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 of trauma and healing.

At the Wounded Healers Institute (WHI), the foundational critique rests on the lack of operational clarity surrounding core psychological concepts. As Dr. Adam O’Brien’s work highlights, if addiction is not accurately defined, then neither is dissociation.¹ The formal definition of addiction, rooted in the idea of a brain dysfunction ¹, conveniently omits the underlying mechanism: it is a transdiagnostic, conditioned response to unresolved trauma and stress.¹

Maia Szalavitz brilliantly reframed this issue, arguing that addiction is fundamentally a learning disorder. It affects a specific type of learning, where the brain “falls in love with a substance rather than a person” and fails to learn from negative consequences. This perspective—that the problem is mis-learning—aligns perfectly with WHI’s core hypothesis: healing is simply the innate, neurobiological process of Memory Reconsolidation (MR).¹

If healing is learning, and learning is fundamentally about integrating experience, then effective education models must honor the body, the implicit realm, and the wisdom contained within what WHI terms the Body as the Psychological Unconscious.¹ It is through this trauma-informed, dissociative lens that we can prove the enduring validity of several key educational theories, which, by honoring the non-cognitive self, provide a roadmap for embodied learning and enduring change.

1. Malcolm Knowles’ Andragogy and the Unmet Need to Heal

Malcolm Knowles’ theory of Andragogy, or adult learning, posits that adult education must account for unique motivations: adults are self-directed, pragmatic, and driven by well-defined needs. This is often contrasted with pedagogy, the traditional teaching of children.

Through the lens of trauma and dissociation, Knowles’ theory gains profound philosophical depth:

• Motivation as the Unconscious Imperative: The adult learner’s motivation is not merely professional advancement; it is the fundamental, primal drive to resolve trauma and achieve homeostasis. When an individual engages in self-directed learning—be it formal education or recovery—they are answering the imperative of the unconscious body to heal the fragmented parts of the self (dissociation).¹
• Self-Direction and the Healer Path: Knowles suggested developing an inclusive “humanagogy” that synthesizes all stages of learning. This echoes the “Path of the Wounded Healer,” where authority is derived from lived experience and moral development.¹ The learner must become their own expert, taking sovereignty over their healing journey by applying their conscious will to the unconscious need for resolution.
• Readiness to Learn and Memory Reconsolidation (MR): The body is programmed to heal.¹ The moment an adult identifies a need for change, they are unconsciously activating the conditions necessary for MR—the conscious mind is ready to contrast the past (traumatic memory) with a new, adaptive truth (the present learning).¹ This readiness is not intellectual curiosity; it is a primal call to self-repair.

2. Howard Gardner’s Multiple Intelligences: A Defense of the Implicit Mind

Howard Gardner’s Theory of Multiple Intelligences (MI) has faced considerable criticism from mainstream psychology for confusing “intelligence” with mere “ability” or “aptitude” and for lacking sufficient empirical evidence to support the idea of distinct neurological entities. Critics argue that the theory fails to account for the general intelligence factor (g-factor).

However, the validity of MI can be successfully defended by redefining intelligence as the capacity of the entire bio-psycho-social system—not just the cognitive, left-brain dominant processes:

MI Theory’s “Intelligences”	Psychological Domain (WHI Perspective)
Logical-Mathematical, Linguistic	Explicit Memory, Cognitive (Left-Brain) 1
Bodily-Kinesthetic, Visual-Spatial, Musical, Interpersonal	Implicit Memory, Somatic, Affective (Right-Brain/Unconscious) 1

• The Language of the Unconscious: The traditional g-factor is rooted in the linear, verbal, rational processes of the left brain.¹ Trauma and dissociation, however, speak the implicit language of the right brain: felt-sense, symbolism, imagery, and motor/procedural memory.¹ By acknowledging musical, visual-spatial, and bodily-kinesthetic intelligences, Gardner is validating the inherent wisdom of the body/unconscious.¹
• Resolving the Correlation Conflict: The traditional model insists on high correlations between aspects of intelligence. When dissociation is present, the personality structure is divided, meaning the explicit, logical parts (Linguistic) may be severely disconnected from the emotional, somatic parts (Bodily-Kinesthetic).¹ A person may be high in logical intelligence but completely fragmented emotionally (a manifestation of dissociation/addiction).¹ Therefore, the lack of correlation that critics observe is not a flaw in MI theory; it is clinical evidence of unintegrated trauma and dissociation. MI is thus a more accurate model of the traumatized, modern mind.

3. The Learning Pyramid and the Embodiment of Memory

The Learning Pyramid, with its hierarchical presentation of retention rates (from 5% for listening to a lecture to 90% for teaching others/using immediately) is widely cited but historically discredited due to its lack of verifiable original research methodology.

Yet, this hierarchy can be validated as a profound map of Memory Reconsolidation and Embodiment ¹:

• Passive vs. Active Dissociation: Low retention activities like “Listening to a Lecture” (5%) or “Reading” (10%) primarily engage the left-brain’s explicit, rational, and short-term memory systems.¹ This process is highly susceptible to the default mode network (DMN) overriding the mind, which can be interpreted as a form of non-pathological, inattentive dissociation.¹
• Integration through Action: Higher retention activities—such as “Practice What One Learned” (75%) and “Teach Someone Else/Use Immediately” (90%)—are inherently somatic, procedural, and relational. These activities require active participation, integrating the motor and emotional systems that house implicit memory.¹ To reach the 90% retention level, the new knowledge must be fully integrated into the self-concept and become a procedural memory. This requires the activation of Dual Attention Awareness (DAA), the fundamental ingredient for MR and healing, which shifts the learning from mere cognitive data to embodied wisdom.¹ The pyramid is correct because real learning—healing—is about transferring data from the shallow, conscious mind into the deep, unconscious body.

4. Bloom’s Taxonomy: The Affective Path to Creation

Bloom’s Taxonomy organizes cognitive skills into a hierarchy, moving from lower-order skills like Remembering and Understanding to higher-order skills like Analyzing, Evaluating, and Creating. Crucially, the Taxonomy also includes an Affective Domain, which focuses on attitudes, values, interests, and appreciation, culminating in the internalization of values and action based on them.

The WHI framework posits that the Affective Domain is the core of sustainable healing, linking higher-order cognition directly to moral development:

• Lower-Order Skills as MR Activation: The lower-order cognitive skills (Remembering, Understanding, Applying) are necessary for the first step of Memory Reconsolidation: activating the traumatic memory.¹ The painful facts must be recalled before they can be changed.
• Higher-Order Skills as MR Contrast and Integration: The higher-order skills (Analyzing, Evaluating, Creating) map onto the creation of the new, contrasting truth that extinguishes the power of the old trauma memory (Step 2 of MR).¹ Creating new ideas or solutions requires the learner to engage the entire self—the qualitative/right-brain (emotional logic) and the quantitative/left-brain (rational logic).¹
• The Affective Domain’s Supremacy: As the Affective Domain progresses, the learner becomes self-reliant and internally motivated, achieving the deepest outcomes related to lifelong learning. This level of characterization is the embodied wisdom that the system is trying to achieve through healing. It is the final stage of resolving the addictive/dissociative state, moving from external compliance (ethics/lower-order skills) to internal truth (morality/higher-order skills).¹

Conclusion: Meditation, Brainspotting, and the Future of Education

The arguments against Brainspotting—that its efficacy is anecdotal or based on faulty hypothesis—fail because they neglect the fundamental neurobiological reality of Dual Attention Awareness (DAA) and Memory Reconsolidation (MR) in its somatic form or cognitive report.¹ BSP, like EMDR, is a sophisticated method of activating the orienting response in the brain to create the necessary dual attention state, effectively rebranding meditation for a clinical setting.¹

As stated by Dr. Adam, Meditation is evidence-based.¹ The simplicity of mindfulness is the efficiency of DAA—an effortless and natural state available to all.¹ By synthesizing Szalavitz’s “learning disorder” concept with the deeper psychological frameworks of Knowles, Gardner, and Bloom, we reveal that the true function of learning is to heal the fragmented self. Any model that recognizes the implicit wisdom of the body—the true repository of the unconscious—is fundamentally valid. The next step for society is to stop pathologizing the symptoms of the trauma-addicted system and recognize that the core of all deep learning, and thus all healing, is the courage to face and integrate the wisdom of our dissociative, emotional body.

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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.