Meghan Markle and Prince Harry team up with Joe Biden’s social worker daughter Ashley to build ‘trauma-informed’ wellness centre

Meghan Markle and Prince Harry have teamed up with US President Joe Biden’s daughter Ashley to create a wellness center in Philadelphia for women affected by trauma, developing a radical new type of therapy.

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex, who insisted they would remain politically neutral in public ahead of November’s presidential election, have now linked up with the first daughter, 43, albeit through a non-partisan initiative. People reports.

Their Archewell Foundation is a founding partner of Ashley Biden’s wellness center, which, among other things, treats women who have been victims of trauma with Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) therapy — something Ashley herself credits with helping her process of the death of her brother Beau.

Beau Biden tragically passed away in 2015 at the age of 46 after being diagnosed with an aggressive brain cancer, glioblastoma. His death is just one in a series of tragedies that have befallen the Biden family; with the president’s first wife, Neilia (mother of Beau and Hunter) and one-year-old sister Naomi, who died in a car accident in 1972.

Harry and Meghan’s support for the Ashley center was revealed in the foundation’s Impact Report for the year 2023-2024, which was published on Monday and illustrates the Duke and Duchess’ philanthropic efforts through the organization they founded in 2020 .

The foundation has reportedly donated $250,000 to the Women’s Wellness (Spa)ce, “a thoughtfully designed drop-in wellness center where women can gather, create, educate and meditate,” according to Archewell Foundation’s 2023 tax records.

Based in North Philadelphia and created by Ashley, the space aims to “improve all aspects of wellness – mental, physical, spiritual and financial – by healing ourselves, caring for each other and acting on behalf of our communities,” a post on his Instagram page revealed.

In a 2023 interview with Elle, Ashley explained how she envisioned the space as a “drop-in space where women can eat a healthy meal, get on the treadmill or box, listen to guided meditation and access to therapies, including EMDR and infrared saunas’. .

The principle of EMDR, which Prince Harry has previously praised for helping him come to terms with his past, is that the mind can heal from trauma by using external stimuli to help the brain process the traumatic experience and facilitate healing.

Experts have compared EMDR to the physical practice of removing a foreign object from a wound to help it heal.

In the UK, EMDR is recognized as a treatment for PTSD by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) and is offered by the NHS.

During sessions, a client is asked to keep in mind different aspects of a memory. They are then encouraged to use their eyes to follow the therapist’s hand as it moves back and forth through the client’s field of view, or to tap their hands.

Studies have linked these processes to the biological mechanisms involved in rapid eye movement (REM) sleep, which bring out internal associations and help people process memories and distressing feelings.

Although critics have dismissed it as pseudoscience, EMDR has a body of scientific research behind it that shows it to be effective in treating severe trauma.

Not only is it available on the NHS, but training is also mandatory for frontline Ministry of Defense mental health staff.

The practice was invented in 1987 by Dr. Francine Shapiro, a Senior Research Fellow Emeritus at the Mental Research Institute in Palo Alto, California.

Ashley said of her experience, “I received great treatment, and so I was able to take some of the things I learned in therapy and put them to good use.

“EMDR worked wonders for me when it came to my brother’s death,” she added, explaining how she suffered from PTSD following the death of her brother, Beau Biden, who died in 2015 at the age of 46 after he had been diagnosed with brain cancer.

“If you have money and something happens, you can go to the best therapist you can find,” Ashley continued. “That doesn’t happen for people living in poverty.”

Ashley has previously publicly paid tribute to her late brother on a number of occasions; namely at his funeral, when she described herself as “the luckiest little sister” raised by Beau and her other older sibling, Hunter disturbed Biden.

Speaking to the Today program in 2021, Ashley described Beau as ‘such a lovely man’.

She said: ‘He had a fun, crazy side too; a great sense of humor. I miss just being with him. Being in the same room and not saying anything.”

Ashley addressed her late brother again at the Democratic National Convention in August.

She told a crowd of thousands of people, “When Hunter and I lost our brother Beau to cancer in 2015, it seemed like it would never end.”

She praised her father, adding, “Dad [President Biden] had the ability to step out of his own pain and absorb ours, and I know Beau is here with us tonight, as he always is with us.”

She added that after her brother’s death, she got a tattoo on her wrist in his memory that read: “Courage, sweet heart.” She said it was “a reminder to myself to keep going, to get back up, like my father always did.”

She also hinted at a connection between her late brother and her father’s presidency; with Beau passing away at the age of 46, while Joe Biden became the 46th president of the US.

Ashley, daughter of President Biden and First Lady Dr. Jill Biden, is a social worker and received her master’s degree in social work from the University of Pennsylvania, located in Philadelphia.

In the interview with Ellethe First Daughter opened up about her hopes to create a wellness center for women affected by trauma in partnership with Mural Arts Philadelphia.

“Biden’s initiative draws from her experience with the criminal justice system and is inspired by her work with Mural Arts’ Women’s Reentry Program, which provides support and opportunities to formerly incarcerated women,” the Impact Report said.

“The center aims to provide a safe haven and community for women affected by trauma, providing resources such as nutritious food, exercise, meditation and therapeutic interventions.”