Posttraumatic Growth Gym and Healing Spa: Mental Wellness Announcements and Updates
Why are there not mental gyms and healing spas like there are physical health gyms and spas?
Posttraumatic Growth Gym/Spa (PTG) is a concept developed (and being developed) by Dr. Adam O’Brien and is a point of advocacy as to why society does not have mental care for maintenancing our psychological needs. Instead, they are pathologized and used against citizens for the benefit of labeling and naming what they do not understand. At the core of what they do not understand is dissociation and addictive dependence.
At our gym and spa, we provide a educational experiences that promote mental wellness. Our gym has exercises and a healing/wellness spa where you can learn to heal yourself with the path of your choosing and with your choice of healer. Participants (clients or professionals) do specific exercises (resiliency training, neuro-regulation) and meditations (Mindful Dissociation) to maintain their posttraumatic growth, build resilience, and enhance their performance. We also teach people to do self-work/maintenance with altered states of consciousness, dissociative healing states (mindful dissociation), and legal psychedelic medicines for psychedelic integration. We educate in and with CBD to help people learn how to work out and with psychedelic experiences. This helps provide ongoing maintenance to support preparation and integration. As a part of PTG, we require coaching from our team of professionals. Conscious and Unconscious Informed Consent are required. PTG is supported by our research, advocacy, and training endeavors.
Why do citizens not go to psychology’s various professions (Psychiatrist, Psychologist, Social Worker and Counselor) to do a yearly check-in or have a physical like they do to medical doctors for general care? Why does insurance not cover such a service?
Why do diets, treatments, and training programs not work for everyone or most?
It is because people are not addressing what is most troubling to them. Training and Education are different and WHI explores and helps repair institutional, constitutional, educational, developmental and attachment betrayal, moral injury, spiritual, religious, and existential traumas. Stemming from intergenerational abuse, generational ignorance, and personal greed (e.g., addiction as dissociation), these key wounds are what we are helping people with.
Why is mental health stigmatized by those who do not understand it?
At the Wounded Healers Institute, we believe that education is healing and to help them understand, we offer our experiential form of learning about mental wellness in our Posttraumatic Growth Gym and Spa. We offer healing education to help those wanting to learn about healing and practice of recovery. With our qualitative educational approach WHI supports people doing self-healing, in the maintenance stages of recovery, posttraumatic growth, psychedelic integration (experiential), psychedelic care (educational), looking to build resiliency through training and prevention, and are enhancing their professional performance.
Our WHI research helped define where the line of psychological pathology is. Not everything is diagnosable and not everything diagnosable precludes one from joining a gym because those professions who have the privilege to diagnose do not have their taxonomy, criteria, and philosophical underpinnings foundationally secure to make mandates, laws, or anything that requires one to go against their moral character, code of ethics, and common sense. Anything outside the realm of common sense, absence of conscious choice and unconscious validation is inherently abusive. Those in power can make rules that citizens can choose to follow or not because man’s laws are different from natural and constitutional law; and is what truly is what defines a free society. Those in power cannot inherently control those who are entrusting them with the power to govern and guide. To not dominate and control with immature tactics, illogical rationale, and immoral reasonings would be helpful.
As we work with dissociative or (the old name) “altered states of consciousness”, we all need a place to psychologically workout and exercise our conscious and unconscious minds. When we go through the process of healing our known wounds, it becomes time to start working on the wounds we don’t see or can’t feel. Essentially, we all need to become the Wounded Healer in order to understand who and what we are; and what we are capable of. Doing this before we die is the ideal and using life experience, meditation, breathwork, and psychedelic states to help facilitate healing offers everyone a path that helps society become mature, developed, and aware.
All of our services recognize that people may have active diagnoses or may be involved in other therapies while accessing our services. We do not discriminate and will work with anyone. We do not and will not diagnose or confirm diagnosis(es) because we are non-pathologizing. Based on our research, we are able to recognize true pathology more clearly. We do not provide therapy or treatment for the self-identified or medically-identified conditions that people might have and/or are currently being treated for by another provider. We are for people who are looking to maintenance their healing with more healing, enhance their level of functioning with our designated methods, access to our growing philosophy, or have a more mind-body-spirit approach (based in mindfulness).
Our methods include approaches that naturally support memory reconsolidation and/or re-coding through body-mind-spirit regulation, help build resiliency through mental and physical training, and perform preventative maintenance. We use a combination (phase model PWH that we are developing) of non-therapeutic methods such as Neurofeedback training, Brainspotting’s expansion model, BEMER technology, and help people use legal psychedelic medicines to enhance wellness and posttraumatic growth potential. In certain research conditions, we can perform, under our clinical licenses, clinical care but that is solely for the purpose of research. Clinical use of these methods may be employed by trained or approved professionals for the purposes of research and program development (our research lab (lovingly labelled the Rabbit Hole)).
Lastly, we also network with professional healers who do Polarity Therapy, CranioSacral, Reiki, Yoga, Expressive and Creative Arts, Dancing Mindfulness (Dr. Jamie Marich developed), Breathwork, Acupuncture, and Chiropractic for consultation and bodywork.
We also have a team of educators supporting our efforts to provide the most up to date information regarding the topics that influence or impact our research.
We offer online wellness classes and trainings on how to use dissociative healing states to maintain your mental health and wellness. We will sometimes utilize cannabis as a psychedelic, as a healing medicine, and in a community at our public events so people can experience a medicine journey. We have an application process. You can access the application: HERE
We are also offering a locals professional track who are looking to have regulation and stress relief self-serve Neurofeedback training. Inquire when applying
If you are interested in learning more about our research and work, we recommend you sign-up for our NEWSLETTER and then start taking the Admissions HERE.
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.
