The Collapse of Control
The Addiction Tautology: Why Legalized Psychology is Untrustworthy
The reason why Legalized Psychology is untrustworthy is because they were created separate and/but not equal. This work explores the philosophical implications of enforcing laws and insurance practices based on psychologically unverified concepts.
- The Problem of the Unverifiable: If the core concept (addiction) is not operationally defined in the DSM, any system built upon it—diagnostics, legal sentencing, insurance denials—is inherently flawed and untrustworthy.
- The Moral Vacuum: The continued criminalization of psychedelic healing plants (despite scientific evidence and cultural history) demonstrates that the system prioritizes control and prohibition (the law’s implicit bias) over moral truth and wellness (the healer’s imperative). The psychological professions are culpable for not using their moral and ethical codes to revolt against these demonstrably immoral laws.
- AI and the Flawed Foundation: AI language models built on this flawed diagnostic taxonomy inherit its biases, thus will produce biased results. AI’s conclusions on mental health, pathology, and diagnostic risk will be inherently inaccurate because the foundational data (the DSM) is scientifically incomplete.
The Economy of Denial: Professional Addiction and the Business of Suffering
This analyzes how money dependence and professional self-interest drive systemic dysfunction in healthcare.
- Enabling Altruism: Professional addictions—specifically perfectionism, altruism, and ambition—motivate professionals to maintain the business of suffering. Altruism provides the moral shield to mask the desire for exponential profit from perpetual treatment.
- The Inaction as Action: The failure of the APA and AMA to challenge the government on illegal COVID shutdowns or the forced use of experimental vaccines (the “inaction”) is an active defense mechanism. This silence protects their professional and financial dependence on state-sanctioned systems, perpetuating an abusive relationship with the public.
- The Intergenerational Toll: By valuing compliance over critical thought, the system participates in intergenerational abuse, sending its children (citizens/soldiers) to fight unjust wars against their own well-being. This trauma cycle continues because the parent system avoids the moral and psychological consequence of its own addictive corruption.
Recovery’s Moral Reckoning
The Legal-Minded Seven-Year-Old: Why Our Government Can’t Say Enough
The legal and political apparatus often operates at a developmentally immature stage, reflecting concrete thinking (ages 7-12).
- The Logic of Punishment: The law equates consequences with punishment and retribution, failing to grasp the restorative potential of true consequence and healing. This is evident in the criminalization of non-violent acts and the denial of healing plants.
- The Cycle of Abuse: The government sends its “children” (citizens) to unjust wars and enforces abusive mandates because, psychologically, it is trapped in a pattern of reenacting its own parental trauma. It is incapable of saying “enough” because its logic is driven by a primitive, addicted need for control.
Dead and Don’t Know It: Dissociation and the Professional Zombie
The high rates of overdiagnosing suggest a widespread professional condition: dissociation.
- The Dissociated Professional: Professionals who adhere rigidly to flawed protocols are often “dead and don’t know it”. Their academic training has prioritized the rational mind, creating a deep emotional disconnection from their own bodies and the lived experience of their clients, hence living dissociative.
- The Unconscious Score: The collective unconscious—the embodied history and truth of the nation—is screaming through the public health crisis, but the dissociated professionals cannot hear it. They cannot say “enough” because that would mean acknowledging their own pain and the fact that their money and security are dependent on the suffering of others. While traumas will continue to exist, the answer of under what conditions do traumas occur, we find addiction and living dissociated (O’Brien, 2023a).
Call to Action
To combat the systemic pathology currently being addressed by MAHA, WHI provides training in the Path of the Wounded Healer, Meeting Area Screening and Assessment (MASA), and utilizes the Addiction as Dissociation Model to re-educate professionals on the spiritual, moral, and scientific truths of healing.
We advocate for:
- Moral Accountability: Professionals must commit to the Moral-Ethics framework, prioritizing client well-being over the financial and legal demands of the system.
- Decriminalization of Healing: Federal decriminalization of natural psychedelics (plants/fungi) is necessary to restore the right to self-medication and healing.
- Unconscious Literacy: Integrating WHI’s training on dissociation and unconscious processes into legal and medical education to dismantle the flawed diagnostic system and address intergenerational betrayal trauma. Supporting emotional intelligence, developmental and attachment healing, and existential and spiritual growth.
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.
