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Dr. Bob Beare

@DrBobBeare

Aug 23, 2025 • 14 tweets • 4 min read • Read on X

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Before Freud and Jung.
Before Bill W. and AA.
Before the APA...

One woman walked into jails—and found people with addiction and mental illness chained, beaten...

Left to rot.

Her name? Dorothea Dix. And she changed everything.

Here’s the story: 🧵 (by a PhD psychologist)

In the 1840s, people with addiction and mental health problems weren’t treated as patients.

They were treated as criminals.

Locked in cells. Starved. Mocked. Beaten until they couldn’t move.

This wasn’t rare. It was the standard.

By 1850, Dorothea Dix had traveled over 30,000 miles, inspecting jails and almshouses across the U.S. and Canada.

What she found was always the same: cruelty, neglect, and silence.

Her reports shook lawmakers to their core.

Most women of her time had no political power.

But Dix marched into legislatures and delivered evidence no one could ignore.

She embarrassed lawmakers into action.

And she won.

Because of her, 32 state psychiatric hospitals were built.

Not cages. Not dungeons.

Hospitals designed for light, food, and compassion.

Dignity as medicine.

Her core belief was radical then, and still radical now:

No one heals alone.

Recovery requires safety, care, and community.

Of course, many of these asylums later failed. Corruption and neglect returned.

Dix knew the work was unfinished.

But she cracked the lie that madness equals punishment.

She forced society to imagine something better.

By her death in 1887, her impact was undeniable.

Even the American Psychiatric Association named her an honorary member—unheard of for a woman outside medicine.

She had transformed mental health care in America.

Her legacy is simple, but profound:

Compassion changes history.

She proved that one person’s refusal to look away can ripple across generations.

Today trauma research proves it: the body carries wounds, and the body heals through support.

Isolation just compounds the pain.

Things have changed.

There is help.

Dr Sandra Mills

Healing still requires what Dix fought for—safety, community, compassion.

The nervous system can’t repair itself in isolation.

Group work can be extremely potent for healing trauma.

Dr Scott Giacomucci

Dorothea Dix.

Before psychiatry knew anything about healing.

A sickly schoolteacher exposed a nation’s cruelty—and demanded something better.

Her fight isn’t over. But she showed us the way forward.

Want more threads like this on the secret history of healing, psychology, and transformation?

Follow me
@DrBobBeare
for more.

And if you are on the body-focused healing path…
I'd love to hear your story.👇

Friends, it takes compassion and community to heal.

The Inner Work Community opens next week.

But here's a free course to get started.

Big discount for the Inner Work Community on days 4 and 5.

Free 5-day course: “Emotional Integrity 101 offers.drbobbeare.com/emotional-inte…

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More from @DrBobBeare

Dr. Bob Beare

@DrBobBeare

Jan 30

You’re not “easygoing.” You’re not "too nice".

You’re stuck in a trauma loop of people-pleasing and overthinking.

You learned to stay safe by staying small.
Now you can’t tell what you really want.

Here’s the truth—(most therapists won't tell you): 🧵

In my 25+ years as a psychologist, I've learned:

People-pleasing is the compulsive need to prioritize others' comfort over your own needs.

It's not kindness—it's a survival response developed in childhood when your authentic expression was unsafe.

The popular understanding frames people-pleasing as a bad habit..."Just say no."

This completely misses what's happening in your body and brain.

People-pleasing and overthinking are survival tactics developed to keep you safe.

They're not bad habits—they're trauma responses.

Read 13 tweets

Dr. Bob Beare

@DrBobBeare

Jan 24

A friend once said, “You’re selfish.”
I said, “Would you rather I be you-ish?”
He didn’t get the joke.

Then he added, “You’re self-centered.”
“Where would you have me be centered?”
That didn’t help either.

A thread on healthy selfishness 🧵

Underneath the jokes, I knew what was happening.

I’ve been on both sides of that moment.

When I’ve accused someone of being selfish, something in me was usually hungry—

For attention, care, or love I hadn’t given myself.

When people say “you’re selfish,” they often mean:
“You’re not doing what I need.”

Old needs resurface in present moments.

They look for a place to land.

They usually land on the nearest relationship.

Read 12 tweets

Dr. Bob Beare

@DrBobBeare

Jan 23

Healthy sex and love feel different in the body.
Not dramatic.
Not addictive.
Different.
🧵

Let’s talk about what health looks like in relationships.

Especially for those of us with sex and love shadows.

Which is all of us.

Healthy sex and love shows up:

-In our priorities
-In what we tolerate.
-In how we stop the constant chase.

It changes everything important.

SPIRITUALITY IN SEX AND LOVE

A connection with something larger than our urges changes how we love.

Whether its a 12-step group, a (healthy) religious practice, or in a trauma healing circle...

We have to find that "spiritual feeling" we were chasing through sex and love.

Read 9 tweets

Dr. Bob Beare

@DrBobBeare

Jan 21

You don’t just remember trauma.
You relive it—every day.

In your posture.
Your reactivity.
Your inability to relax.

Here’s what The Body Keeps the Score reveals—and how to finally heal it (by a PhD psychologist):🧵

Most people think trauma is only what happened to you.
More importantly, it's what happens inside you.

Our nervous system gets stuck on high alert.

It’s the body bracing for danger that’s no longer there.

"Trauma comes back as a reaction, not a memory." ~Bessel Van Der Kolk

Traditional psychology got a lot wrong.

They taught us to only talk about and analyze trauma.

Understanding and remembering is important.

But we must also address how It lives in our nervous system:

Read 11 tweets

Dr. Bob Beare

@DrBobBeare

Oct 31, 2025

60%+ of adults had Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs).

This doesn't even include more subtle forms of trauma like family enmeshment.

The more ACEs, the higher the risk for depression, addiction, autoimmune disease, and even cancer.

These wounds don’t fade with age—they embed in the nervous system.

You can’t grow out of them.

You have to grow through them.

That's why I created the free course, "The Inner Child Toolkit."
See below. 👇👇

Read 4 tweets

Dr. Bob Beare

@DrBobBeare

Sep 6, 2025

This is Viktor Frankl.

• He survived 4 Nazi concentration camps
• Wrote Man’s Search for Meaning (16M+ copies sold)
• Developed Logotherapy: the “therapy of meaning”

Here are his 7 timeless lessons on finding purpose when life feels meaningless: 🧵

Before we begin:

Some statistics about the current state of mental health globally:

• 280 million people have depression
• 301 million people have anxiety disorders
• 1 in 10 people report their life feels meaningless

Frankl’s wisdom provide a timely perspective for us today:

Lesson 7: Find your Why

Frankl: “Those who have a ‘why’ to live, can bear almost any ‘how.’”

In 2025, most of us don’t feel tired—we feel empty.

We numb with work, substances, and dopamine hits.

Your nervous system doesn’t need more distractions. It needs a reason to keep going.