True Sage is a company on a mission: to improve mental health and wellness across the globe with effective, accessible, and engaging educational content. Mental health is at the root of true joy and holistic well-being, and it is our goal to make it as easy to attain as possible.
True Sage was developed with a remarkable advisor, Dr. Vincent Felitti, the Co-Principal Investigator of the CDC-Kaiser Permanente Adverse Childhood Experiences Study, as the prescribed follow-up methodology used after patients get their ACE score. It was used with the study’s original participants in the 1980s and we’ve been refining it ever since.
I developed True Sage originally for the participants that Dr. Felitti referred to me for one-on-one sessions when nothing else seemed to work, including medication, group and medical visits, and therapy. I have a PhD in clinical psychology and met Dr. Felitti through our work together at Kaiser Permanente. When he informed me of the ACE Study, I was intrigued by the connection between unresolved trauma, physical disease, and mental health in adulthood. I knew it would help my patients gain a better understanding of the root cause of their pain and provide a springboard towards freedom from the adverse experiences that unconsciously keep them feeling “stuck” years and even decades later.
Dr. Felitti’s patients had diagnoses of multiple sclerosis, cancer, immune disorders, anorexia, bulimia, obesity, depression, anxiety, sleeplessness, stress, and more. Dr. Felitti knew to refer these patients to me when they had a high ACE score, unconscious blocks, difficult childhood traumas, and toxic stress. Soon, we realized that this follow-up was essential to ensure people got better andstayed better.
True Sage was incorporated 20 years ago. The name comes from my philosophy that everyone has their own inner physician, their own wisdom and intuition, that can give them their best answers to live a healthy, happy and joyous life. Inside each individual is their own true sage. This inner sage is more helpful and more powerful than anything or anyone else. It just needs to be re-discovered.
Ultimately, True Sage is a guiding light to return to the truest form of self with the support of the ACE assessment and clinically proven, personalized, emotional, mental, and physical mental health techniques.
True Sage techniques are centered around mindfulness, meditation, visualization, breathwork, and hypnosis. They allow patients to address the root cause of their trauma or disease head-on with deep empathy, understanding, and compassion. The ACE assessment helps patients first pinpoint the source of their trauma, then the work with True Sage helps them find their best answers to finally heal from it.
We realized that the strategically-developed techniques could help more than just the people who saw me one-on-one, so we decided to deliver the True Sage follow-up support techniques in a more widespread and accessible way.
We started by delivering the True Sage techniques over the phone, on conference calls, through pre-recorded questionnaires, and in group settings. The groups would come together through Kaiser Permanente programs and were always full. Then, in 2019 we offered online services. This year we’ve launched online courses for stress relief, emotional resilience, and mental health in an effort to make the acceptance and accessibility of mental health more widespread.
Our original work all took place at Kaiser Permanente in San Diego in the 1980s. We even added specific, personalized True Sage services for physicians, group facilitators, staff, and even family members because we realized that they, too, needed support to best communicate and use the ACE results and True Sage techniques.
We taught medical interviewing with a focus on ACEs and getting the person’s whole story using comprehensive medical assessments that Dr. Felitti developed. In the study of over 37,000 patients, we learned that simply answering the ACE questions and being asked, “How do you think that impacted your life years and decades later?” led to a 30% reduction in medical visits the following year and a 10% reduction in emergency room visits.
The ACE questionnaire, paired with the treatment solutions of True Sage, created the most impactful, long-term improvements.
Dr. Felitti and I ended our professional partnership when he retired from Kaiser Permanente ten years ago, but we are still creating courses together and collaborating on a number of projects. He’s also a strong supporter and advisor for True Sage. To hear an interview between Dr. Felitti and me, click here.
We faced many challenges and had phenomenal successes with individuals, families, groups, and colleagues that made our work over the decades completely worth it. Dr. Felitti and I loved collaborating before, during, and after the ACE Study by seeing which techniques worked best, learning from patients, and documenting their progress along the way. In fact, before the ACE Study, Dr. Felitti and I met through a patient who had worked with both of us and was able to lose 120 pounds and keep it off after resolving sexual trauma and emotional challenges stemming from her past. This was certainly a glimpse into the findings to come through the ACE Study.
The stories are fascinating.
For example, we had one group of 30 morbidly obese participants who named themselves “The Losers Group” because they shared a history of losing the battles in their lives, including weight. They taught us what didn’t work and what they thought might, could have, or should have helped. Over the years, most people in the group lost weight and kept it off. We all learned from each other in the process, and it helped Dr. Felitti and I further refine the curriculum we used and recommended with our patients.
Individuals working with True Sage have also had profound results.
Examples include WWII concentration camp survivors, WWII soldiers, and even a woman who, after years of hoarding, cleaned her whole house and installed white carpet after a brief intervention!
The ACE assessment is a massive part of what I do with True Sage patients because it helps me determine what treatment path to take and the level at which adverse childhood experiences could be impacting their health.
All of this knowledge and experience has culminated into True Sage’s stress reduction, weight loss, and mindfulness programs. To learn more, visit TrueSage.com.
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