The Healer’s Path: Recovery, Truth, and Moral Evolution
Introduction: Beyond Dysfunction, Towards Healing
After exploring the intricate web of diagnostic privilege, systemic pathology, and implicit bias, we arrive at a critical juncture: how do we move beyond critique towards genuine healing and transformation? In this final installment of our “Diagnostic Privilege” series, we embrace the “Healer’s Path,” a call to action rooted in lived experience, qualitative wisdom, and a profound commitment to moral evolution. It’s about recognizing that the system itself is “stuck” in its trauma and addiction, and that true change begins with individual and collective spiritual and developmental healing.
Becoming a Healer: Embracing Lived Experience
The proposed solution is simple yet profound: “Become a Healer.” This identity is rooted in lived experience and a qualitative perspective, recognizing that “symptoms” are often symptomatic of the system from which they originate. A Healer understands that psychedelics possess medical value, cannabis is a healing medicine, mental health is not solely due to a chemical imbalance, developmental trauma is not diagnosable, lockdowns were illegal and against legal policy, vaccine is now a flu shot, and natural immunity often outperforms vaccine immunity. This qualitative science directly challenges the system’s research on pathology, which is weakened by its resistance to these observations.
Recovery-Informed and Healing-Focused Care
The next logical advancements in healthcare are “dissociation-informed, recovery-focused, and healing-focused care.” This paradigm recognizes that trauma, dissociation, and addiction are transdiagnostic and not diagnostically permanent, meaning that with proper care, symptoms can go into remission. It shifts the focus from diagnosing disorders to promoting wellness, acknowledging that undiagnosed addictions like perfectionism, altruism, and ambition exist within individuals and systems alike. This approach is about learning from mistakes and sharing the growth of experience, moving beyond the “precontemplative Stage of Change” that characterizes much of the current system.
The Moral-Ethical Imperative: Challenging Systemic Denial
Individuals who undertake their psychological work will “morally outgrow their ethics,” recognizing that the system is too dysfunctional to continue in its current form. This is the “Moral-Ethical course of action,” as the system often appears unwilling or unable to comprehend these truths. Character defects, entrenched faults or “diseases” of professions and professionals are reflections of existing diagnostics that have prevented genuine change. The sustained chaos in our systems is attributed not to a lack of public readiness, but to motivations of money, power, and control. The continued illegality of psychedelics for decades, despite clear evidence of their medical value, and the inability to change simple laws like daylight saving, serve as prime examples of this systemic resistance rooted in denial and implicit bias.
The Body’s Wisdom and the Fight for Common Sense
The concept of mass psychosis or “groupthink” is presented as the conditioning of dissociative and addictive processes woven into the fabric of society. The manifestation of mass psychosis during the COVID years, particularly with the soft mandating of experimental drugs for children, is seen as having gone too far. The exponential profiteering from crises is a tragedy that lawyers and ethicists should morally examine, perhaps even with the aid of psychedelics to remove any pretense of dissociation. The “Moral-Ethical” game requires discerning reality from illusion and possessing the courage to follow the truth discovered. The main difference between morals and ethics lies in the actions taken to correct mistakes, once one admits to becoming both the problem and the solution.
Conclusion: Reclaiming Our Power, Embracing Evolution
Ultimately, just as individuals become what they consume, society becomes what it has collectively created. The reality of the moral/ethical debate is that ethics limit and prevent healing, growth, development, evolution, and revolution, whereas morals demand all of these. Diagnostic privileges should be reduced if they are ineffective or if the services offered are questionable. The author’s work amplifies the unexpressed wisdom of clients, whose “symptoms” are seen as symptomatic of the system from which they originate. By embracing the Healer’s Path, we can challenge the pervasive dissociation and addiction within society, lean into the discomfort of change, and reclaim our common sense power from the brink of “insanity.” This is the path to a truly moral and evolving future.
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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/
*This is for informational and educational purposes only. For medical advice or diagnosis, consult a professional.
