A Healer’s Journey

In “Moral-Ethics,” Adam O’Brien (PhD) introduces us to a radical concept: the “Healer.” More than just a profession, it’s a stance—a direct act of recovery advocacy against what he perceives as the “ignorance, political shortcomings, character defects, false knowledge, and moral failings” of established authority, perceived source of power (irrational and immature belief system), and rationalistic logic (cognitive reasoning only does not equal removed implicit bias; in fact, it creates it). But what exactly does it mean to be a Healer, and why is this distinction so crucial in an age of AI and legal psychedelics, licensure, and “follow the science?”

At the heart of Dr. O’Brien’s work is a meticulous dissection of two often-interchangeable terms: ethics and morals. He argues that our current societal frameworks, from legal systems to professional guidelines, have fundamentally misunderstood or deliberately conflated these concepts, leading to widespread dysfunction and dependence on power and control. In his argument, if work, sugar, sex, relationship, process, perfectionism, altruism, and ambition (power and control) addictions do not exist, then why is self-help models helping with addictions that do not exist? Why are clinicians treating these as if they are not addictions or dependence of some kind?

If these are not addiction, then neither are psychoactive foods that promote psychological healing like psychedelics; thus ending the war on drugs and allowing psychedelics to be legal like melatonin, mint, caffeine, alcohol, and cigarettes. Constitutionally and legally, Congress literally never declared war on something that it cannot declare war on; therefore, psychedelics provide the opportunity to explore how morals and ethics and law needed to be dissected in a way that only psychology could understand. That is just what O’Brien has done (O’Brien, 2023a; O’Brien, 2025). To continue any legal application of psychological diagnostics and placating to insurance, Big Medical (Pharma), or Big Government is insanity when there are foods that heal that are still illegal; and, from our recovery perspective, they called those who emotionally and intrinsically knew that these healing foods (like cannabis) to have “moral failings” is the icing on the implicit cake. What recovering healing and the profession of Healer means is that there is now another profession that can tell the truth about their lived experience above all else. People with the true freedom of choice and speech would not have allowed the rights to these to be suppressed, even in moments of crisis, by the same establishment logic that was designed to maintain our freedoms by fighting against the same ignorance that they revolted against. This measure is how dissociated we are from our civic duty and how far they are from moral-ethics. O’Brien sees that “a nation of laws” is a nation run by 7 year-olds because that is what the science of psychology taught him in his education. If one is offended by this, then the reality that O’Brien presents is that that 7 year-old is older than the current reader reading these words because 1+1=3 in a moral-ethical way.

Morality, as O’Brien defines it, is qualitative, emotional, and rooted in intuition (right brain activity or dominance). It’s “feminine, emotional, and uses qualitative and emotional logic and reasoning.” Somatically held, it operates on instincts, intuition, implicit experiences that form irrational beliefs, and emotional memory, taking a long-term view, prioritizing the “future’s greater good” and emphasizing “sacrifice for the next generation.” The ultimate moral rule? “Be kind.” Crucially, morality is action-oriented; it’s about living your principles. The physical body itself is seen as the “psychological unconscious,” the very place where moral decisions are made, “keeping the score” and knowing what’s truly in a person’s best interest. For O’Brien, because the law is involved “ethics can be wrong, morals cannot.”

Ethics, on the other hand, are quantitative, rational, and short-term. They are based on “rationality, deductive reasoning, and cognitive logic,” often made “in hindsight and with illusion of forethought.” Ethics, he contends, are primarily about compliance and obedience to a “greater order, but not necessarily for the greater good”, which he argues would then be morals. They often serve as a “tool for the elite and powerful to maintain their status, comfort, and security,” becoming confused with law and even obscuring underlying immoral motivations. Ethics, based on laws, in this view, are “fear-based,” restricting freedoms and delaying genuine societal progress. When the law is involved or equated to ethics or morals, the field of psychology has to observe its own research and see who moral and cognitive and own its qualitative science. Based on emotional and implicit development, are that of a 7-12 years-old understanding, perspective, and level of moral development. To have to follow science or to use the logic of stating that another citizen “must” follow one science over another is to be made to against one’s morals. This is the crime because this is the trauma.

The critical distinction, according to O’Brien, is action. “The difference between ethics and morals is action.” This leads to a profound assertion: “one can be moral and unethical, but one cannot be unethical and moral.” This means that strict adherence to ethical codes, especially when tied to unjust laws, can lead to morally reprehensible outcomes. O’Brien’s observations have fangs, particularly when the stage was generationally set as a “war against “drugs”” that are really agents of psychological healing and consciousness supplement (e.g., classical psychedelics (O’Brien, 2023b)). Conversely, true moral action might necessitate breaking an unethical law or not breaking it demonstrates the level of moral development of the individual or profession who is supposed to be moral. Who defines the level of moral character? The government because they are requiring it of their citizens, suggesting that they know what it is. Recovery communities knows the price because they have covered the cost for their ignoring of psychedelic science. The moral failure of recovering addicts has now become their defining clinical tell as to how dissociative they are living, how dissociated they are, and what unconscious or implicit/irrational truths that those who are living dissociated believe, but don’t really know. The one who knows multiplicity, is the only one who can know who is moral and who is not. If the law is action, then let’s reflect on the war on drugs that now science says are healing. What does the science of law have to say about that? How this is interpreted can be through their application of it.

The Healer, then, is someone who operates from this deeper moral compass, willing to challenge the prevailing ethical frameworks when they diverge from genuine moral principles. They are the counterculture to traditional therapy, advocating for a return to authenticity and a rejection of systems that “gaslight” individuals into accepting an unhealthy status quo.

In our next post, we’ll delve deeper into Dr. O’Brien’s systemic critique, exploring how this prioritization of ethics over morals has led to what he calls society’s “addiction to dissociation.”

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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/