Healing & Discovery Foundation, Inc.
We’ll be bringing the Paradox Process tools into the schools this spring—and we need your support!
MISSION
Healing and Discovery Foundation (est. 2016) is a 501(c)3 not-for-profit education organization based in New York City. Our mission is to empower those we serve to triumph over adversity by providing social/emotional knowledge and feeling management tools that will sustain them throughout their lives.
We help youth populations facing the greatest challenges of the day. Our organization currently works with young adults, including underserved middle school and high school students in New York City and the surrounding areas. This population is struggling with a myriad of social-emotional issues such as bullying, test anxiety, depression, family and peer issues and drug addiction. Our goal is to inspire, grow, and empower those we serve by teaching them the dynamics of their feelings and emotions and how the mind works. Our curriculum includes practical explanations of how feelings create behavior. We coach our students in how to manage feelings (and thus behavior) by using The Paradox Process, an emotional regulation technique designed to identify, communicate, and change negative feelings, perceptions and beliefs.
Healing and Discovery Foundation envisions a world where every individual receives an emotional education and the tools to manage negative feelings as part of their educational curriculum . We want to inform the conversation about emotional education so that addressing emotions is as commonplace and critical as mastering reading, writing and math.
OUR PROGRAMS
Social and Emotional Curriculum
Healing and Discovery Foundation’s Social and Emotional Curriculum is designed to equip those we serve with a comprehensive understanding of their emotions and it gives them a way to reframe their lives as meaningful and successful. We teach our population to understand the hierarchy of their own behavior in a way that creates new choices and new possibilities. The techniques of The Paradox Process™ enable participants in our programs to identify, communicate and change negative feelings and perceptions into positive, actionable visions.
The curriculum we have designed for recovering addiction candidates addresses not only the emotional challenges of staying sober, but also the root causes of addictive patterns. They are equipped with the tools to combat their urges, prevent relapse, build their self esteem, and create positive and productive paths for their future.
We have designed a curriculum for middle school and high school students that builds an emotional awareness within themselves and in the world. This awareness assists them academically, socially, and professionally. These protocols allow them to be self-sufficient while navigating and managing issues in their lives. Feelings of helplessness, creative blocks, test-taking stress, bullying and interpersonal communication with peers all become understandable and manageable through the tools of the Paradox Process.
THE TECHNIQUE
The Paradox Process is a transformational emotion regulation technique that manages and changes negative feelings, perceptions and beliefs in the moment. It allows one to interact with the mind’s default programming and negative narratives, and change them to positive, empowering and supportive ones. The combination of emotional education and the tools of the Paradox Process give the populations we serve an incredible advantage. The technique allows the student to uncover emotional and habitual patterns that they have been subject to and gain power and understanding over those patterns.
To learn more about The Paradox Process check out our website paradoxprocess.org
PROVEN SUCCESS
MONTESSORI SCHOOL
Feeling Faces built by 4 and 5 year olds
In the 2013 and 2014 school year, Healing and Discovery Foundation’s Team executed a successful study with kindergarten eligible children at a Montessori School in the New York City metro area. Students in the study were taught Paradox Process’ techniques using age appropriate theater games and visual arts activities. The results determined a 10-15% increase in the participants’ cognitive abilities, along with an increase in attention span and focus. Teachers observed that children participating in this study became more articulate about their feelings and engaged in more successful interpersonal interactions. The teachers were intrigued by the children’s use of feeling-language to resolve conflicts and noted that the children were listening to one another, while empathizing.
HIGH SCHOOLS
During the Spring semester of 2015, the Healing and Discovery Team was invited by the teachers and the school psychologist at the Professional Performing Arts High School (PPAS) in New York City to work with them and their students. We implemented a ten-week social-emotional curriculum tailored to high school students, ages 15 to 18. Emotional surveys were administered at the beginning and end of the course in order to establish a baseline and then measure the effects of the curriculum on participating students. Each facilitator worked with five students, teaching the students the tools of The Paradox Process™. Observations from PPAS teachers and the school psychologist verified that The Paradox Process had positive effect. The tests revealed that the students who had the opportunity to work with our facilitators showed a change in three specific areas. The participants’ Sense of Inadequacy decreased, and the participant's Self-Esteem and Healthy Risk-Taking increased.
From the success of the Spring 2015 study at PPAS, Healing and Discovery Foundation, Inc. was asked to conduct two additional studies at PPAS in the Fall 2015 and the Spring of 2016. The results of these studies revealed that the students in the experimental group who received the intervention curriculum had significantly higher levels of self-esteem compared to the control group. Our studies have shown that students that participate in the curriculum have 1) greater self-esteem, 2) better socialization and 3) an increase in healthy risk-taking.
Teenage After School Program
PACE UNIVERSITY STUDY
In 2018, Pace University PHD candidates used Paradox Process techniques to study intervention techniques that may reduce stress and anxiety. The results of this study were participants who used Paradox Process techniques reported significantly more positive affect when compared to the control group when measured right after the intervention phase. The results suggest that among a young adult population, the intervention can increase well-being, creativity, adaptive problem solving, improved interpersonal relationships, and physical and psychological health. The research psychologist who studied this research concluded that the Paradox Process Intervention … “ is a brief, structured, and cost effective intervention that has the potential to support a wide-range of individuals manage painful emotions in an adaptive way.”
PUBLISHED
European Scientific Journal (ESJ).
The Effects of Mindfulness Meditation on Emotion Regulation, Cognition and Social Skills.
We were published with the ESJ in 2018. This article speaks to existing mindfulness research, but suggests that THE PARADOX PROCESS, a proactive mindfulness technique, proves to be greatly beneficial for each area mentioned. In this peer-reviewed article it becomes clear that the Paradox Process is a useful and beneficial tool that can be used for intervention and for maintenance.
Meet the Team
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Thomas M. Jones
President
Thomas M. Jones, a New York City based psychotherapist and the co-creator of The Paradox Process, is the Acting Director of Healing & Discovery Foundation, Inc. With over three decades of counseling, it is his intention to level the playing field for students so they can thrive academically and socially.
He is trained in family therapy, group therapy, transactional analysis and primal therapy. Formerly the director of The Applied Institute of Psychotherapy, Jones is now in private practice in New York and currently lectures and leads workshops on a variety of topics.
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Ashlee Fife
Vice-President
Ashlee Fife is a certified facilitator of The Paradox Process and is the Program Director for Healing and Discovery Foundation’s Social Emotional Curriculum. Ashlee collaborates with our program partners (Hospitals, Addiction Services, New York City School Administrators) to implement and execute the curriculum.
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Andrea Roberts
Secretary
Andrea Roberts is a certified facilitator of The Paradox Process and is the Program Administrator for Healing and Discovery Foundation’s programs.
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Casey Gensler
Treasurer
Casey Gensler is a certified facilitator of The Paradox Process and is the Financial Coordinator for Healing and Discovery Foundation’s programs
ADVISORY COMMITTEE
Healing and Discovery Foundation is currently being guided by an incredible group of volunteers; all very smart, savvy and super successful in their fields: Christina Mantz,
Franny Cherry, and Kelly Schultz. We greatly appreciate their guidance and support as we enter into the next stage of our organization’s growth.
Make a donation.
Healing and Discovery Foundation (est. 2016) is a 501(c)3 not-for-profit education organization based in New York City. Our mission is to empower those we serve to triumph over adversity by providing social/emotional knowledge and feeling management tools that will sustain them throughout their lives.