“The most forgiving people I have ever come across are
people who have suffered – it is as if suffering has ripped them open into
empathy. I am talking about wounded healers”.
-Archbishop Desmond Tutu, 1995*
The concept of the wounded
healer can be confusing. In medical terms, if one is injured, sick or has a
broken bone, the response is to treat the part of the body that is damaged and
/or not functioning at full capacity and thereby facilitate healing. However,
recovery does not always mean “ as good as new”. Broken bones that have healed might
lead to arthritis years down the road. The chronic cough as a child could leave
the lungs compromised and create problems later. So how do we measure robustness versus
weakness in the intricate art of empathy? The question I often ponder is whether and how
empathy is enhanced by shared or similar experiences?
When a therapist has actually had a similar experience to a
patient, for example, when both have experienced combat in war, is the empathic
attunement greater than if the therapist has never been exposed firsthand to
the trauma of war? Can one surmise that
if the therapist grew up in a violent household (which may imperfectly
replicate the trauma of war psychologically), that clinician then has the
necessary experience to empathize accurately with the patient?
Some of the pertinent measures of empathy relate to the
verbal style and expressiveness of the therapist as well as the capacity for
self-knowledge. These skills are not measured in the licensing examinations and
are not screened for in graduate programs. So what happens when a therapist has
restricted self-knowledge and is unskilled in accurately empathizing with their
patients? Sometimes the personal damage to the therapist has not been adequately
addressed, resulting in a compromised and sometimes inept practitioner.
There is a professional necessity to remain accepting of the
vulnerabilities and shortcomings of others, including oneself. Can we exist ethically as healers on the basis
of rote platitudes doled out to our patients and maintain the integrity of our
profession? Certainly in graduate school, one learns useful tools and skills to
enable even the most unfortified clinician to cope with at least superficial
soundness. I remain grateful for these tools and the function they provide.
And what of the value of exquisite empathic attunement? When
therapist and patient reach that moment of largely subliminal convergence and
true transformation occurs, does it really matter if you have shared similar
exposures to life’s dramas and tragedies? Or can empathy exist through the pure
connectedness of our simple humanity?
*From Country of my Skull by
Antjie Krog, 1998
Wilma Bass, MFT is a licensed mental health professional
with over twenty years experience in trauma response and recovery. She is the
owner and co-founder of Trauma Outreach Associates, Inc., a company dedicated
to providing state of the art preparation, response and recovery services to
business and organizations that face a workplace critical incident or disaster.
Wilma provides consultation, training and workshops on trauma readiness and
response. She also maintains a private practice in the Castro district of San
Francisco.
