Path of the Wounded Healer’s (PWH) EMDR Therapy Foundational Training

The Wounded Healers Institute offers foundational EMDR training (rebranded as “EMDR Healing” or “EMDR Therapy” within the PWH framework, emphasizing its roots in ancient meditative and spiritual healing practices.

Core EMDR Healing Focus:

• EMDR as Meditation: The training emphasizes that the basis of EMDR is meditation, which stands alone and cannot be owned by any organization.

• Dissociation-Informed Application: Participants learn to apply EMDR (which accesses MR) in conjunction with MASA to address developmental trauma, normative dissociation, and universal addictions.

• Psychedelic Integration: We suggest, recommend, and require participants bring their own CBD or cannabis products to the training if they wish to explore state-dependent learning and enhance their re-educational process. Cannabis products are recognized as spiritual medicines supporting the endocannabinoid system, which facilitates innate healing.

***Important Disclaimer: This training is explicitly NOT an approved curriculum by EMDRIA (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing International Association) due to WHI’s fundamental differences concerning industrialization, corporatism, moral-ethical concerns, and gatekeeping of universal healing knowledge. We believe that withholding or industrializing MR knowledge hurts humanity.

EMDR Healing Training Structure (PWH-1 and PWH-2 Condensed):

The foundational training covers the 8 Phases of the standard EMDR protocol but infuses PWH concepts throughout:

• Phase 1 (History) & 2 (Preparation): Covered entirely by the MASA script, establishing resources like Calm Place and Container, and obtaining Unconscious Informed Consent before reprocessing begins.

• Phases 3-7 (Reprocessing): MR is the core process, focusing on memory re-coding and integration.

• Advanced Techniques: Includes advanced MASA resources (Bulk Blink, Photo Album, Toxic Shame Shape and Color) and working with cannabis-based EMDR.

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Admission and Logistics for Interested Participants

The training is open to anyone seeking knowledge, a healing relationship, or recognition as a Healer, including licensed professionals, self-help sponsors, informed citizens, artists, and veterans.

Requirements and Application Process

1. Application Submission: Complete the online application through our admissions: HERE

2. Qualitative Essay: Applicants must write an essay, artwork, or video outlining their “Wounded Healer Journey”. This is intended to invite the applicant’s qualitative process into our process.

3. MASA Interview: A required 2-hour Meeting Area Screening and Assessment (MASA) interview with Dr. Adam is mandatory for the Path of the Wounded Healer.

Certification and Training Hours

• Consultation: 10 hours of group/individual consultation are required for full completion of the EMDR Healing Training.

PWH Trained: Successful completion of PWH 1 and PWH 2, plus a minimum of 3 individual consultations and 10 group consultation hours.

• PWH Certification: Requires completion of PWH 1–3, 6 individual consultations (20 group hours), 200 hours of documented session time, and completion of a capstone project.

Required Reading Prerequisite

Before engaging in training, participants must review prerequisite materials:

• The Addiction as Dissociation Model (ADM) Class/Dissertation.

• The PWH Manual (which includes Memory Reconsolidation and Psychedelic Therapy).

• Mindful Meditation Class + (MM+).

• For EMDR, the core text by Francine Shapiro (2018) is required reading.

Tuition and Fees (PWH Intensive Retreat Format)

• PWH 1: $1500.00 (Early Bird $1,300).

• PWH 2: $1,500.00 (Early Bird $1,300).

More information

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In this program requires 10-consultation hours (group or individual) to successfully complete. Participants will learn Addiction as Dissociation Model (ADM), Path of the Wounded Healer (PWH), EMDR Therapy Foundational Training, and Meeting Area Screening and Assessment (MASA) (which includes Two Containers and Photo Album, within the framework of the Adaptive Information Model (AIP). This offering is a condensed version of PWH-1 and PWH-2 and supportive consultations are required. This training is specifically for trauma providers who are fully trained in EMDR Therapy, as a variety of scripts are taught and the 8-Phase protocol of EMDR Therapy is utilized. PWH builds upon the Phase 1 (History, Screening, and Assessment) and Phase 2 of EMDR with resourcing, preparation, and psychedelic integration approaches to help you navigate trauma, dissociation, and addiction presentations to offer providers a research informed way of supporting your clients long-term healing and recovery. 

Participants will learn MASA and a variety of other helpful and relevant dissociation and addiction-informed skills and concepts, which were developed to support paraprofessionals and clinicians (and clients!) identify with their dissociative and addictive profile, obtain unconscious informed consent, check unconscious biases, and lower treatment resistance. We developed the MASA script and qualitative setup for assessing and screening for dissociation and addictions. The combination of ADM and MASA help provide a clear line between what is normal and what is pathology. PWH is a phase model of care that gives guidance on how and when trauma resolution methods should be done, with all populations because these conditions are transdiagnostic. Our research suggests that pathology is sustained dysregulation (dissociative/addictive) and that the absence of unconscious informed consent is what contributes to low treatment outcomes and care resistance. We teach participants how to find the line between normative and pathological presentations and allow your healer’s path to unfold. We feel that this is invaluable information to all healers and clients. 

• Participants will learn EMDR Healing in the Path of the Wounded Healer (PWH), Meeting Area Screening and Assessment (MASA), and Mindful Dissociation.
• Path of the Wounded Healer is a phase model of care and offers a research-informed approach.
• As a part of MASA, participants will learn Two Containers, Photo Album, and Resetting Emotions.
• Participants will learn Bulk Blink, Shame Shape and Color, Intention Resourcing, Journeying Resourcing, utilizing breath and Integration Resourcing.
• Aspects of Recovery, Psychedelic Integration, and Posttraumtic Growth are further explored in depth.

EMDR Healing is our way of educating on memory reconsolidation, which EMDR Therapy accesses. EMDR Healing is different because EMDR is meditation based, we are educating on meditation through a EMDR lens. This program is educating people on EMDR and using EMDR as a example of EMDR Training is for professions who wish to use EMDR in clinical practice.

O’Brien, A. (2025g). 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

O’Brien, A. (2025b). 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

ADM was developed by Dr. Adam O’Brien and Dr. Jamie Marich and provides a theoretical basis for this training. ADM is a unifying theory of addiction that explores how the inner-play between trauma and dissociation produce pathological states of addiction. 

PWH highlights the universal spiritual path that we all must take to resolve our dissociative and addictive desires before we die. PWH offers ways for paraprofessionals, medical and psychological professionals, and the recovery community to learn about dissociated states of healing and to help solidify their right to be called healers. PWH-1 offers learning ADM, PWH, and MASA. PWH-2 offers learning Addressing Toxic with Shame Shape and Color and posttraumatic growth stages of care. In PWH-3 we further explore addressing addiction memory and how the use of psychedelics can support healing but to enhance your learning experience, exploring dissociative of healing will help you grow as a healer.

MASA is a hybrid of the Dissociative Table and common coping skills (Container and Calm Place) that are found in many different approaches and therapies. As a part of MASA, we teach our Two Containers, Photo Album, and Bulk Blink within AIP framework. These skills are performed in a particular order to help screen and assess for current dissociative and addictive dynamics. MASA is how we obtain unconscious informed consent before doing ANY treatments, providing any care, or taking any medicines (particularly psychedelics). We feel that MASA is the best humanistic and qualitative screening and assessment tool for dissociative and addictive presentations; it provides everyone involved with an opportunity to become more self-aware of where psychological material resides and how to navigate it.

Endorsement: “Ever since I took the addiction as dissociation training last year I have been using it with my clients. It has lessened the need for EMDR processing phase especially when using shape and color and MASA to let past events/emotions play out. It also helps strengthens resources when clients can envision/sense their future self as well as recognizing other parts of self that are supportive.”