Addiction as Dissociation Model Research

Path of the Wounded Healer’s Bullet Points, based on Addiction as Dissociation Model’s Research:

• Qualitative science quantifies that addiction should no longer be considered a disease because the “disease” of addiction is dissociation and dissociation is not a disease; it is a normal response to a normal event (O’Brien, 2023a). Therefore, addictions are trauma- and stress-related dissociative responses that are attempts to resolve unresolved traumas or stresses and start the healing process.

• Our research (O’Brien, 2023a) confirms that since trauma and dissociation are transdiagnostic, addiction is as well because they are all part of the same healing process and cannot be separated, only regulated. Ironically, all of the shortcomings in the healthcare field related to these three phenomena are because the field of psychology has not defined the unconscious (O’Brien, 2024c).

• Our research highlights that mental health “issues” stem from unresolved trauma, which is the source of the dyregulation. If the dissociative response (i.e., the body’s attempt at re-regulation) to this trauma remains unresolved, then the unresolved trauma (dissociative response) is a direct result of the system’s inability to offer grounding, healing, and care in a clear and dissociation-informed way.

• Our research confirms the findings of Van der Kolk, Greenberg, Boyd, & Crystal (1985): People can become addicted to trauma through the endogenous opiate system; hence, it is possible to get addicted to anything because of the dependent type of relationship (trauma bond) that is created  by this system and the emotional conditions one is subjugated to during and after trauma (O’Brien, 2023a).

• Our research highlights how the endogenous opiate system starts the healing process and how the endocannabinoid system can maintain physical (memory healing) and psychological healing (e.g., memory reconsolidation).

• Our research highlights that industrial drugs are what make drug use traumatic, not the drug users themselves. This is because the body cannot manage their high potency. Also, a drug memory is what produces reenactments of previous uses.

• Our research finds that current pathology (e.g., DSM) is off because addiction is not operationally defined. Therefore, addressing the diagnostic privilege aspect of healthcare is required. As the Addiction as Dissociation Model comes into the social and clinical awareness of professionals who are looking for answers as to why what they are doing is not working to the degree that they would expect, we can only point to our finding that there are three addictions we believe to be missing from the DSM classification: perfectionism, altruism, and ambition. 

• Our research examines and critically analyzes the line between pathology and non-pathology. Mental health amounts to the body’s ability to regulate.

• Our research identifies transferring addictions as a clinical concern to be further explored (O’Brien, 2023a).

• Our research highlights that addiction is an attachment substitution for trauma and dissociative bonding.

• Our research helps to answer History’s unsolved debates of who the observer and observee are. This provided the basis for our humane screening and assessment. Referred to as the Meeting Area Screening and Assessment (MASA), this framework identifies dissociations and addictions and can be used for and by all professions, parents, paraprofessionals, and self-help communities. 

• Our research demonstrates that anyone can become addicted to anything because the relationship is based on dependence.

• Our research provides the theoretical basis for a dissociation-focused and recovery-informed model of care (Path of the Wounded Healer) that we had to create because psychology does not understand addiction (e.g., non-addictive opiate/addict gene) or recovery.

• Our research operationalized a tangible definition of addiction, which suggests the treatment and diagnostics in psychology are completely off.

• Our research identified that the route of administration also contributes to making a drug memory so powerful and lasting. As administration of a drug stresses the body, genetic expression of disease is possible.

• Our research delineates two forms of addiction: PTSD form and Habit/attachment replacement/principles of conditioning form. 

• Our research confirms diagnoses of dissociation because the field has had their doubts (O’Brien, 2023a).

• As a byproduct of operationally defining addiction, our research also helped to define trauma, dissociation, the healing process, the unconscious as the body, and God, and provided insight into the nature of moral/spiritual development or the lack thereof. 

• Our research resolves the qualitative/quantitative, choice/disease, conscious/unconscious, religious/spiritual, right/wrong, eternity/presence, and life/death balance debates. 

• Our research helps explain addictive denial, trauma response, treatment resistance, where this phenomenon comes from, and how to heal with it. 

• Our research provides evidence and a conceptual framework (Addiction as Dissociation Model) that supports meditation and psychedelics as evidence-based practices. This is because dual attention states can and are already experienced during most human activities.

• Our research identified the missing addictions of perfectionism, altruism, and ambition. 

• Along with trauma and dissociation, our research identified that addiction is transdiagnostic. 

• Our research defines and highlights the distinct line between “pathology” and “normality” that can be measured quantitatively and qualitatively. 

• The meta-analyses foundational showed shortcomings in Western thought (e.g., the scientific method) and use of language. They highlighted where these errors come from and what can be done about them. This became the basis for our recovery and healing-informed psychedelic programming.

• Our research identified how professions, via professionals, are addicted to power and control (i.e., if corporations are legally considered people, then they can behave and be diseased like people); therefore, clinical “treatment” can be effective for professions too, if they are willing.

How we are applying our research:

• Our research offers our Meeting Area Screening and Assessment (MASA), which helps people and professionals by giving them a way to screen and assess levels of dissociation and addiction in themselves and others.

• Our research offers re-education in self-medication and the Addiction Re-Education Program for parents and communities (i.e., our researched response to the D.A.R.E. program).

• Our research offers the Path of the Wounded Healer (PWH), which is a dissociation-informed model of care that includes psychedelic care and recovery-focused services for people in posttraumatic stages of growth and healing.

• Our research is starting to explore the dynamic between learning disorders and dissociation.

• Our research provides healing for non-diagnostic (e.g., developmental/attachment trauma, normative dissociation, and universal addictions) and non-pathologized aspects of consciousness (e.g., altered states of consciousness, existential traumas, moral injuries, spiritual and religious abuse).

• Our research exposes professional system addictions (O’Brien, 2024b) because if corporations are people, then the organizations and professions who run and support them can be sick with the same illnesses that they diagnose in others. Therefore, addiction is their disease predicated by dissociative processes.

• Our research requires moral-ethics to understand (O’Brien, 2024d)(e.g., that customers believe or expect that morals should come before ethics or law).

• Our research also provides measures for knowing if people are in an active state of addiction (e.g., living dissociated). These measures include qEEG reports and application of MASA.

• Recovery, as a byproduct of addiction and healing, is spiritual and affords those practicing recovery and actively healing a moral-ethical advantage over professions of psychology, legalities (separation of church and state), and medical “science”. 

• For us personally, our research answers all of history’s unanswerable questions.

• Our research created a batterer and anger management program because people can become addicted to anything. 

• Our research is now rolling out the counterpoint (Addiction Re-education Model) to D.A.R.E. (a seemingly great idea at the time, but not so much in hindsight…).

• Our research officially established a new (recovery) profession of Healer (Recovery, Spiritual, Psychedelic, Somatic, or Moral) and demonstrated how healing is an art. It utilizes qualitative science to provide the credibility of its claim because the lived experience is all we really have at the end of the day. Since our science matches quantitative outcomes and conclusions, we can know that we are right.

• Our research helps people heal from developmental/attachment traumas, normative dissociation, universal addictions, moral injury, and collective unconscious grief (none of which are diagnoses).

• Our research supports harm reduction, self-determination, self-actualization, self-healing, posttraumatic growth, building resiliency, and performance enhancements.

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. (2024b). Diagnostic Privilege: Meta-Critical Analysis. In Healer and Healing: The re-education of the healer and the healing profession as an advocation. Re-educational and Training Manual and Guide. Appendix 2. Albany, NY: Wounded Healers Institute. Retrieved at woundedhealersinstitute.org/courses/addiction-as-dissociation-model-course/

O’Brien, A. (2024c).  Meta-Critical Analysis: The “Science” of Pseudoscience. In Healer and Healing: The re-education of the healer and the healing profession as an advocation. Re-educational and Training Manual and Guide. Appendix 3. Albany, NY: Wounded Healers Institute. Retrieved at woundedhealersinstitute.org/courses/addiction-as-dissociation-model-course/

O’Brien, A. (2024d). Moral-Ethics. In Healer and Healing: The re-education of the healer and healing professions as an advocation. Re-educational and Training Manual and Guide. Chapter 14. 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. (2024). Blogs: woundedhealersinstitute.org/blog/