From Pain to Purpose: Navigating the Psychology of the Wounded Healer for Personal Growth

From Pain to Purpose: Navigating the Psychology of the Wounded Healer for Personal Growth
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One must be wounded to become a healer. Many people, however, experience suffering and do not become healers; practically everyone could become a healer if it depended only on the experience of suffering. It is only by overcoming suffering and having been wounded that one may become a healer.

We have to follow the way of our psychological maturation to discover the reason for our suffering, because the reason is something unique in each individual. That is why in seeking the meaning of your suffering you seek the meaning of your life. “The wounded healer is the archetype of the Self – one of its most widespread features – and is at the bottom of all genuine healing procedures.”

Swiss psychologist Carl Jung is credited with coining the phrase wounded healer, but this term is never used by him in his works¸ instead he used “wounded physician”. Jung did not see himself as someone who had accomplished the healing of his patients. The healing is an individual affair which must emerge from the patient’s own psyche, in order for there to be a resolution to the problem, which is precisely what the term individuation implies. The cure ought to grow naturally out of the wounded individual, one must find the light that is hidden within the darkness.

As long as we feel victimised, bitter and resentful towards our wound, and seek to escape from suffering it, we remain inescapably bound to it. This is neurotic suffering, as opposed to the authentic suffering of the wounded healer which is purified. The wound can destroy you, or it can wake you up.
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