
05/12/2025
Pia Melody, whom I have known for more than 20 years and who was a formative influence on my life, passed away last week at 82. She was the founder of the mental health program and trauma workshops at The Meadows in Wickenburg Arizona. I took many of the workshops for my own health and another on the way therapists are trained. Three were with Pia herself. All of that work and the reading that it generated opened the doors for me to understand understanding the world around me and in particular my patients, those who struggled with self-harming behaviors and addictions to plastic surgery. Pia's ideas all came in a rush in a very short period, as I have seen happen with the other genius in my life, Dr. Jack Sheen. She has a legacy not only at The Meadows but through all the therapists that she trained. What was revolutionary about her work was that she recognized that childhood trauma works at the midbrain level; that is the area that has to be accessed and treated. Childhood trauma is not just a cortical, rational problem, and therapies aimed at that area alone may not be fully successful. I will remember her with great affection and respect.