The Wounded Healer
"Thy eternal providence has
appointed me to watch over the life and death of thy creatures. May the love
for my art actuate me at all times; may neither avarice nor miserliness, nor
the thirst for glory or for great reputation engage my mind... May I never
forget that the patient is a fellow creature in pain ... I have been sanctioned
to care for the life and health of mankind."
Maimominides,
court physician to Saladin in the eleven hundreds.
The key factor about the primal wounded
healer archetype is that the wound turns the shaman inward. It is often a
"wound" or crisis, physical or psychological that is required to
force a medicine man or woman on a journey of transformation, or a "hero's
journey." Whereas many shamans become healers because of this archetypal
wound, most physicians are attracted to medicine for other reasons such as,
altruism, power, prestige, financial considerations, security etc. Any wound in
the physician is usually the result of the training process rather than the
reason he or she embarks on the career. It is secondary rather than primary.
When it comes to indigenous healing it is
frequently a physical disability, a severe illness, an accident, a psychotic
break or similar health catastrophe that turns the future shaman’s focus
inward, enabling him to heal him or herself. This leads later to an ability to
go “in,” in order to heal others as well. The medicine man or shaman having “been there,” is much more likely to be
empathetic and become directly involved with the feelings and emotions of the
patient. Medical students are taught at all times to
remain objective and detached from their patient’s suffering.
In the case of the wounded shamanic healer, the wound creates inner growth, and self-awareness, and endows the healer with
a greater appreciation of the suffering of others.
Healers
who are unconscious of their own wounds or cannot deal with them are more
likely to ignore the potential of a balanced healing relationship. The
healer who recognizes the inner healer within is able to see both the
wounded and healthy part of the patient, just as he can see the wounded part of
himself. This help is always given in
humility knowing there is a mysterious force at work with which we need to
align. For millennia healers have paid homage to this inner healer. In the
current era where the seduction of technology is so compelling, we need to
remember who actually is doing the healing. Shamans realize that they do not fully understand the mysteries of healing and
work within this framework. They pay attention to psychic forces and uses
intuition as well as intellect, compassion as well as their shamanic skills. They recognize that each patient is different, and may require a
different psychological approach to trigger his or her specific inner healer.
It is just as crucial to understand which patient has the disease as it is to
know which disease the patient has.
