“The doctor is effective only when he himself is affected. Only the wounded physician heals.” ~ Carl Jung
This is the archetype that continues to makes the most sense for me during this part of my life process. It helps give meaning to this otherwise often gargantuan task of healing from the iatrogenic injury incurred from the psychiatric drugs. Many of us who have been harmed in this way are doing this together. What remains clear, however, is how distinct and unique each persons journey is. Even though the injury is caused by similar substances (all the different psych drugs) the injured autonomic nervous system manifests in a multitude of different ways so that we truly are all on our own in some deep and significant ways.
“When I stand before thee at the day’s end, thou shalt see my scars and know that I had my wounds and also my healing.” ~ Rabindranath Tagore
The Wounded Healer is initiated into the art of healing through some form of personal hardship–anything from an actual physical injury or illness to the loss of all one’s earthly possessions. Regardless of the shape of the wound, the challenge inherent in this initiation process is that one is unable to turn to others for help beyond a certain degree of support. Only the initiate can ultimately heal the wound; if it is an illness or accident, it will frequently be one for which there is no conventional cure. The Wounded Healer archetype emerges in your psyche with the demand that you push yourself to a level of inner effort that becomes more a process of transformation than an attempt to heal an illness. If you have successfully completed the initiation, you inevitably experience an exceptional healing, and a path of service seems to be divinely provided shortly after the initiation is complete.
The shadow of both the Healer and Wounded Healer manifests through a desire to take advantage of those who need help, including claims that you can heal any and every illness a person has. — Carolyn Myss from A Gallery of Archetypes
Most important thing to learn to minimize the risks of the shadow is that everyone has their own path and we never know what is right for another human being.
Someone with similar issues can still have a radically different way of finding well-being. There is no room for anything that resembles coercion in real healing.
We help and heal one another. My solace comes from those who know. In that way I come to trust myself.
The healing of our present woundedness may lie in recognizing and reclaiming the capacity we have to heal each other, the enormous power in the simplest of human relationships: the strength of a touch, the blessing of forgiveness, the grace of someone else taking you just as you are and finding in you an unsuspected goodness. Everyone alive has suffered. It is the wisdom gained from our wounds and from our own experiences of suffering that makes us able to heal. Becoming expert has turned out to be less important than remembering and trusting the wholeness in myself and everyone else. Expertise cures, but wounded people can best be healed by other wounded people. Only other wounded people can understand what is needed, for the healing of suffering is compassion, not expertise. — Rachel Naomi Remen, M.D.
“Our sorrows and wounds are healed only when we touch them with compassion” ~ Buddha
_______________________________________________
In Greek myths, Chiron was the wisest of the Centaurs and the archetype of the Wounded Healer
He was accidentally wounded by an arrow that had been dipped in the blood of the Hydra
In his search for his own cure, he discovered how to heal others
In teaching others the healing arts, he found a measure of solace from his own pain
The Wounded Healer understands what the patient feels because he has gone through the same pain
The suffering patient can be cared for by the Healer and be instrumental in the Healers own healing
Each encounter between Healer and patient can be transforming for both
The lesson of Chiron teaches us is that we can overcome pain and transcend into knowledge
That each of us can become a Wounded Healer
Chiron, wounded healer
For a collection of descriptions about many different archetypes and this one too, visit this website: A Gallery of Archetypes
Leave a Reply