As the above passage from Isaiah makes clear, the concept of the “wounded healer” has been known and pondered by human beings for thousands of years. We could even say that it is a divine concept which found its ultimate and greatest expression in the passion of Jesus Christ during that original Holy Week.

In modern secular culture, the actual term “wounded healer” first became familiar from the work of early Swiss psychoanalyst Carl G. Jung (1875-1961). Jung was a protégé of Sigmund Freud, with whom he later fell out. He founded “analytical psychology” which proposed and developed the concepts of the collective unconscious, archetypes, extraversion and introversion, etc. As much as I have major problems with Jung’s attempts at syncretism (blending his views of psychology with philosophy with assorted religious ideas) and with his anti-Christian perspective, we must admit to his evident academic and cultural influence. Like Freud, he did get a couple of things right. In a book written by Claire Dunn (Carl Jung: Wounded Healer of the Soul, 2000), Dunn explores in some depth the details of Jung’s understanding of this wounded healer concept as briefly summarized below.

Jung believed he discovered an “archetype” (unconscious ‘mythical’ typology) of the wounded healer in Greek mythology. One example is the healing centaur Chiron, who became known as the ‘wounded healer’ after being poisoned by an arrow. Because he wasn't able to heal himself, he suffered thereafter from an incurable wound, a mythical situation which is similar to the real life experience of the Apostle Paul with his ‘thorn in the flesh.’ There is also evidence that Jung derived the term ‘wounded healer’ from the ancient Greek legend of Asclepius, a physician who in the identification of his own wounds created a sanctuary at Epidaurus in order to treat others.

Jung stated that "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." The term has expanded from Jung’s original concept of the physician to generalize to any professional people helper who has been wounded, including psychotherapists, nurses, pastoral counselors and ministers of all kinds.

A number of research studies in the mental health field have examined this concept. Alison Barr, a psychotherapist based in the UK, in 2006 studied the significance of psychological wounds on people who decide to train as counselors or psychotherapists. Barr’s results showed that 73.9% of counselors and psychotherapists had experienced one or more significant wounding experiences that led to their career choice. As expected, the exact causes of the wounds varied enormously.

Therapist J.J. Means published “Mighty Prophet/Wounded Healer” in the Journal of Pastoral Care and Counseling (2002). Three types of caretaker wounds were reviewed: wounds resulting from the life experience of the caregiver, wounds resulting from listening to and containing the horrendous content and emotionally laden nature of client stories, and wounds brought about by doing counseling work within an unsupportive culture. He writes: “Properly dealt with, these wounds offer a foundation of shared life experience connecting us with our clients.”

Henri Nouwen

While Carl Jung may have made the concept of the wounded healer recognizable to the world in general and the mental health field in particular, it was a Catholic priest turned psychologist who made the term famous for Christians.

Henri Jozef Machiel Nouwen (1932-1996) was a Dutch-born Catholic priest (ordained 1957) and writer who authored 39 books about spirituality, the most well-known and celebrated was The Wounded Healer: Ministry in Contemporary Society (1979). Throughout his adult life, Nouwen suffered from bouts of depression from which developed his primary motivation to study psychology. He received a doctorate in psychology in 1964 from the Catholic University of Nijmegen. After receiving this, he was a Fellow for two years in the Religion and Psychiatry Program at the Menninger Foundation in Topeka, Kansas. The following quotes encapsulate Henri Nouwen’s teaching on the ‘wounded healer’ concept. They also give us an appreciation of his depth and style:

“Our own experience with loneliness, depression, and fear can become a gift for others, especially when we have received good care. As long as our wounds are open and bleeding, we scare others away. But after someone has carefully tended to our wounds, they no longer frighten us or others. When we experience the healing presence of another person, we can discover our own gifts of healing. Then our wounds allow us to enter into a deep solidarity with our wounded brothers and sisters.

“To enter into solidarity with a suffering person does not mean that we have to talk with that person about our own suffering. Mostly it is better not to direct a suffering person’s attention to ourselves. We have to trust that our own bandaged wounds will allow us to listen to others with our whole beings. That is [what promotes] healing.”

“Compassion asks us to go where it hurts, to enter into the places of pain, to share in brokenness, fear, confusion, and anguish. Compassion challenges us to cry out with those in misery, to mourn with those who are lonely, to weep with those in tears. Compassion requires us to be weak with the weak, vulnerable with the vulnerable, and powerless with the powerless. Compassion means full immersion in the condition of being human.”

“Through compassion it is possible to recognize that the craving for love that people feel resides also in our own hearts, that the cruelty the world knows all too well is also rooted in our own impulses. When they kill, we know that we could have done it; when they give life, we know that we can do the same. For a compassionate person, nothing human is alien: no joy and no sorrow, no way of living and no way of dying.” And yet… “The mystery of one man is too immense and too profound to be [fully] explained by another man.”

Hearts, arrows, and psychological defenses

A colleague of mine shared a metaphor that he learned at a Christian mental health seminar regarding the healing of emotional wounds. This metaphor reflects the common symbol of romantic lovesickness, a heart with an arrow through it. However, this metaphor is also helpful in understanding how our deep emotional wounds affect us in relationships. Imagine that every rejection, abandonment, and betrayal of trust in our lives leaves an arrow (a “sore spot” associated with that memory). When we get close to another person, they have access to accidentally bumping our arrows, thereby causing us great pain. Because of the arrows sticking out of our chest, we avoid getting very close to other people. We are emotionally hypersensitive and it will take very little criticism or hint of rejection to hurt us. So we keep up a wall of protection and tend to overreact when anyone gets too close. However, as social beings we still have strong dependency needs for love, respect, and acceptance. We don’t want to live as a hermit isolated from everyone else. This creates great inner conflict, for the presence of our arrows causes fear of further hurt as we get close to someone.

We can respond psychologically to such fears in four overlapping ways: 1) We can live in naive denial, painting rainbows over reality, thus continuing to trust untrustworthy people — and continuing to get hurt, 2) We can avoid and distance ourselves from others (the hermit’s choice) and thereby live a very lonely life, 3) We can try to control other people and thus limit their power to hurt us (which ultimately will drive them away, because people hate to be controlled), and/or… 4) We can escape into our addictions, distracting and numbing ourselves in order to anesthetize our wounds and to distance ourselves from the fear of further wounding. This addiction strategy has many built-in negative consequences and sources of pain down the road.

"The healthy strategy for dealing with our psychosocial wounds cannot be merely in the psychological realm but must be spiritual, associated with our relationship with God."

Although we may never completely trust other people (after all, no one is perfect and thus no one is perfectly trustworthy), we can learn to trust God with everything, including our relationships. We must recognize our own powerlessness to heal ourselves and turn to Christ for spiritual healing, both for this life and in terms of salvation for eternity.

There is a necessary process required to receive this healing. We must confess our hurts and resentments and fears, and yes, our own sins. Healing requires forgiveness, both for those who have hurt us and also for ourselves.

In the diagram below, the extreme outer line is that tough external psychosocial facade developed by the ego to try to protect the wounds that exist within (with elements of denial, avoidance, control, and addiction). However, such a protective facade isolates us and keeps us from true intimacy with others. The primary healing must be from the inside-out (from God). However, it is also necessary to develop social skills which can maintain a healthy balance between non-defensive openness and yet proper boundaries in our relationships (see the classic book “Boundaries” by Christian psychologists Henry Cloud and John Townsend).

“By His stripes we are healed…”

“Physician heal thyself” has always been a statement of scorn which underlines the reality that physicians cannot do this. Every doctor must humble him or herself and accept help from others. In the Incarnation, even Jesus accepted the limitations of being human. He was helped by Simon the Cyrenian who carried his cross (Matthew 27:32). On the Cross, He was mocked “If you are the Son of God, save yourself!” Jesus could have saved Himself, but in order to identify completely with us in our weakness, He did not.

Christians believe that Jesus’ mission on earth is the ultimate illustration of the principle of the healing of others through one’s own sacrificial suffering. The New Testament indicates that he allowed Himself to become weak and to suffer torture and death for the sake of God’s greater purpose: “Not my will but Thine be done.” Christians regard the “suffering servant” passages in Isaiah (especially Chapter 53) as prophesies of Jesus (see the scripture passage at the beginning of this article). From Hebrews we hear: “We do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses... and because He himself has suffered and been tempted, He is able to help those who are likewise afflicted.” (Hebrews 4:15, 2:18)

Note that we honor the great saints and martyrs for two reasons: first, they compassionately gave their all to relieve human suffering, and secondly, they accepted and offered up their own suffering for the better good. Following their lead, it is our task to relieve the suffering of others however we can. We have the example of Jesus healing the sick and His parable of the Good Samaritan. We also believe that our own suffering provides meaning and builds character when we receive our difficult circumstances as a gift from God.

The scriptures underline the reality that inner growth comes primarily through tests and trials: “He knows the way that I take; when He has tested me, I will come forth as gold.” (Job 23:10) “Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.” (James 1:2-4)

The classic Old Testament example of the ‘wounded healer’ is that of Jacob’s son Joseph, who was sold into slavery by his jealous brothers and later unjustly thrown into prison. You cannot get much lower in this world than a slave in jail. However, God elevated Joseph to become Pharaoh’s right hand man, the second most powerful man on earth. He saved his family from the famine, forgave his brothers and explained to them, “You meant it for evil, but God meant it for good.” There are two great morals to this story. First, out of great evil and suffering God can bring even greater good. Secondly, the suffering of God’s faithful people can make them into the people they need to be in order to serve God in a more powerful way.

Identification with the wounded

The Psalmist makes clear: “The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves those crushed in spirit.” (Psalm 34:18) In the parable in Matthew 25, Jesus concludes: “The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’” We are meant to understand that the Lord Himself identifies with those who are weak or traumatized and that potential healers are to “see Jesus” in them. Similarly, those who suffer may also see Jesus in those who help them. We are commanded to love our neighbor “as our self.” The example Jesus used was the parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37). A shared history of woundedness fosters this sense of identification with those who suffer.

Heart to Heart

When we come to the place of full retreat
And our heart cries out to God,
The only person whose heart ours can meet
Is one who has likewise trod.

Others may offer a word of cheer,
To lift us from despair,
But above the rest, the one we hear,
Is the true confession, “I’ve been there.”

- Charles Solomon

Equipping for service

The wounded healer principle, simply expressed, is this: when we have experienced trouble or suffering and have become wiser and better people as a result, we become qualified to help those who are undergoing the same kinds of trouble. Wounded healers know the way from illness to health because they have indeed “been there.” It is one reason for the worldwide success of the 12 Step Recovery program (Alcoholics Anonymous, et al) which was based on Christian principles and was developed in order to combat addictive behaviors. Experienced members with years of sobriety under their belt become mentors for the newcomers.

The Lord made it clear to the Apostle Paul why we should not despise our own weaknesses and troubles: Christ “said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for My power is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak; then I am strong.” (2 Corinthians 12:9-10)

Therefore, a troubled past or personal weakness is not a valid excuse for avoiding service. God frequently uses weak instruments to accomplish great results. A few examples will suffice: a man who thought of himself as useless and no speaker (Moses), an impetuous man who denied Christ three times (Peter), a self-righteous man who vigorously persecuted the early church (Saul of Tarsus— Paul), and then there is … us! So let us not waste our weaknesses, failures, and past trauma. Instead, we can allow God to use our woundedness and the entire process of our own healing to equip us for service.

Dr. Atkinson is a graduate of Fuller Theological Seminary with a doctorate in clinical psychology and an M.A. in theology. He is a licensed psychologist in clinical practice in Atlanta and also works as a clinical supervisor training Christian counselors for Richmont Graduate University. He is a founding member of Trinity Anglican Church (ACNA) in Douglasville, Georgia