Path of the Wounded Healer (PWH) Model

The Path of the Wounded Healer (PWH) Model is the comprehensive, phase-based framework operationalized by the Wounded Healers Institute (WHI) to implement the underlying philosophy of the Wounded Healer Paradigm (WHP). It functions as the intellectual and experiential corrective measure against the inherent pathologies of the industrialized mental health system, emphasizing qualitative wisdom, moral integrity, and embodied transformation.

The PWH model is fundamentally derived from the foundational Addiction as Dissociation Model (ADM) research, which explores the intersectionality of trauma, dissociation, and addiction. It is designed to be a dissociation-focused phase model of care that addresses both normative (everyday) and pathological states of consciousness.

I. PWH as the Operationalization of the Wounded Healer Paradigm

The PWH provides the specific mechanism by which an individual transcends the limitations of conventional therapy and actualizes the moral and experiential authority of the Healer Profession over outdated professional credentialing that is eroding quickly in modern times. While also helping those trained therapists, psychologists, and psychiatrists become the healers that they really are through our Healer (Re)Education Program, parents, professionals, and persons can experience the growth edge of consciousness by engaging with our programming.

A. Transition from Training to Education

The PWH model embodies a deeper form of “education” that deliberately contrasts with the mere technical “training” offered by industrialized psychology.

1. Un-Training: The PWH is a journey that actively “un-trains, un-educates, un-diagnoses, desensitizes, and transfers negative addictions to positive ones”.
2. Lived Experience Requirement: The process is intensely experiential; it is stated that the PWH “really only makes sense until you go through it yourself”. This personal traversal of one’s own trauma and dissociation is the source of the “living knowledge and wisdom” disseminated by the training. The ultimate measure of understanding the PWH is seen in a participant’s future actions.
3. Moral Development: The PWH guides individuals on a spiritual, moral, and developmental journey. It helps participants prepare for their “psychological death” and subsequent rebirth into a morally mature perspective.

B. Moral-Ethical Foundation

PWH mandates a commitment to Moral-Ethics over the risk-mitigation focus of Legal-Ethics.

1. Challenging the System: The PWH framework mandates that clinicians recognize their own role in societal denial and injustice. It is presented as a necessary ethical stance to challenge systems that perpetuate trauma and pathological dissociation.
2. Advocation: The PWH training helps disseminate the “living knowledge and wisdom” required to fulfill the Healer’s role as an advocation—a re-education for the professions. The PWH is the means by which Healers outline what they stand and will not stand for, acting without pride or prejudice.

II. Core Tenets and Methodologies of the PWH Model

The PWH operationalizes the ADM by integrating transdiagnostic conceptualizations with evidence-informed healing modalities.

A. Transdiagnostic and Embodied Healing

PWH integrates trauma, dissociation, and addiction as interconnected, transdiagnostic phenomena.

1. Body as Unconscious: A key tenet is the profound concept of the “physical body as the psychological unconscious,” where memories are physically embodied and reenacted. The PWH approach is informed by lived experience and is “psychoanalytic by nature, but humanistic by design”.
2. Addiction Reconceptualized: PWH is designed to address universal addictions, including the “positive addictions” of perfectionism, altruism, and ambition, which are viewed as the basis for societal dysfunction and dissociative rational subsets like elitists and academics. The PWH program guides individuals back to a state of internal regulation to address these undiagnosed compulsions.

B. Therapeutic Modalities and Mechanisms

The PWH is a comprehensive framework integrating diverse methodologies focused on achieving self-regulation and memory processing.

1. Memory Reconsolidation (MR): Dual attention and memory reconsolidation are central to the healing process within PWH, viewed as evidence-based for promoting healing. The model employs modalities such as EMDR, Brainspotting (BSP), and meditation-based healing, which are understood to promote healing states via dual attention and perform MR.
2. Psychedelic Care: PWH integrates Psychedelic Care as a crucial component designed to facilitate profound healing and conscious awareness. This integration provides guidance through the Meeting Area, a structured process for self-medication, psychedelic integration, and dissociative embodiment. This practice helps to break through systems of denial and dissociative effects.
3. Screening and Assessment: The model utilizes the Meeting Area Screening and Assessment (MASA), a scripted approach to screen and assess conscious awareness, unconscious access, moral development, range of dissociation, and stage of universal addiction and recovery. A crucial methodological step is obtaining “unconscious informed consent” (UIC) before applying any treatment, recognizing that clients may not consciously understand the underlying drivers of their symptoms.

III. PWH’s Distinction from Clinical Treatment

The PWH is not merely a treatment protocol for pathological states of dysregulation, but represents a definitional shift between Healing and Treatment.

1. Healing vs. Clinical Treatment: The PWH asserts that “Healing is the act of being with and there for each other and sharing our experiences”. This contrasts with “clinical treatment,” which is typically “applied to an individual,” driven by external mandates, and focused on fixing a presenting problem or diagnosis. As mental health diagnoses are absent of a complete taxonomy with the absence of an operational definition of addiction, dissociation and unconscious, then the incompleteness of the current system is challenged.
2. Purpose Beyond Symptoms: The purpose of Healing within PWH extends beyond symptom alleviation, encompassing self-actualization, spiritual, moral, and ethical development.
3. Role of the Healer: The PWH model is crucial for defining the Healer as a Life and Death Spiritual Educator, helping professionals shift from operating in a mechanistic, industrialized way to offering traditional support, knowledge, and qualitative points on historical, unconscious, emotional, and spiritual occurrences. The final step is translating insights from the PWH into tangible, morally aligned actions.

The Path of the Wounded Healer (PWH) Model is defined in the sources as a foundational dissociation-focused phase model of care developed by the Wounded Healers Institute (WHI). This comprehensive framework operationalizes the philosophical and moral tenets of the Wounded Healer Paradigm (WHP), providing a structured, transdiagnostic approach to address both normative (everyday) and pathological states of trauma, addiction, and dissociation.

The PWH model’s architecture is rooted in the conviction that the current industrialized mental health system, due to its preoccupation with quantitative metrics and prescriptive pharmacology, fails to recognize that psychological suffering originates in trauma-related dissociation—a dynamic that the PWH is specifically designed to manage and resolve. Based on the rationale that if overprescribing, overdiagnosing, and overmedicating, then who is to blame for the “war on drugs” when classic psychedelics are organic plants, fungi, roots, cacti, tea, herbs, and molds. Furthermore, if the terms and definitions of addiction, dissociation, and the unconscious are not operationalized with a common definition and understanding, then no laws can hold those to their moral judgements.

I. Foundational Rationale: Dissociation as an Adaptive Healing State

The core intellectual contribution of the PWH model is its revolutionary reframing of dissociation from a solely pathological diagnosis to an adaptive healing mechanism.

1. Addiction as Dissociation Model (ADM): The PWH is theoretically derived from the Addiction as Dissociation Model (ADM), which posits that addiction is fundamentally a manifestation of trauma-related dissociation. This trauma creates a chronic state of dysregulation, and dissociation—the psychological unconscious’s response—is an innate, survival-oriented attempt to initiate self-repair.
2. Transdiagnostic Framework: The PWH operates on the understanding that trauma, dissociation, and addiction are transdiagnostic and interdependent, meaning they are part of a unified healing process that cannot be separated. Consequently, the model is designed to support individuals across a wide spectrum of issues, including undiagnosed “positive addictions” like perfectionism, altruism, and ambition, which are viewed as dysregulated dissociative responses.
3. The Body as the Unconscious: The PWH is profoundly dissociation-focused because its foundational tenet defines the physical body as the psychological unconscious. Since memories are physically embodied, dissociation is seen as the body communicating unresolved implicit memories to the conscious mind for resolution.

II. The Structured Phases of the Dissociation-Focused Model

The PWH is systematically structured as a phase model of care, moving the client through sequenced steps aimed at achieving self-regulation and memory processing:

1. PWH 1: Regulation: This initial phase focuses heavily on establishing internal stability through states of dissociation. Key components include Mindful Dissociation (or mindful recovery) and Therapeutic Dissociation, along with breath exercises and neurobio-dynamic principles. Regulation is central, as it is acknowledged that genuine memory work cannot proceed until the body is adequately regulated.
2. PWH 2: Memory Work: This phase delves into processing and updating trauma-related dissociative material. It focuses on resetting affect circuits within the ADM/PWH framework and incorporates parts self-work (working with dissociated ego states) to help them reach full maturity. It explicitly includes developing interventions for intergenerational and normative dissociation.
3. PWH 3: Recovery: This advanced phase focuses on Posttraumatic Growth (PTG)/Dissociative Lands and addresses clinical dissociation and addiction disorders in depth. It involves preparing individuals for their “psychological death” and physical death by teaching them how to live freely.

III. Core Dissociative Methodologies Integrated within PWH

The Healer utilizes specialized modalities within the PWH to access and resolve memory networks during dissociative states.

1. Memory Reconsolidation (MR): MR is central to the PWH, recognized as the “universal algorithm” for healing. The entire model is based on the idea that therapies (like EMDR and BSP) or psychedelics that promote states of dual attention/dual attunement can activate the endogenous opioid and endocannabinoid systems, thereby facilitating MR.
2. Psychedelic Care: Psychedelic Care is integrated specifically as a dissociation-focused component. Psychedelics are viewed as powerful catalysts for change that psychologically induce the necessary state of dual attention to access the “unconscious body” and process unresolved dissociative memories, which are sometimes reinterpreted as “hallucinations”.
3. MASA and Unconscious Informed Consent (UIC): The Meeting Area Screening and Assessment (MASA) is a scripted, qualitative screening protocol used within PWH to assess a person’s conscious awareness and, critically, their range of dissociation. MASA facilitates obtaining Unconscious Informed Consent before any intervention or medicine is applied, recognizing that clients may not consciously understand the deep, embodied drivers of their distress.

This dissociation-focused phase model of care acts as a definitive counter-narrative to the prevailing medical model, offering a framework built on the moral necessity of addressing trauma and dissociation as the primary keys to achieving lasting recovery and self-actualization.

The theoretical basis for PWH is the Addiction as Dissociation Model (ADM). ADM was developed by Adam O’Brien, Ph.D. and Jamie Marich, Ph.D. WHI will be continuing research on the ADM to ensure transferability and validity. The foundational study and the basis for ADM is Adam’s doctoral dissertation (Addiction as Trauma-related Dissociation: A Phenomenological Investigation into the Addictive State (O’Brien, 2023a)). Along with his ongoing collaboration with Dr. Marich*, we are looking to support the field’s understanding of how the lived experience can help produce accurate understandings of human existence, hence a clear clinical understanding of what people are truly suffering from.

[*Those views and expressed opinions (if there are any) are not necessarily the views and opinions of Dr. Marich. If you want those, ask her.]

Our observations rest on how the healthcare field is unconsciously choosing to define these three phenomena, how they interact, why they depend on each other to exist, and how they are unconsciously impacting the ability to care for each other. Why this is occurring rests in the readers’ understanding of the relationship between unconscious stress and the dissociative processes that condition addiction into all of our lives. The blind spot that addiction and dissociation represent is one that demonstrates how unconscious the conscious mind is and remains unaware of what unconsciousness is and how it is being pathologized by the conscious mind. 

Our concern is that this lack of awareness reenforces the stigma of mental health and enables helplessness in people, citizens, and the greater population. Ultimately, a lack of awareness produces a mindset of us and them. And that is not the case with trauma, dissociation, and addiction because these appear to be the norm. Furthermore, the lack of definition or misrepresentation of what the unconscious mind is [as evidenced by the field’s lack of understanding on what addictions are or what addictions are representative of], what the unconscious mind does, or the reasons why casts doubt on the field’s ability to see the qualitative forest through quantitative trees.

Identifying that because the field of psychology has not clinically or accurately define trauma, dissociation, and addictions (from the point of view of the lived experience), then the normative range of these phenomena can produce normative ranges of similar pathology. Because these are normative, these are not diagnosable or disordered. Following the science of traumatology, potentially 90% of people have unresolved trauma from their childhood (ACE Study). Can you separate the water from the wave or addiction from mental health? If you cannot, then we cannot separate trauma from dissociation because they are a part of the same process. As a manifestation of dissociation, addiction wades in the water waiting to engage in play. Because the field has not clinically defined the range of developmental trauma, dissociation, nor addiction, we see a major blind spot in modern day psychology and clinical practice. This extends to macro-issues as well. Philosophically, this is more dangerous than we could know and based on the implications, conclusions, and future directions of our work, we aim to continue to provide an informed worldview of our model because it offers solutions. Entrenched pathology only serves and enables a system of power and control. We teach from this qualitative position and lineage.

In our clinical experience and academic research a lot of people are being treated for developmental trauma, normative dissociation, and symptoms of universal addictions. This seems like normal is being diagnosed because technically, these are not diagnoses. Our work offers, through the use of the dissociative spectrum, that pathology is less common than what is currently being diagnosed in the field of psychology or in the very least, if people were more regulated they would be less stressed. Less stress is equivalent to healing. Another way of saying this is that true pathology is rarer that what the medical and psychological field are diagnosing. If this is not true then, everyone is diagnosable with a mental health condition, has unhealed trauma, and unchecked dissociative responses. Being caught in the dissociative responses is what produces universal addictions that may be fueling stress and produce negative behaviors. If this is the case, then we want to offer the Path of the Wounded Healer as a solution.

PWH: A Dissociative-Focused Phase Model for Normative and Pathological States of Consciousness (O’Brien, 2023c) is a unique training opportunity that helps people to understand the simplicities and complexities of trauma, dissociation, and addiction phenomena. Due to the sensitive nature of studying consciousness and unconsciousness, our approach is heavily grounded in theory, established evidence based approaches, clinical practice, and the lived experience of ourselves and clients.

Anyone who wants to learn about this work can, but we need to be sensitive to what this knowledge brings. Participants will be accessing their innate universal healing systems through a range of different established methods. These methods are all accessing our innate healing systems, meaning that these processes are universal and a birthright. These methods include states of dual attention, decreasing activity in the default mode network, and processes that perform memory reconsolidation. Anything that accesses these methods are accessible through practices like using the breath, trance-like meditative states, creative expression, and (legal) dissociative (ketamine) or psychedelic (THC and CBD) medicines. The methods use of mindful-dissociative processes that help maintain ongoing healing systems is usually an important aspect of someone’s healing endeavors.  The importance of regulation as healing cannot be understated in our approach because it supports long-term wellness and recovery. 

Our approach to training, coaching, consulting, and research is designed to provide supportive and preventative/maintenance care for personal transformation, professional growth, enhance performance, help build regulation through resiliency training, and provide meditative exercises to support people’s ethical and moral development (i.e., obtains Kolhberg’s 6th level of moral development). Currently, PWH is being tested and researched to become an evidence-informed practice, and eventually, may develop into an evidence-based practice. 

Healing is a universal practice that needs to be engaged and exercised. We provide access to ongoing mental health maintenance that is normative not pathological. Because pathology is socially and culturally constructed, academically inaccurate, and unconsciously informed by the dominant culture, seeing forest through the trees again is difficult. 

Furthermore, people who are diagnosed are often being treated (for years or decades) for developmental trauma, normative dissociation, and universal addictions, by the diagnostic standards. However, what these normative responses do are produce systems of distress and dysregulation in the body, of which the mind reads as disorder and the clinical provider that people go to confirms that disorder is present. We also find that in most clinical cases that diagnoses are inaccurate, uninformed qualitatively, or often reenforces a pathology of learned helplessness. 

The Path of the Wounded Healer helps you become more aware of your normative ranges of traumas, dissociative processes, and addictions so you can support your ongoing maintenance and self-care so you can create opportunities for personal growth, reinforce and support your posttraumatic growth, maintain resiliency through bio and Neurofeedback training, and enhance your performance by becoming empowered in who you really are. 

PWH is a phase model of care that was developed out of best practices in healthcare and common knowledge of the lived experience. We follow the Consensus Model of trauma care. Our phase model is designed to help build accurate self-knowledge through experiential learning (based on Gagne’s 9 stages, developmental models like Kolhberg’s 6 stages of moral development, Piaget, and Erik Erikson’s 8 stages of development), mindful dissociation practices, and enhanced bracketing techniques.

We also educate on what we call mindful dissociation and use enhanced bracketing techniques to help educate healthcare providers and help them become better acquainted with navigating different states of consciousness and altered states of unconsciousness.  We want to enhance your personal and professional performance, and provide ways and means on how to use adaptive dissociation to help others heal. Our dissociative-focused approach recognizes that what makes exploring different states of consciousness “dangerous” is the unawareness on where “it” is coming… the unknown, but known to the unaware consciousness. Another way to say this is that what is dangerous to the conscious reality is what the unconscious reality already knows.

As Bob Marley stated in his song “Natty Dread” that “we should know and not believe” – this about sums how the unconscious lived experience (or qualitative existence or felt-sense) has been ignored by the actuary (quantitative) aspects of and often obsessive and compulsive conscious mind. We see this as fueling psychological behaviors that transfer to social trends and create cultural shifts, which can be controlled and manipulated by those who understand conditioning. Another way to look at this is grooming, but in an untraining and reeducating way, through lived experience and shared attunement.

Because the body keeps the score, it demands action at some point. We find it concerning that the medical model is taking the lead on set, setting, and skill for this wave of psychedelic renaissance that is currently occurring. The medical model has seen state shifts and has been vulnerable to trends, lobbying, and funding.  Examples: OxyContin, nicotine, and psych medications (chemical imbalance). The obvious example is their history with psychedelics. The medical model (and political sway) deemed these medicines as having “no medical value.” 

Because developmental trauma, dissociation, and addictions are normed, technically they are not diagnoses and we do not believe in billing for something or creating pathology or diagnosable disorders when there are none OR they are a product of normative stress that has been compounded due to the system’s lack of understanding in the human experience promoted by systems of power. The categorizations of mental health disorders appear to be self-serving to those in power.  Understand that if the powers that be wanted to invest in its people’s health, the healthcare would not involve health insurance and these organizations would be more supportive of preventative care but there is “no money in the cure.”

Obtaining qualified research, which is why we are an independent research institution, means that we have to follow the path that has been previous laid down but we can navigate it in new ways. We have seen what diagnosing someone who does not have a diagnosis does to the human spirit. Enabling normative pathology as pathology is concerning because it can create a dependent relationship. By medical providers standards these are not treatable disorders nor have they reached the level of medical necessity to qualify for a diagnosis.

For more on our work and cause, consider following or signing up for 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/

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

O’Brien, A. (2025b). Applied Recovery: Post-War on Drugs, Post-COVID, and What Recovery Culture and Citizens Require Moving Forward. Albany, NY: Wounded Healers Institute. Retrieved at woundedhealersinstitute.org/

O’Brien, A. (2025c). Recovering Recovery: How Psychedelic Science Is Ending the War on Drugs. 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.