Entry #2: The Cage
This month, I want to focus in more detail on something that was highlighted last month – the Wounded Healer archetype, and the tension this creates in a healing professional. I’d like to start by quoting a few passages from the book On Being a Therapist, by Jeffrey A. Kottler. Here, he describes the “ideal” therapist our patients look to us to be:
“…ideal therapists are comfortable with themselves, and appear tolerant, sincere, serene, tranquil, and self-assured. This quiet confidence is counterbalanced by a contagious zest for life. Passion. Excitement. Electricity. Enthusiasm. They radiate from body and soul….Therapists are wise and knowledgeable. They are experts in human nature. They are perceptive and sensitive…They hear things that are inaudible and see things that are invisible to others, and they do so with great accuracy. Therapists are known for their stability and grounding. They are patient, so, so patient. They exhibit great self-discipline, yet, enigmatically, they are also spontaneous and playful…”
First, let me just say, “Whew!” Who can possibly meet such an expectation? And yet, Dr. Kottler is right – this is exactly who our clients expect us to be.
These expectations exist for most healers. We expect our doctors and nurses to be perfect specimens of healthy individuals, fully attuned to our needs, and patiently responsive and supportive. Our religious leaders should never struggle with any personal problems. Healers inevitably internalize these expectations, and come to believe they should indeed be all these things. And that creates a tension, because these expectations are impossible to meet. And instead of us challenging the impossibility of these imposed characteristics, we put these wounded parts of ourselves in a cage. We take the broken, hurt, insecure, imperfect, wounded parts of ourselves, and wall them off inside of us, making them inaccessible to inspection, support, and healing.
This cage almost killed me. Indeed, it has killed many healers. The suicide rate for physicians is greater than the general population, and untreated mental health issues is the most cited reason. The psychologist I talked about in the last post that I felt so connected to, Michael J. Mahoney, himself died by suicide. He was a huge figure in my field, and his death rattled a lot of people. Afterward, there were a couple of articles written about the risk of suicide in counseling professions, but mostly the profession quickly moved on, burying the discussion.
I lived in this cage for 14 years, the 8 years I was in graduate school, and my first 6 years as a practicing psychologist. I had dealt with crippling depression since I was a child, and had a lifelong eating disorder that eventually morphed into drug addiction. As I progressed in my career, I could feel myself splitting into two parts: one part falling over the edge with my mental health, the other part projecting the image of a confident young professional. And let me tell you, my cage was exquisitely built and fiercely guarded. I did not talk about my depression or addiction with anyone for fear that there may be reprisals. Living this double life of a successful young professional on one hand, and a desperately hurting soul on the other, took its toll, but the more I progressed in my career, the bigger and deeper my cage became.
Everything came to a head for me 7 years ago, and I began my journey to merge the two separated parts of me, the wounded and the healer. The process is still ongoing, and every day I learn new ways to be both wounded and healer. It’s been an interesting process for me, as a mental health professional and educator. As I heal, I can situate what’s happening in me within the academic literature and professional learning that I’ve been trained in. At the same time, I am engaged in a process of helping other people heal their inner wounds as a working psychologist. And I’ve been a counselor educator since 2012, so I am also engaged in the process of teaching students how to help others. In short, I get to observe healing from personal, professional, and teaching perspectives. It leads me to some interesting insights.
About two years ago, I had healed to the point where I wanted to share my journey with others, along with some of the lessons I’ve learned about how to help others heal. I wrote a book that tells my story, and weaves in stories of helping and teaching others. Eight years ago, when I was at the nadir of my mental health, if you had told me one day I’d be sharing my deeply personal journey and openly talking about my wounded side, I would have told you you were crazy.
But I have learned that the only way to get out of the cage is to start revealing it and talking about it with others. To surface it from the depths that we’ve hidden it. We’ll talk about some ways to do this in future blogs. I cannot emphasize enough the fear and courage a wounded healer has to harness in order to do this. And no one can do this alone. The work of merging the wounded and healing parts of us requires support and a tremendous amount of trust. Our professional organizations need to support pathways to do this that protect the healer’s ability to stay in their role. Just like Chiron, even wounded, healers are capable of effecting tremendous change in others. Next month, we’ll look at some programs that are designed to do this, and discuss their strengths and weaknesses.
Until next time, may you embrace your wounded and healing states.
Jorja
