The Archetype of the Wounded Healer

Course Description

The Wounded Healer is an active archetype that is relevant for people working in the helping professions. 

We are the Healer and the Wounded at once. When we do not realize that both aspects are part of us, we have a tendency to project our own woundedness onto the other. In addition, when we identify with the Healer, we are blind to the Healer in the client and we risk inflation. Obviously, this split of the healer and the wounded is unconscious. Therefore, it is important that we continuously tend to our own wounding when working in the healing profession and recognize the healer in the other. We will have to take back our projections. 

As healing professionals, we are vulnerable to the continuous stirring up of woundedness by the problems our clients bring to us. This vulnerability asks us that we have an ongoing relationship with our own wounding. 

Besides knowing about our own wounds, and re-collecting our projections, there is more. We also have to be aware of the dynamics of transference and countertransference and the several levels of exchange that are going on simultaneously between the professional and the client. James Hollis talks about the intricacies and complexities of these dynamics. 

Lastly, we want to know about the basic adaptive patterns that are programmed in each of us. These behavioral patterns set us up for certain kinds of ethical issues and dilemmas with our clients. So it’s not just about knowing the rules; it is also about knowing the dilemmas related to the behavioral patterns that are related to our woundings.

This course is ideal if

• Be able to explain what the archetype of the wounded healer is and how it impacts your professional relationships with clients.
• Be able to recognize the wounded healer archetype in yourself and others.
• Understand why it is important to re-collect your projections of woundedness on your client.
• Learn about the dynamics of transference and countertransference.
• Learn about your adaptive behavioral patterns and how they (unconsciously) play out in daily life and influence the healing process.
• Know about the ethical dilemmas related to your adaptive behavioral patterns.

Course Overview

Class 1 Psychological profile of the Wounded Healer

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This first class explores the dynamics of the healing relationship, transference, and countertransference. In the second part of this class, Hollis explores the profile of a wounded healer and the characteristics that are often seen in their psychological histories. 

Class 2 The suffering of the Wounded Healer

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This class talks about the price the wounded healer pays in a healing role. The emotional burden, the loneliness, and the stirring of our own emotional life when clients bring their material to us will be looked into. Hollis also talks about the healing potential of our wounding. We can use our neurosis (i.e. the split within) to the good of others and ourselves. Also, we can learn to mobilize special skills—‘genius lies behind the wound’, as Jung said. Hollis ends this class with self-treatment measures a wounded healer can adopt.  

Class 3 Basic Adaptive Patterns

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This class explores the six patterns that rule our lives and those of our clients. These include avoidance, control and compliance to overwhelm and abandonment among others. We are all invested in our defenses, but we can not collude in them. 

Class 4 Ethical Dilemmas

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In this class, James Hollis discusses the ethical dilemmas we face in our healing work with clients. We are set up to experience certain risks, because of our own woundings and our psychological histories. The key is to  recognize the power of our archaic experiences as they influence how we show up in the relationship to our clients.

By the end of this course you will

• Describe the profile of a Wounded Healer
• Explain what transference and countertransference are
• Identify modes of adaptation in clients and yourself
• Recognize the ethical dilemmas related to your adaptive behavioral patterns