Why Everything You Know About Learning is Wrong: The Body is the Best Teacher

The Myth of the Rational Mind

The world of education is built on a quiet assumption: that you, the learner, are a rational, logical being who simply needs the right inputs (reading, lectures, quizzes) to absorb knowledge.

But what if this assumption is fundamentally flawed?

At the Wounded Healers Institute (WHI), we contend that modern learning models fail because they ignore the body. Dr. Adam O’Brien’s foundational work posits a revolutionary truth: The physical body is the psychological unconscious.¹

This redefinition changes everything about how we learn, heal, and teach.

The Szalavitz Hook: Addiction is a Learning Disorder

The groundbreaking work of Maia Szalavitz in Unbroken Brain showed that addiction isn’t a moral failing or just a disease; it’s a learning disorder. Specifically, it’s a failure of the brain’s learning pathways that allows a harmful habit to trump negative consequences.

If addiction is a learning problem, and addiction is, by our definition, a form of dissociation-in-trauma ¹, then the vast majority of struggles we label as “learning gaps” or “mental illness” are actually the body’s protective mechanisms kicking in.

Your body is not resisting learning; it is prioritizing survival.

Why the Old Models Are Secretly Right (But for the Wrong Reasons)

Let’s look at three classic educational models through the lens of trauma and the body’s wisdom:

1. The Learning Pyramid’s Secret: The famous Learning Pyramid claims you retain 90% of knowledge when you teach someone else or use the information immediately. Why so high? Because teaching and doing are embodied experiences. This forces your nervous system into Dual Attention Awareness (DAA), the state where your brain activates Memory Reconsolidation (MR).¹ MR is the process of physically updating old, unresolved trauma memories. High retention isn’t a cognitive trick—it’s the body integrating the new information as stable, procedural wisdom. Learning is memory healing.¹
2. Bloom’s True Apex: Bloom’s Taxonomy puts Creating new ideas as the highest cognitive skill. But even higher, in the Affective Domain, is Characterization—the internalization of values. This is the apex of human development. Moving from merely remembering a fact (low skill) to living a moral truth (high skill) requires the resolution of internal conflict. This progression is the journey from a dissociated, addictive state to an integrated, moral self.¹
3. Gardner’s Genius Map: Critics often attack Howard Gardner’s Multiple Intelligences (MI) for measuring “abilities” instead of true intelligence, noting that the different types don’t correlate well. Our response? This lack of correlation is evidence of dissociation!¹ Trauma breaks the link between your logical-linguistic self (the “smart” part) and your bodily-kinesthetic self (the “feeling” part). MI, therefore, perfectly maps the fragmented self of a traumatized, unintegrated learner.

The Way Forward: Healing as the Path to Knowledge

We are moving past Trauma-Informed Care (TIC) into Dissociation-Informed Care (DIC) (O’Brien, 2023c).¹

DIC acknowledges that:

• Meditation is Evidence-Based: All effective trauma therapies (like Brainspotting and EMDR) are just highly specific methods for initiating DAA, which is what mindfulness does naturally.¹ Healing is your birthright, not a proprietary service.
• The Problem Isn’t You: Learning difficulties, including Auditory Processing Disorders (APD), often stem from a nervous system hyper-focused on survival, not grammar. The body’s trauma response is running the show.
• Our Systems Are Addicted: The institutions that refuse to accurately define addiction and dissociation are themselves locked in patterns of perfectionism and ambition addiction—positive pathologies that prioritize control over genuine healing.¹

The challenge of the next generation is to heal the gap between head and heart. True learning begins when we drop out of the head and back into the body, recognizing that the wisdom for resolution is already stored within.

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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.