The Role of The Wounded-Healer
- Debbie Irvine
- Nov 5, 2025
- 2 min read
Updated: 7 days ago
1) My Master of Counselling Research Results Auto-Ethnography of The Role of The Wounded-Healer U.Q. 2016: PDF Below
2) 3-Minute Oral Thesis U.Q. 2016:
UNDERSTANDING MY ROLE AS THE WOUNDED—HEALER
My Presentation today centres on the common problem of Wounds and understanding how I took on the role of The Wounded-Healer as a student Counsellor. Certainly I know I have wounds, many in fact. I suffer primarily from Common Variable Immune Deficiency, which resulted in the loss of many capacities and roles, particularly my job and a sense of agency in the world.
Jung originally said, “Only the Wounded Physician heals.”
Rachel Remen adds, “Wounding and healing are not opposites. They're part of the same thing. It is our wounds that enable us to be compassionate with the wounds of others.”
How does the healing happen? How does a Wounded-Other become a Wounded-Healer?It happened for me this year during my Counselling Practicum, using my knowledge and skills to re- engage with the world and to form person-centered, heart-centered relationships where trust, non- judgment, and respect softened the hardness and caressed the Wounds of both of us. The repeated caressing and ministering to Wounds primarily through gentleness, awareness, humility, and generosity of Spirit created ripe conditions for healing. Unknown possibilities emerged out of the shadows of the Wounds of both of us, unexpected and in their own time and manner.
Specifically, familiarity and awareness of my Wounds and limited capacities softened my relationships and interactions with Wounded-Others and increased my sensitivities for neurological, mental and emotional stimuli.My assertive Self-Care knowledge and processes honoured both my Wounds and Wounded-Others, creating greater empathy, flexibility and healing for all.
Results and Proof of my own healing from this year’s Practicum can be found in my improved levels of immunoglobulins, recently requiring only half the amount I originally needed to be given monthly.
My physical, mental, emotional and Spiritual capacities have increased dramatically enabling me to engage reliably, responsibly and purposefully during my Practicum.
This compares with being made totally and permanently disabled in 2008.
Feedback from my supervisors and Wounded-Others has also been very affirming, bestowing validity on my newly acquired skills and knowledge, my ability to put transformative values into action, and to build healing inter-relationships embedded in a commonality of Woundedness that heals both my Wounded-Self and Wounded-Others, and thereby confers on me the possibility of a new role as The Wounded-Healer.
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