About AIR Network
​​In the late 1990’s Dawn McClelland, Ph.D., LP began working in an inner-city treatment facility with clients who had experienced trauma, torture, human trafficking, and organized violence - what is now called human trade. Her clients were experiencing complex PTSD, terror, catatonic dissociation, and extensive dissociative disabilities.
At that time, research was initiated in the field of psychiatry focusing on brain scans (including functional MRI’s) and obtaining brain-based information surrounding the effects of trauma and stress responses. As a result, certain researchers began to question whether or not exposure therapies for survivors of extreme trauma were making clients worse. Simultaneously, Dr. McClelland began to compare her clients' statements of healing with the potential of what was happening in the brain in response to trauma and therapy. It was discovered that exposure therapies could reintroduce clients to their trauma in ways that caused continued negative effects in relation to original trauma.
As a result, McClelland began to use clients' shared experiences to create a new model for healing with insight from innovative neurological research, specifically regarding survivors of complex and organized violence. The foundation of AIR Network came from the powerful wisdom of these survivors.
The AIR (Adaptive Internal Relational) model, initially named “New Paradigms for Working with Trauma, Torture, and Dissociative Abilities” until its renaming to AIR Network in 2015, was crafted by Julia O’Riley (working with couples and the family dynamic) and Dawn McClelland (working with individual clients). O’Riley and McClelland began developing a New Paradigm for Healing of Trauma and Torture Survivors from 1995 to 1998.
O’Riley and McClelland diverged from prevailing approaches, instead conducting client interviews to identify effective treatments. Their client-centric method positively influenced brain scans, significantly reducing hospitalizations and ER visits. This collective wisdom-based healing paradigm offers relief and hope to trauma, torture, and organized violence survivors.
In the past, traditional trends designed to heal complex trauma and structural dissociation were focused on trauma-based memories. The approach centered around making sense of the trauma in order to desensitize it. By contrast, the AIR model does not focus on trauma memories but is based on spontaneous acts of healing that clients experienced when O’Riley and McClelland interviewed them.
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Click here for a link to Dr. McClelland's copyright certificates and outlines of her research.
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The Development of AIR Network Training
Dr. McClelland began presenting these ideas in 2004 at places like the Regions Hospital Burn Center and University of Minnesota Medical School Hypnosis Conference.
Patti Miller, M.A. joined Dawn McClelland in 2010 to collaborate on therapist training development, crafting outlines with Sue Evans and Sue Schaffer and organizing the research into a training. Ms. Miller worked countless hours and added to its development, created her own models of EMDR integrated with AIR, and expanded the paradigm in unique ways. Phyllis Solon, Ph.D. joined in 2015 with further seminar development and teaching experience. She expanded the topics of development and historical trauma around gender and race. Later that year McClelland, Miller, and Solon began offering the first AIR Network training.
Ms. Miller, Dr. McClelland, and Dr. Solon taught AIR Network training together from 2015-2024 when they decided to separate their trainings. They all continue to teach in their areas of specialty. Dr. McClelland remains committed to helping people get out of organized violence and complex forms of community and international trauma, as well as those with extensive dissociative abilities. She consults with and trains other therapists who have this area of expertise.