December 2021 Communication Tip

Wounded Healer

For the final Communication Tip of 2021 (what?!), I wanted to thank everyone for all the efforts you have made this year to improve your skills in communication.  Importantly, I want to remind everyone that, clearly, we are not just the sum of our communication and technical skills.  We are people too (who try to promote/inspire/invite healing in our patients).  Of course, we health care workers (all of us… nurses, doctors, technicians, staff, etc) are human, we are vulnerable, and we suffer too. 

There is an ancient concept about the idea of the “Wounded Healer.”   The archetype comes from ancient Greek mythology (and then was named by Carl Jung).  The Greek myth is quite complex with lots of sex and violence, but, basically, Chiron was a noble centaur who suffered a painful, incurable wound and then used his grace and compassion to help heal others. Chiron gave birth to Asclepius, the god of medicine. The idea is that healers caring for others gain wisdom and compassion from reckoning with their own challenges, weaknesses, and wounds.

I celebrate both you the expert, the professional, as well as you the person, the wounded healer.  And I’ll finish this year of Tips with the words of Rachel Remen, MD, from her wonderful book Kitchen Table Wisdom.

People have been healing each other since the beginning. Long before there were surgeons, psychologists, oncologists and internists, we were there for each other. The healing of our present woundedness may lie in recognizing and reclaiming the capacity we all 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 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.

Thank you for who you are and all you do.

All My Best,

Mike