Why Your Body Already Knows How to Quit

You Don’t Need to Tell the Whole Story to Heal

The number one reason people stay stuck in addiction and trauma cycles is shame. You fear that if you tell your therapist what you really did while using or dissociated—the things that felt like a crime in your own memory—you’ll be judged, committed, or prosecuted. This self-inflicted pain, the memory of your own actions, creates a deep, hidden layer of Post-Traumatic Stress (PTSD-D).¹

At the Wounded Healers Institute, we call this the Privacy Factor.

Here is the revolutionary truth: You don’t have to tell your whole story to heal the memory or before you reprocess it. Also, you really don’t know the whole story until you do.

Because the body is the psychological unconscious ¹, trauma is stored as fragmented image, sound, and felt-sense—not as a narrative. Somatic therapies like Brainspotting or EMDR use Dual Attention Awareness (DAA) to destabilize the memory’s emotional structure, allowing your brain to update it through Memory Reconsolidation (MR).¹ The healing happens implicitly, in your body, without the cognitive narrative ever leaving your lips. This is the core of Dissociation-Informed Care (DIC): honoring the wisdom that healing is non-verbal.¹

The Personal Trainer Approach: Conditioning Calm

If addiction is a learning disorder (Szalavitz, 2016), then recovery is all about unlearning bad habits and conditioning good ones. This is the Personal Trainer Approach to healing.

Your addiction was conditioned through a constant loop of seeking relief from internal pain (operant conditioning).¹ DIC flips the script using the oldest science on Earth:

1. Identify the Unconscious Drive: Your body’s unconscious motivation is always survival, balance, and healing.¹ Your addiction became the convenient way to access safety, even if it was destructive.¹
2. De-condition the Chaos: We stop rewarding the chaos. When intrusive emotions or cravings hit, we teach you Classically Conditioned Calm. We use rhythmic movements, grounding tools, or focused attention to consistently pair that distress signal with a regulated state. We are training your nervous system to prefer neutrality over the intense charge of the addiction cycle.¹

This process respects the Pace of Healing ¹: we go as fast as your body can integrate the new learning, knowing that rushing the process is simply violating the emotional unconscious.

The Generalization Effect: Exponential Healing

Why does healing one core memory sometimes fix ten other problems? Because of the Generalization Effect of Memory Reconsolidation.

Addiction creates an interconnected web of “addiction memories” and associated themes.¹ When a core memory is successfully reconsolidated (integrated), the emotional fear or drive is neutralized. Like a ripple effect, all the other linked behaviors, cravings, and intrusive thoughts that relied on that core emotional charge suddenly lose their power, clearing the way for true change across your entire dissociative landscape.¹ This is the efficient, exponential power of DIC.

True Freedom is Client-Led Care

A truly healthy system respects the client’s Preference of Care.¹ But today’s health care is trapped in Legal-Ethics (rules dictated by insurance and law) over Moral-Ethics (principles dictated by conscious wisdom).¹

DIC, rooted in the Path of the Wounded Healer, insists that the client, guided by their innate Moral intuition, must lead the healing process. We are here not to impose a standardized, industrialized model, but to listen to the wisdom of your unconscious body. When you take the reins of your healing, you reclaim the self-sovereignty that addiction and trauma took away.¹

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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.