Today, learn how to channel your own wounds to bring a deeper empathy to your therapeutic work.

Publication Date: 05/13/2024

Duration: 11 minutes, 14 seconds

CHRIS AIKEN: Welcome to the Carlat Psychiatry Podcast, keeping psychiatry honest since 2003. I’m Chris Aiken, the editor in chief of the Carlat Report.

KELLIE NEWSOME: And I’m Kellie Newsome, a psychiatric NP and a dedicated reader of every issue.                                                   

CHRIS AIKEN: When we started this series we did so with some hesitation over the title, Wounded Healers. But we were reminded by one of our listeners - Dan Roberts from New York University - that this term has a long history. It was one of Carl Jung’s archetypes. Jung described a type of healer who drew from their own wounds or inadequacies to engage patients with a deeper empathy. These are not past wounds that Jung was talking about, long recovered and sealed over, but active wounds. For Jung, the physician’s vulnerability brought energy to the therapeutic encounter. It kept the doctor humble – warding off the megalomaniac tendencies that can be a side effect of our healing roles. 

KELLIE NEWSOME: Carl Jung was one of the first psychiatrists to recommend that analysts undergo their own psychoanalysis. “Therapists,” he wrote, “can exert no influence if they are not susceptible to influence.” Jung may have been talking about psychotherapy, but the sensitivity and self-awareness he called for is just as important for the psychopharmacologist. Today we’re going to hear from clinicians who practice modern psychiatry with that archetypal touch. 

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These healers know the where the damage lies. Like a child raised in an unstable home, they are highly attune to the emotional balance around them. What started as a survival mechanism for the child becomes a gift for the clinician:

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And they know that pain cannot be measured in symptoms alone. It is in connections, their family, their dreams and plans: 

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You don’t need to have mental illness to be a wounded healer. In a 2006 survey, 74% of psychotherapists said that a wounding experience influenced their decision to become a therapist. Some experienced psychiatric disorders, but for others it was an unstable childhood – abuse or neglect – bereavement, physical illness, trauma, or mental illness in a close family member. 

There’s no DSM-style criteria to the Wounded Healer Archetype, but psychologist Diana Raab described six signs that suggest you may be one of them:

• You are a lifelong seeker.
• You have a strong sense of purpose.
• People call on you when in need.
• You’ve helped people since you were a child.
• You look at all experiences as an opportunity for growth.
• You’re able to find the calm in the chaos.

KELLIE NEWSOME: Let’s pause for a preview of the CME quiz for this episode. Earn CME for this podcast through the link in the show notes, or click on Podcast under the multimedia link on the Carlat Report website.

1. According to Carl Jung, which strength do wounded healers bring to the therapeutic encounter?

A. Confidence

B. Empathy

C. Transcendence 

D. Detailed knowledge

Carl Jung was not the first to stumble upon this path – and nor would he have made that claim. Jung believed that archetypes transcended time and place – passed down through our ancestors through the “collective unconscious.” So it is that shaman gain their healing powers by journeying to the underworld, where they are tortured by demons and put through horrendous ordeals. Jung traced this back to the ancient Greeks. Asclepius, the God of Medicine, learned the healing arts from Chiron, a healer who was wounded by the poisoned arrows of Hercules. 

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CHRIS AIKEN: The wounded healer archetype is an idea that rings true, even as it lacks in proof. But genetic studies have landed on a possible proof, or at a particular interaction of genes and environment that could lead to this archetype. It’s a gene you are likely familiar with if you’ve ever read a genetic panel – the short arm of the serotonin transporter gene, or S/S. Supposedly, it predicts a poor response to SSRIs, but that association is debatable and – at best – only holds true for older Caucasian men. It is also known as a gene for depression, or at least depression under stress. When children have the S/S gene they become depressed, but only if they are raised in an unstable home with abuse or neglect – otherwise the gene confers no depressive risk at all. Which begs the question – what does this S/S gene do when people are raised in a supportive environment?

One answer is that it creates a good therapist. In an unstable home, a child with the S/S gene will develop neurotic rumination – worried about problems they cannot solve – fearful and avoidant and, ultimately, depressed. In a supportive home, that rumination comes out as effective problems solving, and that anxious reactivity comes out as empathic sensitivity. The idea is that people with the S/S gene are exquisitely sensitive to their environment – they are empaths. A cruel environment is all the more damaging to them, but in a supportive environment they flourish, and develop the traits that make for a good therapist: Empathic, responsive, thoughtful, problem solvers. 

Like all genetic tales, this one is a gross oversimplification. We don’t have the time here to do it justice, or the science to prove it completely, but if it has sparked your interest tune in this Thursday for a special podcast where we will replay an interview from 2021 with Vladimir Maletic on the short arm of the bright side of the serotonin gene.

CHRIS AIKEN: A big thank you to everyone who shared their story.

KELLIE NEWSOME: We’ll be back with more insights from wounded healers. In the meantime, the May edition of Carlat Psychiatry News will be out in a few days. To find it, click on Webinars on the Carlat Report Website – it’s under the Multimedia tab. The Carlat Report is one of the few CME publications that depends entirely on subscribers. Thank you for helping us stay free of commercial support.

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The Carlat CME Institute is accredited by the ACCME to provide continuing medical education for physicians. Carlat CME Institute maintains responsibility for this program and its content. Carlat CME Institute designates this enduring material educational activity for a maximum of one quarter (.25) AMA PRA Category 1 Credits^TM. Physicians or psychologists should claim credit commensurate only with the extent of their participation in the activity.