About (WHI)

Open Letter:

This open letter highlights the basis, context, purpose, intention, and justification of creating such an institute. We will briefly outline the professional services that we will perform and, as a declaration of transparency, this letter will address the dynamic that is outlined in the Addiction as Dissociation Model (ADM) (O’Brien & Marich, 2019; Marich, 2012/2020; Marich & Dansiger, 2021) (foundational research performed by Adam O’Brien’s doctoral research (O’Brien, 2022, dissertation, in presentation). Thank you for your interest in this endeavor. 

The wounded healer is symbolic of the transformation of consciousness that leads to taking action in one’s life. The archetype has a long history as a psychological profile, professional identity, and represents the dualistic nature of the healing process. As healers, we become fascinated by how what was once insurmountable pain, indiscernible dis-ease, or what felt like the absolute certainty of fate, we awaken to a new day that we get to live again. Like after a storm passes, a new profound sense of understanding emerges. The wounded healer concept is also symbolic of the lived-experience, which supports our qualitative and phenomenological style, philosophy, and approach. When one finds a new freedom through a process of healing and recovery, they want to share it with the world. We wish to learn from this intrinsic wisdom and help apply it to the world.

We are all living proof that healing happens and the insights we bring back are worth sharing, teaching, and researching. Results from our research will be put into action through advocacy, academic publication, and creative expression. Ultimately, we want to engage in supporting the wounded healer inside of you. We believe that we need a place to exercise our healing and perform recovery maintenance, particularly if we want to see true change in the world. Our training program is designed to support the clinician, student, coach, family member, organizations, or professional healer to become who they need to be for themselves and for the people they attend to e.g., patients, clients, students, families, organizations, and communities. Our shared lived-wisdom is best exemplified by the archetype of the wounded healer, hence the name of the institute. We will provide training and workshops on existing methods of the healing arts and explore new effective ways to heal.

 The five main domains of service will be: training, consultation, advocacy, coaching, and research. WHI will be providing experiential training (on therapeutic processes, wellness, posttraumatic growth (PTG), performance enhancement, moral and spiritual development, and recovery and the healing arts (namely, processes that activate intrinsic memory reconsolidation and dual attention)), consultation on ADM and memory reconsolidation, advocacy through action and creative expression, personal coaching and professional mentorship, and continue existing research on the ADM and subsequent findings. Developed by Adam O’Brien and his mentor Dr. Jamie Marich, ADM highlights that symptoms from trauma and dissociation are present in addiction presentations and runs on a spectrum from normative to pathological. As normative states of addictions/trauma/dissociative processes have been identified, continuing the investigation into their impact on all aspects of human development and their qualitative utility is being sought (particularly, areas of memory reconsolidation, therapeutic benefit of modalities that perform memory reconsolidation, reenactments, transferring behaviors, moral and spiritual development, and how the intersectionality of main topics of trauma, dissociation, and addiction impact recovery and/or support healing). Due to the impact of dissociative/addictive behavior on the memory system, conscious awareness, and unconscious processes, continuing this research is deemed necessary because the implications may be vast in areas of medicine, psychology, philosophy, sociology, morality, and spiritual development. 

As the framework of ADM offers solutions to many of our individual and collective issues, by continuing exploring the implications of it and impact on societies at large, we may find more understanding on how to balance our human emotional nature, healthy and unhealthy, societal and social unrest, existential issues related to life and death, power and control, denial and knowing, and abuse and love. The continued investigation also needs to expand to systems, organizations, cultures, and communities on how the ADM can impact all involved. Furthermore, we also wish to study the normative range of the therapeutic effects of ADM on clinical presentations, different and varying populations, societies, and cultures as well. To this end, we believe that aspects of qualitative research have been missing from the industry of scientific research, as evidenced by the dissertation process and qualitative analysis. We wish to fill in any gaps by investigating these missing aspects in order to provide a well-rounded and inclusive perspective. We will provide access and avenues for this research to be performed.

The desire to continue ADM research and to advocate for a comprehensive understanding of the ADM comes from historical context with geopolitical, socioeconomic, racial, and moral developmental realities continuing to bear their fruits. Persuasive findings from his doctoral research led Adam to want to share this knowledge with others as they could benefit from exploring them as well, both personally or professionally. The lack of awareness demonstrated in different academic fields may be due to the psychological dissociative feature of mass denial, mass psychosis, or mass dissociation/addiction that can be seen throughout history, personal lives, and in different industries, systems of governance, business practices, and professional or political organizations. In part, this is where the WHI aims to continue to expand upon the existing ADM research while continuing to explore established findings and limitations, therapeutic effect and methods of memory reconsolidation, follow new lines of study, and inform future research. We believe that independent checks and balances in the research industry need to be in place and an independent research institute can provide information that can add insights to other research communities. Like any other self-organizing system or organization or persons, creating balance requires trying something new or challenging ourselves in other ways. We will consult with willing parties to explore how ADM can be helpful when understanding and healing from biological, psychological, social, intergenerational, sexual, economic, racial, developmental, moral, or spiritual traumas. 

Lastly, because academic writing takes too long to write and publish, we will be providing our findings and processes in a variety of forms (social media, artistic creations, workshops, and class formats) to help ensure accurate translation of what is being taught. We will still be looking to get peer-reviewed articles published but are cautious of the gatekeeping process in the publishing industry. We want true objectivity from a collective mind to help guide us into our future. We are providing a class structure (in a subscription format) that is designed to have you take the journey of coming to the realization that the intrinsic wounded healer lives inside of all of us and that this is where the seat of wisdom rests. The space between now and then is the only moment where true change can happen – we need to understand this Now more than ever. Our hope is that you will join us on this journey towards global healing by preparing you for your death.