Fight for Peace

The Research

Trauma occurs when a person is overwhelmed by events, circumstances, or extreme stress and responds with intense fear, horror, and/or helplessness.
SAMHSA

Trauma AND ADDICtion ARE experienced in the mind, body, and soul. Healing requires attention to your whole self. Research shows that training in self-defense helps heal from trauma in addition to empowering people to face the future with courage, strength, and resolve. We manifest our traumas in our bodies as well as our minds and souls. We often use substances or addictive behaviors to alleviate the pain. It makes sense to engage our bodies, souls, and minds when we fight to heal from traumatic events.

Interested in learning more?

Here is some of the research:

trauma

Self-defense as Clinical Intervention      
Self-Defense and Personal Safety            
Self-defense for Asservitiveness Training
Rape Aggression Defense Course
Brazilian Jiu Jitsu Training            

Addiction

Addiction Science
Substance Use and Escape
Substance Use and Trauma


A well-designed self-defense curriculum, congruent with psychophysiologically informed trauma research and treatment, and integrated with input from therapists, can serve as an important adjunctive treatment.1

trauma

Fraser and Russell (2000) provide numerous examples of the benefits of [self-defense training] SDT as follows: feelings of empowerment, decreases in shame and stigmatization, belief in the ability to maintain physical safety, and feelings of increased control, assertiveness, and trust in boundary-setting abilities.1  
Ozer and Bandura’s (1990) findings were similar; women’s personal safety self-efficacy and their personal safety skills all increased following SDT. 1
Personal safety and/or self-defense [PS/SD] shares many features of traditional exposure-based behavior therapies but also has some additional features that set it apart. Unlike traditional exposure therapies that utilize imaginal exposure and learned relaxation techniques, PS/SD incorporates strategic, active, and powerful physical responses that are practiced repeatedly in a simulated threat context.3
In a small clinical sample, David et al. (2006) found SDT students reported improved risk assessment skills, enhanced confidence and assertiveness, and decreased feelings of vulnerability, fear, and anxiety, as well as decreases in depressive symptomatology. Our preliminary analyses of pre-post data (Rosenblum et al., 2008) also support the value of well-executed SDT as a powerful adjunct to treatment in individuals with PTSD, anxiety, and depressive disorders.1
…these findings highlight the benefits of such a [self-defense] course and the potential value of the activation of powerful self-defense techniques in assault simulations in reducing psychological symptoms, including post-traumatic stress symptoms, and improving women’s physical health and interpersonal interactions.2

Addiction

Addiction is a stress-induced defect in the midbrain’s ability to perceive pleasure” – Kevin McCauley.

” Escapism had a consistent relation to drinking, smoking and drug use. Problem drinking with escapist motives predicted lower life satisfaction than problematic alcohol use alone…escapism can serve as a motive or an amplifier of addictive behaviors.”  – Jouhki and Okansen.

Addiction as a CNS Disease

Inaba, D. S., Cohen, W. E., & Holstein, M. E. (2007). Uppers, downers, all arounders. Physical and mental effects of psychoactive drugs.
Lewis, M. (2015). The biology of desire: Why addiction is not a disease. PublicAffairs.
McCauley, K., Clegg, J., & Bosworth, N. (2010). Pleasure unwoven: An explanation of the brain disease of addiction. The Institute for Addiction Study.
Maté, G. (2022). Beyond the medical model: Addiction as a response to trauma and stress. In Evaluating the brain disease model of addiction (pp. 431-443). Routledge.

Norton, M. (2018). The Pharmacist’s Guide to Opioid Use Disorders. ASHP.

International Approaches

Chopra, D., & Simon, D. (2007). Freedom from addiction: The Chopra Center method for overcoming destructive habits. Health Communications, Inc..
Jouhki, H., & Oksanen, A. (2022). To get high or to get out? Examining the link between addictive behaviors and escapism. Substance Use & Misuse, 57(2), 202-211.
Theise, N. D., & Kafatos, M. C. (2016). Fundamental awareness: A framework for integrating science, philosophy and metaphysics. Communicative & Integrative Biology, 9(3), e1155010.

Social Science of Addiction

Keane, H. (2005). Addiction and the bioethics of difference. Ethics of the body: Postconventional challenges, 91-112.