There are many reasons that can lead us to seek psychological help. Among them are anxiety, insecurities, lack of self-esteem and difficulties in interpersonal relationships. However, these symptoms are usually the tip of the iceberg: underneath lie the emotional wounds from which they derive.
These wounds are produced by painful experiences that we have lived and that have not been repaired. Repair takes on special relevance because we can live experiences that hurt us, but if that pain is attended to and repaired, it does not have to cause us any injury. In the same way that when we get a wound anywhere on the body we try to take care of the pain and prevent it from becoming infected, it is necessary to act in the same way with emotional wounds.
Emotional wounds are relational in nature, that is, they arise in the context of our relationships, whether family, emotional or social, and they also find their healing and repair process in these relationships. Generally, these wounds have their roots in the relationships we established with significant people during our childhood and youth. Generally, with our fathers, mothers or other references such as grandparents, siblings, teachers, classmates, first romantic partners. They are painful feelings that we experience with important people, before entering adulthood, and that leave an indelible mark on us. Maybe, feeling like we weren’t good enough, feeling abandoned, betrayed or undervalued.
Although time can dull that pain, it cannot make it go away. Therefore, even after many years, it is still present within us. Often, we are not aware of the pain of these wounds until some situation or person touches them, which prompts us to seek psychological help.
Marie Lise Labonté, psychotherapist and writer, explains in her book Towards True Love. Free yourself from emotional dependence that “there is a fundamental wound that is transmitted from generation to generation and that we have inherited from our parents and family […]. These wounds are called abandonment, betrayal, rejection, humiliation, non-recognition, injustice, abuse in all its forms and more.”
Wounds reveal experiences of our lives that are still waiting to be repaired. However, no matter how much time has passed, we always have time to start a repair process. We can undertake it through the relationships we cultivate with others, whether in the therapeutic context of psychotherapy, in the relationship with our partner, children, friends… and in the relationship we establish with ourselves. They are bonds in which we seek trust and security in which we feel understood, taken into account, accepted, valued or accompanied.
As Henri J.M. stated Nouwen in his book The Wounded Healer, “All human beings are wounded beings, it’s just that some are more noticeable than others.” This reflection resonates with the essence of our humanity, reminding us of the universality of the emotional wounds we carry within us and, at the same time, the capacity we all have to heal ourselves.
