Have you ever met a woman who seemed to have it all together? Accomplished, grounded, and emotionally mature, she turned heads when she walked into the room—not because of beauty or charm, but because of the quiet radiance of her presence.

Despite all that, you noticed that she was constantly warning you that she was a mess, a disaster, a work in progress. She talked openly about what she was working on in therapy, mentioning her dark side and her fear that people wouldn’t like her if they really knew her. You were perplexed because, frankly, she seemed pretty great. Why did she have the compulsion to put herself down like that?

More than likely, I'd argue that the answer is that she is a wounded healer. And if you’ve read to this point, I’d be willing to bet that she is you.

While psychoanalyst Carl Jung originally described the wounded healer as someone whose own wounds give them the capacity to heal others, this article explores how those same wounds can lead others to idealize someone as someone who will heal them. This person, often a woman, is admired not just for her wisdom, but for the emotional safety she seems to provide. And when her full humanity disrupts that fantasy—when she shows that she, too, is still healing—she is often rejected. Here, the wounded healer........

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