This Is My Practice — Blog 2
By Rina Louw | Jungian Sandplay Therapist
When we seek therapy, we often hope to meet someone who can understand our pain without becoming overwhelmed by it. Someone who can listen carefully, remain present and help us find a way forward.
Does that person need to have lived a life without wounds?
I believe that a therapist’s humanity can deepen her work. But personal suffering alone does not make someone a therapist. What matters is how we understand our experiences, take responsibility for them and bring that awareness into our relationships.
This is where the Jungian image of the wounded healer speaks to me.
What Is the Wounded Healer?
The wounded healer describes a paradox: someone who has known suffering may develop a particular sensitivity to the suffering of others.
Experiences of grief, uncertainty or loneliness can open us to aspects of life we might otherwise struggle to understand. They may teach us to listen more patiently and to recognise that pain does not always arrive with clear words.
Yet a wound can also become a place where we react too quickly. Another person’s sadness may awaken our own grief. Their helplessness may stir an urgent wish to rescue them.
The responsibility of the therapist is to become conscious of these responses.
For this reason, I prefer the phrase the healing healer. It reminds me that inner work continues. Being a therapist does not place us outside the human journey.
When Caring Becomes a Need to Rescue
There is a difference between wanting to support someone and feeling that we must remove their pain.
The wish to rescue can sound deeply compassionate:
I must find the answer.
I cannot leave this person feeling so alone.
I need to make things better.
But sometimes that urgency arises partly from our own difficulty in witnessing suffering.
If I rush to soothe, explain or solve, I may move ahead of the person sitting with me. I may miss what they need to express, discover or decide for themselves.
My approach asks me to pause and consider:
What does this person need from me now?
The answer may be practical support. It may be a question, a boundary or help finding additional care. Sometimes it is enough to remain present while something difficult begins to find words.
Listening to the Body Without Assuming
Emotional encounters can register in the body. We may notice tension, heaviness, a change in breathing or an unexpected feeling of sadness.
In therapy, the therapist’s emotional and bodily responses can become material for reflection. However, they are not proof that she has absorbed the client’s pain or knows exactly what the client is experiencing.
A response may relate to the client’s story, the therapist’s own history, the interaction between them or ordinary fatigue and stress.
For me, this calls for curiosity and humility. My experience is something to reflect on, rather than something to impose on you.
Your experience remains yours to describe.
Compassion With Boundaries
A caring therapeutic relationship needs boundaries.
Boundaries support a space in which you can bring difficult feelings without having to look after the therapist. You should not need to protect me from your sadness, reassure me or make progress to satisfy my expectations.
My responsibility is to remain attentive to my own responses and to recognise when they require further reflection or professional support.
This allows compassion to become steadier.
I can be touched by your experience while remembering that your life, choices and process belong to you.
Making Room for Your Own Movement
My Jungian approach values the possibility that meaning can emerge gradually.
Sometimes an experience first appears as a feeling. Sometimes it comes through an image, a dream, a repeated relationship pattern or a question that will not leave us alone.
We do not always need to explain it immediately.
We can begin by noticing what is present and exploring it together. Where appropriate, this reflection can sit alongside practical steps that support everyday life.
In online therapy, this might mean talking through a difficult relationship, recognising an old pattern, exploring grief or making room for questions about identity and the next chapter of life.
The work develops through dialogue, at a pace we consider together.
What This Means for You
You do not need to arrive with a complete explanation of what is wrong.
You may be grieving, overwhelmed or uncertain. You may appear capable to others while feeling disconnected inside. You may simply sense that something in your life needs attention.
My intention is to offer a thoughtful space where we can explore your experience with care and respect.
I bring my professional understanding and my humanity. I also bring the responsibility to keep reflecting on how these influence my work.
For me, the healing healer is a reminder:
I do not have to carry your pain in order to care. I can accompany you as you discover how to meet it, understand it and find your own way forward.
Online Therapy With Rina Louw
I offer online individual therapy for teenagers and adults, including people navigating grief, relationship difficulties, life transitions and questions arising in the second half of life.
Contact – Rina Louw: The Healing Healer: My Approach to Therapy | Rina LouwRead more about my online therapy approach and how to enquire about a session.