Dotty Treisner, PhD Student- PhD Program - Environmental Studies - Antioch University New England

Dotty Treisner

Dotty Treisner Dotty has worked for several decades as an upper level manager of health and social service agencies. In these settings, she has transformed and created many new programs, including an assistive technology center and a community-based support system for frail elders.

Dotty’s doctoral studies, rooted in community development, emphasize social and environmental change. Her research interests at ANE focus on environmental health, toxic trauma, and the role of story in helping communitites heal. The dissertation is developing a model of social wellness, the process by which people are engaged in the courageous endeavor to make meaning out of health and illness. This model integrates four key concepts — health, illness, objectification and denial — to create a conceptual approach that promotes lasting positive social and environmental change. Her model may potentially liberate a community’s thought process from the false dichotomy of objectification and denial in order to recognize the deeper meaning of both health and illness. Dotty is applying this model in Sydney, Nova Scotia, a community traumatized by having the most extensive toxic waste site in Canada. Sydney’s stories of environmental health and illness will provide the foundation for developing a social wellness model to be used within the community.