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Celebrating the Wounded Healer Psychotherapist
Why would someone decide to become a psychotherapist? It is well-known within the field that psychoanalysts and psychotherapists are often drawn to their future professions as a result of early traumatic experiences and being helped by their own psychoanalytic treatment. While dedicating their lives to relieving emotional suffering without being judgmental, they fear compromising their reputations if they publicly acknowledge such suffering in themselves. This phenomenon is nearly universal among those in the helping professions, yet there are few books dedicated to the issue. In this innovative book, Farber and a distinguished range of contributors examine how the role of the ‘wounded healer’ was instrumental in the formulation of psychoanalysis, and how using their own woundedness can help clinicians work more effectively with their patients, and advance theory in a more informed manner. Celebrating the Wounded Healer Psychotherapist will be of interest to psychoanalysts and psychoanalytic psychotherapists, graduate students in clinical disciplines including psychology, social work, ministry/chaplaincy and nursing, as well as the general public.
- GenresPsychology
242 pages, Paperback
Published October 18, 2016
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
May 16, 2021
We probably do not speak enough about the way in which psychiatrists, psychologists and psychotherapists bring their healed and unhealed wounds to their work.
In our fields of psychiatry, psychology and psychotherapy, there are certain unspoken truths. Perhaps the most profound are around the presence of clinicians who fail to address their past traumas and losses and end up becoming wounding healers, sometimes using their patients to meet their own needs for power and gratification and other times simply becoming intermittently dismissive, avoidant or re-traumatizing.
It is sensitive subject to speak about the wounds and pain that so commonly inspire and lead individuals towards a career in psychotherapy. But, as the author notes, this is a difficult profession, and generally not the most lucrative of ones. So often there are other currents - a caring for and curiosity of others and an impulse towards a better understanding of self - that draw people to pursue careers in mental health care.
By addressing their own past wounds and by continuing to explore and deepen self-understanding both through the experiences of doing therapy and of parallel inner work, clinicians become increasingly adept wounded healers. And as Jung told us, and the main author quotes (and as countless academics and reductionists would rather deny): "a good half of every treatment that probes at all deeply consists in the doctor's examining himself... it is his own hurt that gives a measure of his power to heal. This, and nothing else, is the meaning of the Greek myth of the wounded physician."
I didn't find as much new in this book as I had hoped, but was especially moved by the personal reflections of the courageous therapists who shared their stories in the second half of the book.
Susan Kavaler-Adler's reminiscences of demon lovers and the creative impulse and Gretchen Heyer's tale of being treated by a traditional African women healer (where she learned "We are not always where we appear to be. It can take a very long time to get close to that.") will stay in my mind for a long time.
In the final entry before the epilogue, Anthony Rankin Wilson, who lives in my city and is a few years older than me, but who I unfortunately have never met, reminds us that it is through our collective inability to face and heal our wounds that we become blind to the dying of our world, numb to living on the threshold of our midnight.
We are not only wounded healers, he reminds us, but also healing wounders. Both are parts of us. It is only, he reminds us - through our own healing - that we can engage the healing and awakening forces in others and offer hope and the capacity to stand our ground even when denial and disavowal is so beckoning. The world so badly needs those who have healed their wounds, as sol many unhealed wounds now drive violence, hatred, the denigration of complexity and globally threatening self-destructive forces.
Our regulatory bodies and schools (especially in medicine) suggest that supervision and personal therapy are not prerequisites for practicing psychiatry and psychotherapy. After reading and reflecting on a book like this one, it becomes clear that such a stance does not come without a steep cost on those seeking care and comfort, as well as perhaps the well-being of our society and relationship with the planet.
In our fields of psychiatry, psychology and psychotherapy, there are certain unspoken truths. Perhaps the most profound are around the presence of clinicians who fail to address their past traumas and losses and end up becoming wounding healers, sometimes using their patients to meet their own needs for power and gratification and other times simply becoming intermittently dismissive, avoidant or re-traumatizing.
It is sensitive subject to speak about the wounds and pain that so commonly inspire and lead individuals towards a career in psychotherapy. But, as the author notes, this is a difficult profession, and generally not the most lucrative of ones. So often there are other currents - a caring for and curiosity of others and an impulse towards a better understanding of self - that draw people to pursue careers in mental health care.
By addressing their own past wounds and by continuing to explore and deepen self-understanding both through the experiences of doing therapy and of parallel inner work, clinicians become increasingly adept wounded healers. And as Jung told us, and the main author quotes (and as countless academics and reductionists would rather deny): "a good half of every treatment that probes at all deeply consists in the doctor's examining himself... it is his own hurt that gives a measure of his power to heal. This, and nothing else, is the meaning of the Greek myth of the wounded physician."
I didn't find as much new in this book as I had hoped, but was especially moved by the personal reflections of the courageous therapists who shared their stories in the second half of the book.
Susan Kavaler-Adler's reminiscences of demon lovers and the creative impulse and Gretchen Heyer's tale of being treated by a traditional African women healer (where she learned "We are not always where we appear to be. It can take a very long time to get close to that.") will stay in my mind for a long time.
In the final entry before the epilogue, Anthony Rankin Wilson, who lives in my city and is a few years older than me, but who I unfortunately have never met, reminds us that it is through our collective inability to face and heal our wounds that we become blind to the dying of our world, numb to living on the threshold of our midnight.
We are not only wounded healers, he reminds us, but also healing wounders. Both are parts of us. It is only, he reminds us - through our own healing - that we can engage the healing and awakening forces in others and offer hope and the capacity to stand our ground even when denial and disavowal is so beckoning. The world so badly needs those who have healed their wounds, as sol many unhealed wounds now drive violence, hatred, the denigration of complexity and globally threatening self-destructive forces.
Our regulatory bodies and schools (especially in medicine) suggest that supervision and personal therapy are not prerequisites for practicing psychiatry and psychotherapy. After reading and reflecting on a book like this one, it becomes clear that such a stance does not come without a steep cost on those seeking care and comfort, as well as perhaps the well-being of our society and relationship with the planet.
November 30, 2024
Edited again: started strong and all downhill from there.
Edited to 3.5 stars for the ABSURDLY long chapter on Freud.
I’m surprised by the lack of reviews for this book and can’t help but wonder if even that in itself is reflective of some shame, not want to be seen reading the book or admitting that all therapists have similar thoughts or experiences at some point in their career. I don’t know.
I will admit for myself it was a tough read- whilst some of the stories were distant from my own, they did bring up a degree of discomfort and I recognised that the fact I had discomfort meant this was something we should be talking about more.
I was in awe of the stories told and this should be essential reading for final year trainee students.
Edited to 3.5 stars for the ABSURDLY long chapter on Freud.
I’m surprised by the lack of reviews for this book and can’t help but wonder if even that in itself is reflective of some shame, not want to be seen reading the book or admitting that all therapists have similar thoughts or experiences at some point in their career. I don’t know.
I will admit for myself it was a tough read- whilst some of the stories were distant from my own, they did bring up a degree of discomfort and I recognised that the fact I had discomfort meant this was something we should be talking about more.
I was in awe of the stories told and this should be essential reading for final year trainee students.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews