be reinterpreted as the symbolic language of the unconscious body, presenting deeply held memories for integration.

This model calls for a fundamental shift in the focus of treatment. Rather than suppressing symptoms with pharmaceuticals that often blunt the very systems needed for healing, the goal should be to resolve the underlying trauma that drives the addictive-dissociative cycle. This requires directly targeting and working in concert with the body’s innate healing systems—the EOS, ECS, and the hypothesized EPS. Therapeutic modalities should be evaluated based on their ability to create the necessary conditions for Memory Reconsolidation to occur, thereby completing the healing process the body is already attempting to initiate.

Ultimately, a more integrated and humane understanding of addiction and trauma requires a collective commitment to prioritizing compassionate, person-centered approaches. Such approaches must move beyond blame and pathology to honor the inherent wisdom of the body and the profound truth that addictive behaviors are often a desperate, albeit misguided, search for healing.

This understanding provides the foundation for a renewed and more effective vision of recovery.

7.0 Conclusion

This paper has presented an integrated neuropsychobiological framework that challenges the fragmented and often dehumanizing models prevailing in psychology and psychiatry. By reiterating the foundational concept of the physical body as the psychological unconscious, we anchor our understanding of mental suffering in tangible, biological reality. This perspective reveals addiction not as a moral failing or a primary disease, but as a transdiagnostic and adaptive trauma-related dissociative response. The cycle of trauma, dissociation, and addiction is driven by the brain’s innate but stalled attempt to heal itself through Memory Reconsolidation, a process regulated by the interdependent Endogenous Opioid, Endocannabinoid, and hypothesized Endogenous Psychedelic systems. Acknowledging this profound interconnectedness demands a paradigm shift in treatment—away from the suppression of symptoms and toward integrated, body-centered therapeutic models that work synergistically with these innate healing mechanisms. By embracing this new framework, we can foster a more compassionate, effective, and scientifically grounded approach to resolving the deepest wounds of the human psyche.

8.0 References

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O’Brien, A. (2023a). Addiction as trauma-related dissociation: A phenomenological investigation of the addictive state [Doctoral dissertation, International University of Graduate Studies]. Wounded Healers Institute. https://woundedhealersinstitute.org/courses/addiction-as-dissociation-model-course/

O’Brien, A. (2023b). Memory reconsolidation in psychedelic therapy. Wounded Healers Institute.

Palhano-Fontes, F., Andrade, K. C., Tofoli, L. F., Santos, A. C., Crippa, J. A. S., Hallak, J. E. C., … & de Araujo, D. B. (2015). The psychedelic state induced by ayahuasca modulates the activity and connectivity of the default mode network. PLoS ONE, 10(2), e0118143.

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Additional References

O’Brien, A. (2023a). Addiction as Trauma-Related Dissociation: A Phenomenological Investigation of the Addictive State. International University of Graduate Studies. (Dissertation). Retrieved at woundedhealersinstitute.org/courses/addiction-as-dissociation-model-course/

O’Brien, A. (2023b). Memory Reconsolidation in Psychedelics Therapy. In Path of the Wounded Healer: A Dissociative-Focused Phase Model for Normative and Pathological States of Consciousness: Training Manual and Guide. Albany, NY: Wounded Healers Institute. Retrieved at woundedhealersinstitute.org/courses/addiction-as-dissociation-model-course/

O’Brien, A. (2023c). Path of the Wounded Healer: A Dissociative-Focused Phase Model for Normative and Pathological States of Consciousness: Training Manual and Guide. Albany, NY: Wounded Healers Institute. Retrieved at woundedhealersinstitute.org/

O’Brien, A. (2024a). Healer and Healing: The re-education of the healer and healing professions as an advocation. Re-educational and Training Manual and Guide. Albany, NY: Wounded Healers Institute. Retrieved at woundedhealersinstitute.org/

O’Brien, A. (2024e). Path of the Wounded Healers for Thrivers: Perfectionism, Altruism, and Ambition Addictions; Re-education and training manual for Abusers, Activists, Batterers, Bullies, Enablers, Killers, Narcissists, Offenders, Parents, Perpetrators, and Warriors. Re-Education and Training Manual and Guide. Albany, NY: Wounded Healers Institute. Retrieved at woundedhealersinstitute.org/

O’Brien, A. (2025). American Made Addiction Recovery: a healer’s journey through professional recovery. Albany, NY: Wounded Healers Institute. Retrieved at woundedhealersinstitute.org/

*This is for informational and educational purposes only. For medical advice or diagnosis, consult a professional.