In addition to reading the article, you’re also welcome to watch the video or listen to the audio version — whichever helps you absorb the material more fully.

Understanding What Therapy Can — and Can’t — Do for Healing Heartbreak, Trauma, and Other Deep Emotional Wounds

People I’ve worked with individually, those who have attended my classes, and others I’ve known in different contexts have asked me on many occasions whether I think they should be working with a psychotherapist. My answer is never a simple yes or no. It always depends on the individual. I give careful consideration to their needs, the nature of their emotional wounding, their level of understanding, and their degree of self-awareness. I also consider whether working with a psychotherapist is truly in their best interest at that time, or whether other modalities would be more advantageous and better serve their needs. There are also times when I’m well aware that the sessions I facilitate will better serve the individual and their needs at that point in their healing.

In my mid-twenties, when the traumas of my own childhood and adolescence began making their way to the surface, my relationships at the time became a series of painful reenactments. I found myself consumed by overwhelming emotions. I didn’t understand what was happening, and I was at a complete loss as to what to do. Emotionally, I was in a lot of pain, so I reached out to a psychotherapist I knew from the community. I saw her nearly every week for a few years. At the time, that was really what I needed. My therapist was very kind, compassionate, and understanding. I could open up and share what I was going through, and how I was feeling in response to it, and that was very healing for me.

Many, if not most people lack self-awareness, and have a very limited understanding of themselves, the issues they’re facing, and their own emotional wounding. So many of us are starting from this place.

If you have the opportunity to work with a therapist who has done their own deep work, and has addressed and made significant progress healing their own emotional wounds, they can help guide you through the essential steps of your own healing. They can support you in learning to face challenging issues head-on, and to work more effectively with your emotional responses, while instilling crucial coping skills that enable you to navigate the challenges you’re facing, and life more effectively.

A good therapist can also help you gain a much deeper understanding of your own emotional wounding, where it originated, often in childhood, and how you may be perpetuating these patterns in your adult life. You’re truly fortunate if you’re able to have the opportunity to work with such a therapist.

It’s also important to keep in mind that not all therapists are equal. Some are truly exceptional, with a natural aptitude for helping others heal, but not all are. Just because someone went through the training to become a psychotherapist doesn’t mean they’re capable of facilitating healing in others, or even in themselves.

The fact is, a lot of therapists have not done their own work. They haven’t healed, or even adequately addressed, their own emotional wounding. When we’re deeply wounded ourselves, and lacking in self-awareness and understanding, it can be hard to discern this, at least initially. Yet as we progress in our own healing, we begin to recognize when a therapist has done their own healing work and whether they possess the aptitude and capacity to help others heal. We also become more cognizant of those who have not done their own work and therefore lack these crucial capacities.

During the time I was living in Kansas City and working with a therapist myself, I was at a friend’s house and got stung by a bee. My foot became badly swollen, and shortly afterward I stopped by a shop that sold medicinal herbs and supplements. While I was there, I started talking with a woman who was working in the store at the time. When I told her about what I do, she immediately said, “I want to try that.” Her name is Merri, and she gave me permission to share her story.

Merri had been in psychotherapy for over a decade when she first came to work with me. There were entire years of her childhood that were completely blacked out, with no recollection whatsoever. In our first session together, Merri began to recover memories of having been physically and sexually abused by her father. She continued working with me for many years, and over time those traumas healed. She became much lighter and more resilient. You can click on this link to listen to a conversation in which Merri speaks about her healing process here.

Psychotherapy has been a valuable part of my own healing journey. But I didn’t stop there. I was curious to understand myself and others, and for years I immersed myself in a steady diet of clinical psychology texts, much of it focused on trauma, attachment wounds, childhood development, and the ways early experiences shape how we love and connect. I found it incredibly fascinating, and I wanted to better understand myself, my own emotional wounding, the people I was working with, the women I was dating, and people more broadly, including those in politics and throughout history. I wanted to understand how people function. I continue to read, watch and listen because I’m always wanting to learn, deepen my understanding, and see more clearly.

After leaving Kansas City, I discontinued therapy. I tried a few more times, in Albuquerque and later in New York City, but neither was a good fit. I eventually reached a point where I was doing so much intensive practice on my own that it was helping me digest my lived experiences and emotions, and work through many of the issues concerning me.

I was also making use of other therapeutic interventions, primarily deep tissue bodywork, the sessions I did with gifted healers, and then returning to the Wichita Mountains to go on the vision quest, a traditional Native American practice that involves fasting alone in the mountains for four days and nights without food or water. I found that I was able to make far more progress through this combination of practices and therapeutic interventions.

What also helped tremendously as I continued to heal and grow was connecting with more individuals who had themselves progressed and were more self-aware. I could gain much of the benefit I once derived from psychotherapy simply by talking with these individuals. That’s not to say I wouldn’t still derive some benefit from working with a therapist. Yet I have to decide based on how much time I have available, and what is going to facilitate the greatest healing and growth for me.

Although therapy was extraordinarily helpful on some levels, there came a point at which it stopped short. I could talk with my therapist about what was causing me so much pain at the time, but the trauma I had internalized, and the patterns of reenactment, were deeply entrenched.

Intuitively, I taught myself to dive into the depths of that pain, breathing softly and deeply with my awareness centered in the emotions and bodily sensations that were arising. Working with this practice was extraordinarily powerful. Yet even that was not enough. The real transformation occurred when I combined intensive daily practice with the therapeutic interventions I mentioned earlier.

Over the years, I’ve done sessions for quite a few therapists, and some have referred people they were working with to me. When I was working with Merri, her therapist was so impressed by the changes he saw taking place in her that he ended up doing a few sessions with me as well. A few years after I moved out of Kansas City, I reconnected with my former therapist. This time, the tables had turned. I was doing sessions for her when I would stop back in Kansas City.

In closing I want to say, most of us have a lot of healing and growth to do. What matters most is an ongoing willingness to listen, reflect, and choose the combination of practices and interventions that truly support your healing at each stage.

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