Wounded Healer

A Neuropsychobiological and Jurisprudential Defense of WHI

Abstract This report advances the central thesis that the Addiction as Dissociation Model (ADM) provides a scientifically robust and legally defensible framework for re-conceptualizing addiction as an adaptive, trauma-related dissociative response. Prevailing psychiatric and legal paradigms have historically failed to produce operational definitions for addiction, leading to systemic failures in both treatment and jurisprudence. This

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November 4, 2025 No Comments
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Wounded Healer

A New Paradigm for Healing

The Foundational Theses, Business Model, and Legal Framework of the Wounded Healers Institute Executive Summary Current medical, psychological, and legal systems are fundamentally failing to address human suffering. They operate on incomplete and flawed definitions of addiction and trauma, and more critically, are themselves pathologically addicted to power, control, and systemic denial. This document introduces

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November 4, 2025 No Comments
Wounded Healer

A Strategic Framework for the Intellectual, Professional, and Legal Integrity

Introduction: A Declaration of Intellectual Sovereignty This document serves as a comprehensive strategic framework designed to codify the core tenets of the Wounded Healers Institute (WHI) paradigm and to articulate a multi-pronged strategy for its academic, legal, and professional defense. Its creation is a necessary response to a biased institutional educational environment that consistently prioritizes

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November 4, 2025 No Comments
Wounded Healer

Industrialized Systems Build and Collapse Empires

The Wounded Healers Institute (WHI) levels a trenchant and comprehensive critique against what it terms “Industrialized” systems—referencing the established psychological, medical (psychiatry), legal, and governmental structures—by diagnosing them with profound moral, legal, and developmental pathologies. This systemic analysis posits that these institutions are not merely flawed but are actively detrimental to genuine healing due to

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October 31, 2025 No Comments
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Wounded Healer

EMDR Healing within the Path of the Wounded Healer: Education and Training Manual Announcements and Updates

Announcing that Dr. Adam O’Brien and Wounded Healers Institute are leaving EMDRIA and Institute for Creative Mindfulness (ICM). Having achieved certified, approved consultant, advanced special topics trainer status with EMDRIA and with Institute for Creative Mindfulness (ICM) under Dr. Marich mentorship), I am leaving to continue the Path of the Wounded Healer with Wounded Healers

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October 31, 2025 No Comments
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Wounded Healer

Unconscious Therapists and AI

The rise of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in mental health is forcing therapists to confront a startling question: What is our irreplaceable superpower? AI models excel at pattern recognition, efficient data processing, and delivering highly rational, cognitive interventions. This efficiency threatens traditional, symptom-focused therapy, demanding that the human element evolve or become obsolete. At the Wounded

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October 30, 2025 No Comments
Wounded Healer

Transdiagnostic Paradigm Shift

Conceptualizing Addiction, Healing, and Systemic Pathology Through the Lens of Trauma-Related Dissociation 1.0 The Addiction as Dissociation Model (ADM): A Unifying Framework for Trauma and Compulsivity The Addiction as Dissociation Model (ADM) represents a significant paradigm shift in the conceptualization of compulsive behaviors and psychological distress. Moving beyond siloed, symptom-focused frameworks, the ADM redefines addiction

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October 29, 2025 No Comments
Wounded Healer

Quantitative Reductionism, Qualitative Wisdom, and the Societal Level of Understanding of Dissociative Pathology and Experience

Structured Abstract 1. Introduction: The Denial System and the Split in Scientific Epistemology The enduring challenge in defining and treating conditions like trauma and addiction is not merely technical, but philosophical. The Addiction as Dissociation Model (ADM) asserts that the core pathology is a conditioned bond to a survival-driven dissociative state, where the physical body

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October 28, 2025 No Comments
Wounded Healer

The Universal Mechanism of Action in Trauma Healing is Psychedelic

Introduction: Identifying a Unifying Mechanism for Transformative Therapies Psychedelic Therapy (PT) has achieved FDA breakthrough status for the treatment of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), and established evidence-based therapies like Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) continue to show high efficacy. However, a unifying mechanism of action (MoA) that neurobiologically explains their success is not widely

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October 28, 2025 No Comments
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Wounded Healer

The Theological State: A Call for Separate, but Equal Profession

Quantitative Science as Dogma and the Ethical Mandate for Separation of State and Science Structured Abstract 1. Introduction: The Epistemological Roots of Institutional Control The history of addiction and trauma is defined by a philosophical war between the objective and the subjective. The Addiction as Dissociation Model (ADM) provides a unifying framework, positing that addiction

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October 28, 2025 No Comments
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Wounded Healer

The Integrated Learner: Trauma-related Dissociation is Deep Learning

The Crisis of Definition: When Learning is Undefined The pursuit of knowledge is often framed as a purely cognitive endeavor—a linear, rational process best measured by quantifiable metrics. Yet, this quantitative worldview, prevalent in industrialized psychology and education, consistently fails to account for the most powerful catalyst for human change: the body’s implicit, emotional experience

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October 27, 2025 No Comments
Wounded Healer

The Thalamic Gate and Neurotoxic Synergy

A Biological Substrate for Pathological Dissociation in Cognitive Decline Structured Abstract 1. The Thalamic Gate: Where Consciousness Meets the Unconscious The thalamus plays a pivotal role in regulating states of consciousness. Anesthesia, which induces a temporary and controlled unconscious state, achieves this primarily through the hyperpolarization block of thalamic relay neurons, thereby disrupting thalamocortical communication.

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October 25, 2025 No Comments
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Wounded Healer

The Redefinition of Trauma: From Abnormal Event to Enduring Root Cause

The Addiction as Dissociation Model (ADM), developed by Dr. Adam O’Brien, fundamentally redefines the etiology and nosology of human suffering by challenging the reductionist and compartmentalized frameworks prevalent in modern mental health, legal, and governmental systems. This theoretical structure posits that trauma, dissociation, and addiction are interconnected, dependent upon each other, transdiagnostic phenomena that require

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October 24, 2025 No Comments
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Wounded Healer

A Hypothesis on Medical Mislabeling of Dissociative Experiences

Structured Abstract 1. Introduction: Reconciling Symptoms and Source Medical science often struggles to identify the primary etiology when psychological distress translates into physical, measurable dysfunction. Absence Seizures (AS), characterized by brief interruptions of consciousness, and Fading Memory Disorder (FMD), characterized by the gradual loss of cognitive detail, frequently fit this paradigm. In many cases, non-epileptic

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October 24, 2025 No Comments
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Wounded Healer

A Response to Rick Doblin’s Update: Deconstructing the Implicit Bias of Industrial Psychedelia

The recent public release of the FDA’s Complete Response Letter (CRL) regarding Lykos Therapeutics’ MDMA-assisted therapy for PTSD has sparked a renewed and urgent debate. While Rick Doblin, the founder of MAPS, has framed the rejection as a frustrating “changing of the goal posts”, a deeper analysis reveals this conflict is not merely about regulatory

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September 23, 2025 No Comments
Wounded Healer

Dissociative Learning – Announcements and Updates

Our post-doctoral research (Applied Recovery) offers our justification for providing dissociative-inspired and psychedelic-based learning as a educational and experiential process. For example, in her 2016 book, Maia Szalavitz (Unbroken Brain: A Revolutionary New Way of Understanding Addiction) has presented that addiction is more of a learning disorder, which we can see validity in, but know

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September 15, 2025 No Comments
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Wounded Healer

Dyslexia as Dissociation

Building off of our blog on Dissociative Dyslexia, Dyslexia is a specific learning difficulty that primarily affects reading and spelling, often characterized by difficulties with word recognition, decoding, and reading comprehension. While traditionally understood through cognitive and neurological deficits, a transdiagnostic perspective suggests a deeper connection to emotional and dissociative processes.   Ron Davis’s work

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July 29, 2025 No Comments
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Auditory Processing Disorder as Untreated Dissociation

Auditory Processing Disorder (APD), also known as Central Auditory Processing Disorder (CAPD), is a condition where an individual’s physical hearing remains intact, yet the brain struggles to recognize and interpret sounds, including speech. Common symptoms include difficulty discerning the origin of sounds, comprehending rapid speech or conversations in noisy environments, attention deficits, challenges with reading

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July 29, 2025 No Comments

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