Wounded healer

Wounded healer is a term created by psychologist Carl Jung. The idea states that an analyst is compelled to treat patients because the analyst himself is "wounded". The idea may have Greek mythology origins. Research has shown that 73.9% of counselors and psychotherapists have experienced one or more wounding experiences leading to their career choice.

As an example, of the "wounded healer phenomenon" between an analyst and his/her analyzed:

Research

There are various studies researching the concept of the wounded healer, most notably that by British counselor and psychotherapist Alison Barr who studied the significance of psychological wounds on people who decide to train as counsellors or psychotherapists.[3] Barr used a pluralistic approach to her research, with the quantitative data analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics and the qualitative data analyzed using thematic analysis, with a grounded theory approach. An on-line questionnaire was conducted with 253 respondents. Pilot and verification studies were performed, and opportunities for further research highlighted.

Barr’s results showed that 73.9% of counselors and psychotherapists have experienced one or more wounding experiences leading to career choice. She also noted the following:

The idea of the wounded healer has since expanded to include the study of any professional healer who has been wounded themselves, including counselors, psychotherapists, doctors and nurses.

Mythological origins

In Greek mythology, the centaur Chiron was a "Wounded Healer", after being poisoned with an incurable wound by one of Hercules's arrows.[4][5] Jung mentioned the Chiron myth "wounding by one's own arrow means, first of all, the state of introversion";[6][7]

For Jung, "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."[8]

Jung felt that depth psychology can be potentially dangerous, because the analyst is vulnerable to being infected by his analyzed's wounds by having his wounds reopened. To avoid this, the analyst must have an ongoing relationship with the unconscious, otherwise he or she could identify with the "healer archetype", and create an inflated ego.[9]

Withdrawal of both projections may however ultimately activate the powers of the inner healer in the patient themselves.[10]

Jung’s closest colleague, Marie Louise Von Franz, said “the wounded healer IS the archetype of the Self [our wholeness, the God within] and is at the bottom of all genuine healing procedures.”

Jungians warn of the dangers of inflation and splitting in the helping professions, involving projection of the 'wounded' pole of the archetype onto the patient alone, with the analyst safely separated off as 'healer'.[11]

Jung's wound

Scholars suggest that Jung's childhood vulnerabilities compelled him to heal his own life.[12] Jung stated that "certain psychic disturbances can be extremely infectious if the doctor himself has a latent predisposition in that direction...For this reason he runs a risk - and must run it in the nature of things".[13] Further he stated that "it is no loss, either, if [the analyst] feels that the patient is hitting him, or even scoring off him: it is his own hurt that gives the measure of his power to heal".[14]

Jungians acknowledge that Jung's own wounds could cause damage to those he was attempting to heal.[15]

Cultural analogues

See also

References

  1. ↑ This can be the basis of countertransference.
  2. ↑ C.G. Jung "The Psychology of the Transference", The Practice of Psychotherapy (CW 16), par. 422
  3. ↑ Barr, A. (2006). / "An Investigation into the extent to which Psychological Wounds inspire Counsellors and Psychotherapists to become Wounded Healers, the significance of these Wounds on their Career Choice, the causes of these Wounds and the overall significance of Demographic Factors." Check |url= value (help). The Green Rooms. Retrieved 15 January 2014.
  4. ↑ B. H. Clow/C. C. Clow, Catastrophobic (2001) p. 232
  5. ↑ Robert C. Smith, The Wounded Jung (1997) p. 177
  6. ↑ C. G. Jung, Psychology of the Unconscious (London 1944) p. 181
  7. ↑ Jung possibly derives the term "wounded healer" from the ancient Greek legend of Asclepius, a wounded physician gives sanctuary to Epidaurus who treats others. On the other hand, Apollo Medicus was not a wounded healer because he did not heal because he suffered. Jamie Claire Fumos, The Legacy of Apollo (2010) p. 59
  8. ↑ Jung quoted in Anthony Stevens, Jung (Oxford 1994) p. 110
  9. ↑ C.G. Jung "Fundamental Questions of Psychotherapy"; ibid. para. 239
  10. ↑ Young-Eisendrath, p. 165
  11. ↑ P. Young-Eisendrath/T. Dawson, The Cambridge Companion to Jung (2008) p. 165
  12. ↑ Smith, p. 2
  13. ↑ C. G. Jung, The Practice of Psychotherapy (London 1993) p. 172
  14. ↑ Jung quoted in Stevens, p. 110
  15. ↑ Mary Ann Mattoon, Personal and Archetypal Dynamics in the Analytical Relationship (1991) p. 486
  16. ↑ L. Hockley/L. Gardner, House: The Wounded Healer on Television (2011) p. 11
  17. ↑ T. S. Eliot, The Complete Poems and Plays (London 1985) p. 181

Further reading

External links

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