Successful completion of the research proposed will demonstrate the vital link between the contents of our deepest psyche with our deepest biology, and will lead to new possible solutions to some of the gravest problems facing us today.
If our thesis is correct—i.e. that trauma is indeed the primary cause of most psychological issues that people have, and that this trauma is stored in the body, and that it can, and must, be released by entering a Non-Ordinary States of Consciousness--then quite literally everything in psychology, mental health and therapy changes.
Let us give you just one example of what we mean. Adverse Childhood Experience (ACE) is the term used to describe all types of abuse, neglect and other potentially traumatic circumstances that occur to people under the age of 18. ACE events reorder the architecture of the brain, altering the expression of genes that control stress hormone output, triggering an overactive inflammatory stress response for life and predisposing the child to disease as an adult.
A study by the CDC-Kaiser Permanente compared in two stages the ACE histories of trauma and other challenges with the physical examinations of 17,000 patients. The results showed an irrefutable scientific link between unresolved ACE events and adult onset of physical and mental disorders, including heart-disease, cancer, auto-immune disease, fibromyalgia and depression. Unresolved ACE’s have also been linked to risky health behaviors, a broad spectrum of chronic health conditions, low life-potential and early death.
We believe that the initiative described below, followed by carefully constructed in-vitro and clinical studies, will help to identify, broaden and bring urgency to utilizing therapeutic methodologies that can durably release trauma. Symptomatic conditions include:
Depression, anxiety and other symptoms of mood disorders.
Psychopathology in several neurodegenerative and neurodevelopmental disorders.
Individuals from childhood trauma or other kinds of events in life that are ‘frozen’, beyond memory, in their subconscious.
Burnout or mental exhaustion of professionals, working class as well as graduates, and increase their performance.
Geriatric depression.
Addiction to drug and alcohol.
Inflammatory diseases.
Were our thesis to be proven with scientifically validated findings, entirely new therapeutic modalities could be unlocked and offered to the public
To say that lives are on the line is not a bold enough statement. If we do not find a way to live with ourselves and our culture in a healthy way, our very society itself may be on the line. We believe this research could be one of the most impactful and fruitful areas for change and improvement of patient outcomes.