Brainspotting and Cannabis Education and Training: Announcements and Updates

WHI is announcing that Dr. Adam O’Brien and Wounded Healers Institute are leaving Brainspotting International (BI). Having achieved certification in Brainspotting, Approved Brainspotting Consultant, and was an approved Advanced Special Topics Trainer with this organization, he is leaving to continue the Path of the Wounded Healer (with our Trauma Resolution Healing Education and Training Program at the Wounded Healers Institute).

We are excited to announce that we have produced our manual and our experiential and qualitative approach.

Wounded Healers Institute’s EMDR Healing citations:

O’Brien, A. (2025). Path of the Wounded Healer’s Education and Training Manual for EMDR Therapy, Brainspotting, and Psychedelic Care. Albany, NY: Wounded Healers Institute. Retrieved at woundedhealersinstitute.org/ ISBN: 979-8-9923080-6-8

O’Brien, A. (2025). EMDR Healing within the Path of the Wounded Healer: Wounded Healers Institute Education and Training Manual. Albany, NY: Wounded Healers Institute. Retrieved at woundedhealersinstitute.org/ ISBN: 978-1-969148-99-6

Reasoning

While studying Brainspotting (BSP) (in training and in clinical practice), we have to acknowledge how BSP is meditation-based. Dual attention has been promoted by meditation and psychedelic use since the dawn of time. BSP is meditation-based; therefore, any meditation practice or therapy or healing is already evidence-based by default (O’Brien, 2023a; O’Brien, 2023b). The foundational aspects of BSP are for everyone, parents and citizens alike, which is why we are offering our experiential learning to anyone. Due to the field’s lack of definitions on addiction, dissociation, and the unconscious, at this point, we feel that it is better to lead than to follow the herd off the cliff. To retain our objectivity, we are separating from the logic that BSP is anything more than just another tool in the toolbox that therapists and healers can use to help the world heal. The training industry needs to get educated in addiction, dissociation, unconscious, and moral character. Thus, we divide to separate, so equality can remain.

Due to increasing APA corporate compliance, “pseudoscience”, “peer-review” standards, and ethical-legal demands from governing bodies that clearly do not understand clinical presentations and manifestations of dissociation, addiction, and unconscious systems, WHI sets to show how Moral-Ethical Healers would disseminate the innate knowledge base that BSP activates (otherwise known as memory reconsolidation (MR)). No matter how one reaches dual attention states, MR offers an intrinsic and authentic way to heal from the deepest wounds. BSP International would not approve of us educating on Cannabis and Brainspotting and we feel that it is important to educate on what we have learned. As dual attention states are (turning off of the Default Mode Network (DNM)) the mechanism of action that sequences memory reconsolidation (MR), both philosophically and practically in both, the science of BSP seems simple and commonsensical and evidence-based enough to not be called a “pseudoscience” in the literature by professionals who have been in the field long enough to have advocated to end the war on drugs or psychedelics or cannabis or the endocannabinoid system?

Our experience with systems (family/community), institutes, associations, organizations, jobs, systems of parental authority, publishing, “peer-review”, and academia is that it is professional gatekeeping from professions who either don’t know any better or are paid to only care about their profession maintaining its power, control, and prestige. These institutions are not the filter or safeguards of science, they prevent the research citizens would need to dismantle their dependence, reasoning, logic, and professional stronghold. Which is why WHI is remaining independent and publishing our findings through our own internal process. With the APA’s requirements for training to have peer-reviewed literature from the last 5 years is yet another example of how the “good ideas” of those in power don’t understand clinical practice, frontlines of health, and the citizenry needs. If peer-review meant anything then non-addictive opiates, chemical imbalance, and safe vaccines for children and pregnant women; and as if “the system” was not complacent, then indemnity would never have been given to Big Pharma for opiates, false advertising, and intergenerational poisoning. Furthermore, the DSM and the APA would have operationalized a definition of addiction, dissociation, and the unconscious before they allowed the law to put people in prison for ingesting what now amounts to superfood, supplements, and our innate healing system (e.g., classic psychedelics).

We’ve created our training to meet BSP’s educational standards. However, with the encroaching power dynamics and professional dependence on CE requirements from Educational Boards (enforcement agencies for upholding immature laws), BI, and the corrupted influence of the legal/insurance-based professions in medical and psychological science (e.g., APA), we question and object to this need with our lived experience, education, and continued busy work that is only there to satisfy corporate interests, liability, and legal rationale. BSP increased their professional standards (because of other professions who don’t understand the basics of evidence-based science or clinical practice and only interpret science to their advantage), WHI has decided not to pursue their approval because we only need our own to educate on what we have come to know through our lived experience.

Along with CE compliance increasing to perfectionistic levels by governmental enforcement agencies (e.g., Boards of Education) and the APA “pseudoscience” standards, even being published as standards in medical journals, we see that these professional systems are gatekeeping citizens from healing. Gatekeeping more than the trauma that they have endured, professions creating more barriers for clients is increasingly becoming traumatizing. We seek to bring healing to all through our educational efforts. Inaction is also retraumatizing. Also, CE programs are conditioning professionals to not know the difference between what is professionally ethical and what is legal, hence our Moral-Ethical stance. We will not be seeking permission from systems that do not understand that their level of professionalism, moral character, and ethical responsibility displayed in their actions and inactions is beneath the Moral-Ethical Healer. Our work speaks to the fact that moral character and level of recovery is measurable (O’Brien, 2025), thus our training and (re)educational model offers participants the opportunity to know if they have learned what they needed to learn and we can know if they have done their personal work to be considered moral. Read our blogs. We, as Healers in their advocation, are bringing Healing and recovery principles to the world (yet again).

Further Reasoning

Our training is also offered to those who need individual learning and (re)education of meditation and healing. Our experience is that people who have attended other trainings but have come to value our approach and solutions. We offer individual education to those who are dissociative learners, which may need some explaining so we recommend reading our blogs (HERE). This WHI BSP program is the direct result of having earned our BSP training, certification, consultant, and trainer status; and the renouncing of these titles due to our moral-ethical framework.

BSP is meditation-based and meditation is already evidence-based; therefore, best practices would be for people to regulate their life before they decide to do an invasive procedure, with a protocol that amounts to activating meditation through the endogenous psychedelic healing system. Again, dual attention is the active mechanism of action that performs memory reconsolidation (memory healing), which everyone in healthcare, even parents and every adult should know (like how to administer the Heimlich maneuver, Naltrexone, or CPR). Our programming experientially educates and trains in all of this and educates everyone in them.

What participants do with this knowledge, is up to the reader, but the participants who are looking to attend our training and (re)educational programming need to understand how our approach and philosophy is fundamentally different from the industrialized professions, corportized associations, and compliant nationalism. How they apply the knowledge will affect how their life will turn out.

Training and Educational Orientation

Ready to bring Cannabis and Brainspotting into your healing practice?

Want to learn how to use Brainspotting with Cannabis to help promote emotional regulation, mental wellness, reduce stress, support healing and recovery, and create a meditation practice that helps bring peace to the unconscious mind and calms the soul?

Our training model and educational experience in trauma healing lead us to develop our WHI programming, Path of the Wounded Healer, Shame Shape and Color, Bulk Blink, Mindful Dissociation, Imaginal Exposure Experiences, and Meeting Area Screening and Assessment (MASA). These take time to learn so our programming is different. It can be done individually.

Brainspotting and Cannabis offers a wonderful opportunity to blend ancient practices with modern science. With the legalization of cannabis products in many states and CBD being federally legal, WHI is offering our dissociation-informed and recovery-inspired training program (Path of the Wounded Healer) (O’Brien, 2023c), our research Addiction as Dissociation Model (ADM) (O’Brien, 2023a), and our recovery-oriented approach (Meeting Area Screening and Assessment (MASA)(O’Brien, 2023c) to those wanting to learn more about Psychedelics Care (O’Brien, 2025a) in the field of mental health and wellness.

In this 5-Day Intensive Retreat experiential training and re-educational programming is for those looking to incorporate Brainspotting and Cannabis, as mindful dissociative practices, into your professional (and personal) life or client care. This training is for Brainspotting Healers looking to learn how to use Brainspotting with adaptive dissociation, cannabis products, and our research-informed approaches. We utilize recovery research, healing knowledge, and our shared lived experience with dissociative and psychedelic states of healing to promote the most natural way of healing from injury.

This is a condensed version of our PWH-1 and PWH-2. 10-hours of group consultations are required for successful completion. ADM offers our case conceptualization of addiction as dissociation and our emerging PWH offers new Brainspotting setups (within the framework of the Neuroexperiential Model) like Resetting Emotions, Addressing Toxic Shame, Intention Spot, Journeying Spot, Breathspotting, and Integration Spotting. Participants will learn MASA, which was developed alongside our research and supports paraprofessionals and clinicians (and clients!) to identify with their dissociative and addictive profile, obtain unconscious informed consent, check unconscious biases, and lower treatment resistance. MASA, which includes Two Containers, Photo Album, and Bulk Blink offers our dissociative-informed and recovery inspired approach. WHI specializes in the topics of trauma, dissociation, addiction, chronic illness, existential stress and trauma, intergenerational trauma, moral injury, betrayal traumas, developmental trauma, navigating normative to pathological states of dissociation, and healing universal addictions.

WHI specializes in trauma and addiction recovery, posttraumatic growth, psychedelic care and integration, dissociative healing, and Neurofeedback (with the ability to perform qEEG analysis). Dr. Adam is the co-creator of ADM, developer of ADM and PWH, MASA, Applied Recovery, Moral-Ethics, and Mindful Dissociation. Dr. Adam was a Approved Brainspotting Certified, Approved Brainspotting Consultant, and Brainspotting Special Topics trainer at one time, until the writing on the wall read, exit.

Detailed Training Outline

BSP and Cannabis Education and Training

Day 1: Foundational Brainspotting (MASA, PWH, and BSP Overview)

• Origins of Healing and History of Brainspotting
  • Defining Brainspotting and Trauma as Dissociation
• Fundamentals of Trauma and Perspectives on Dissociation, and Addiction
  • Dissociation-Informed and Recovery-Informed Care
  • Path of the Wounded Healer (Intensive Format)
  • MASA Overview
  • Introducing Cannabis
• Fundamentals of Healing and The NeuroExperiential Model
  • Addiction as Dissociation Model (ADM)
  • Neuro-regulation Standards and Best Practices
• Demonstration: MASA with BSP
• The Neuro-experiential Overview (Retreat format) 5-7pm
  • Discussion: Model, Methodology, & Mechanisms
  • Cannabis Basics (MASA with BSP)

Day 2: Memory Reconsolidation and BSP

• Fundamentals of Dissociative Healing: Path of the Wounded Healer
  • MASA Phases 1-2: History Taking and Preparation Skills
    • Calm Place
    • Meeting Area
    • Container
    • Photo Album
    • Two Containers
    • Bulk Blink
    • Healing Light
    • Shame Shape and Color
• Supervised Practicum
  • MASA within Dissociation-Informed Model of Care
• MASA Unconscious Informed Consent
  • Principles of Conditioning
  • Cannabis-Infused Care 
• Trauma Resolution and Healing Course of Care (Retreat format) 5-7pm
  • Standards of Healing Care
  • Case Conceptualization and Case Formulation
  • Set-ups and Memory Sequencing
  • “Where you look, effects how you feel.” Philosophy
• Review

Day 3: Healing and Wellness Planning

• Dissociative Fundamentals
  • Psycho-education, Emotional Regulation, Abreactions, & Interventions
• Supervised Practicum: Shame Shape and Color
• Supervised Practicum: Healing and Care Planning
  • Principles of Conditioning
  • Mindful Dissociation
  • Bulk Blink
  • MASA
  • Follow-ups and Aftercare
• Review (Retreat format) 5-7pm PTG Gym and Spa
  • Self-Care Practicum (Self-BSP) and Cannabis use

Day 4: Special Populations and Situations

• Advanced Work with BSP Set-ups
  • Universal Healing
  • Moral-Ethics
• Specific Populations
  • Developmental Trauma, Normative Dissociation, Universal Addictions, & more
• Abreactions & Dissociation
  • Best Practices and Meeting Area
• Psych Medications and Psychedelics
  • Industry and Corporate Considerations
• Supervised Practicum: (Retreat format) 5-7pm
  • Addiction as Dissociation Case Conceptualization Visualization

Day 5: Closure and Review

• Supervised Practicum: Future Orientation
• Implications for BSP and Neuroexperiential Review
• Case Conceptualization Moral-Ethics and The Healing Art of BSP
  • Going from Clinician to Healer
  • Consultation/Certification Review
• Supervised Practicum: Everything else, termination, and closure.

O’Brien, A. (2025). Path of the Wounded Healer’s Education and Training Manual for EMDR Therapy, Brainspotting, and Psychedelic Care. Albany, NY: Wounded Healers Institute. Retrieved at woundedhealersinstitute.org/ ISBN: 979-8-9923080-6-8

The Process

Not only will you take the ride, you will become it. You will learn more about mindfulness and healing then you will about BSP, but you will learn Self-BSP within a dissociation and recovery-informed phase model of care (e.g., Path of the Wounded Healer). You will also learn our MASA approach to better be able to screen and assess for common societal and clinical misunderstandings on dissociation, based on our findings and research on the Addiction as Dissociation Model (ADM).

Here is our process… To gain admission to our WHI programming and psychedelic care,

1) become a Honorary WHI member by signing up for our newsletter HERE.

2) Explore our Orientation and Admissions process by signing up with an account.

3) For admissions into WHI, our MASA (Interview/Application Review) is accessible through our Admissions. Contact us to schedule your MASA at: [email protected]

We use an experiential model of educating, so once you have signed up, then you start your journey on the Path of the Wounded Healer.

*For in-person, as a part of our application process (MASA) and training program, you can obtain qEEG results.

For more on our work and cause, consider following or signing up for a newsletter or our work at woundedhealersinstitute.org or donating to our cause: HERE.

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.