After receiving great treatment for substance use and trauma, and being able to share healing with others working as a therapist, I grew tired of the lack of empathy and low-quality services provided to clients. I worked in both community mental health centers and in prisons, and learned that a 50-minute-hour talk therapy, maybe once a week or twice a month, and/or most canned residential or outpatient substance use programs advertised as “individualized treatment”  are not addressing the core issues. (In the prisons all I had to do is see their face and ask a few basic questions ONCE A MONTH to fulfill the REQUIRMENTS of providing mental health to inmates—far from even mediocre).

Then, when clients do get some good (or great) treatment, they go back out into a pretty cold world to practice their new-found skills to often be rejected because they no longer really fit in—true honesty and sobriety don’t really jive with the way most of us live. Many jobs, bosses, family members, counselors, unhealthy judicial rules, prejudices,  or unattainable expectations break the spirit that was sparked during therapy. Many people cringe when they think of the “touchy-feely” beliefs they have about therapy (or telling family secrets), but bottom-line is our brains and body operate on feelings and connection. Not caring about how you or others feel is against the basics of survival.

After I watched this “free” Trauma Healing webinar sales pitch in which this young woman who is not trained or licensed makes claims to have overcome trauma and has the answer to a rapid and sure-fire cure for trauma for “only” $2,999 (Regularly $5,000) I was so angry. She poo-pooed licensed professionals and praised herself.  I was angry because many, many traumatized people cannot afford that kind of money, and most traumatized people cannot emotionally afford to work with someone who isn’t trained and/or licensed. I thought, “Heck I can start a program to treat trauma, make enough money to pay for more trauma healing opportunities and pay my bills, and do it for a heck of a lot less.”  Thus the birth of my idea to do this.

A great tool to assess childhood trauma is the ACES Study Questionnaire. Research has found that prolonged and considerable stress during childhood can affect a person’s health and well-being for life. These stressors can disrupt early brain development as well as compromise the way the nervous and immune systems function. Additionally, an individual who has suffered from these childhood stressors included in the ACEs’ questionnaire can go on to experience the following:

• Alcohol addiction and alcoholism

• Drug addiction

• Early initiation of smoking/smoking

• Early initiation of sexual activity

• Multiple sexual partners

• STDs (Sexually Transmitted Diseases)/HIV

• Depression

• Suicide attempts

• Liver disease

Good Therapy (2021) writes a comprehensive piece about the Adverse Childhood Experience (ACE) Questionnaire. Childhood trauma and stress early in life, apart from potentially impairing social, emotional, and cognitive development, indicates a higher risk of developing health problems in adulthood.