Wounded Healer

2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43

The days when the psychotherapist was a blank sheet and just a mirror reflecting every movement of the client for years are long gone. Along with the panic fear of not bringing anything personal into the therapeutic process. Today I, as a psychotherapist, to the question "How old are you?" more often than not, I simply answer "51", without preceding it with the indispensable "Why are you asking?"

But the question of self-disclosure, what and how to tell the patient about himself, remains. I know perfectly well that a person who has just come to me for help believes in my power and ability to solve his problems. Otherwise I would not have come. He endows me with some mysterious abilities and powers that he needs now and is waiting for a miracle. Disappointment is as inevitable as it is necessary. Miracles, of course, will be, but others, those that he did not expect at all.

I talk a lot about myself during therapy. Of course, my pain always comes in contact with the patient's pain, but these are my mistakes, my falls, disappointments, despair, fears and doubts. So why should a person who came, for example, go through a divorce, know about my problems? Isn't it better to remain a princess on a white horse, who with one wave of a spear can defeat any dragon?

The topic of the "wounded healer" is not new. It has been known since the time of Asclepius, who, in memory of his sufferings and wounds, founded a sanctuary at Epidaurus, where everyone could be healed. Yes, and the teacher of healing, Chiron, if my memory serves me, suffered from incurable wounds. It’s hard for me to imagine a therapist who’s not familiar with real pain, who doesn’t know what it’s like to be on the other side of despair. Therefore, I am wary of young psychologists, often they simply do not have enough experience to work effectively with themselves.

But the main thing for me, probably, is not even understanding, not that I know by heart the topography of the dark land of pain and fear (nonsense, everyone has their own), but that this experience does not allow me to forget about that my role as a therapist is just an illusion. So is the role of the patient sitting opposite.

If you start to take the role of a therapist too seriously, your Shadow will immediately lie in wait for you - a magician, a charlatan, a false prophet, a great guru … Whoever likes what. White robes of perfection. You are upstairs - the patient downstairs. You broadcast - he hears. You lead - he follows you. You give - he accepts. The temptation is great. But the therapy ends there. Because in fact, I cannot heal anyone. A person can only do this himself, taking on the role of a healer, and for this I should not be afraid to open myself up as a “patient”.

Therapy is, first of all, a real relationship and the place where the client learns from this real and sincere relationship. Right here and now. Therefore, I am a living example. You can't get away from this. And my "wounded healer" inside helps me to be alive. If I can tell a client that it is unpleasant for me when she does not warn me about being late, that her erudition suppresses me, that it hurt me that she did not ask me about my health after an illness, she begins to understand that negative feelings can be expressed in a relationship. and the sky doesn't fall to the ground.

The "wounded healer" is the bridge between the therapist-patient poles. This is a chance for the patient to realize and grow a healer within himself and a chance for the therapist to remain human and avoid the notorious "burnout". Dialectics is a powerful thing. The more I enter the role of the therapist, the more the person sitting opposite is in the role of a patient, a sick person, a sufferer. Therefore, I gradually "disappoint" him, exposing my real weaknesses, doubts, fears and pain, I do everything so that he pushes me off the pedestal. And then the therapist-patient poles begin to converge.