The Wounding and Wounded Healer

The possible wounding effects of coercive interventions on patients are evident in the material and acknowledged by the narrators, to the extent that it makes sense to include “the wounding healer” as part of the experience and self-perception of the practitioners of coercion. The chapter explores incidents of the use of coercion feeling like abuse to the professionals, but also how the professionals feel being perceived as abusers—unfoundedly so—by society. “The wounded healer” is relating to that in many of the clinical encounters accounted for in the narrative material, the mental and physical well-being of the health professionals are put at risk by verbal and physical threats. Sometimes this dimension of their job is made explicit and addressed by the narrators, but just as often it is a part that is under-communicated. A different kind of personal risk related to being a practitioner of coercion that emerges from the material is the danger of being associated with an illegitimate practice, and discredited attitudes, such as being authoritarian and cynical. The text identifies how the sense of feeling “wounded” differs between the narrators and seems related to the degree of personal resonance on the part of the professional.