Debi has trained with Pia Mellody (who wrote the book Facing Codependence: What It Is, Where It Comes from, How It Sabotages Our Lives) at the Meadows, a treatment center for addiction in Wickenburg, AZ.  The training teaches 1) to describe the structure of the disease of codependence in the way it operates in everyday life and relationships, and 2) points to a practical model that works in healing people who suffer from the symptoms of codependency.

Pia Mellody's concept of Permission to be Precious (PIP) has helped thousands of people get in touch with the pain of their childhood (this pain is described as anything less than nurturing), how we pass it on to our children, how our history contributes to abnormal behaviors which create difficult relationships, how to take a deeper look as dysfunctional parenting behaviors that produce codependent adults and how to get information about recovery, so we might do something about this painful, life-threatening illness called codependency.