Nurses and other health professionals become wounded healers after recognizing, transforming and transcending the pain of trauma in their lives. In the search for wholeness, traumatized individuals may pass from the stage of walking wounded to wounded healer. Wounded healers become able to use themselves therapeutically to help others. This transformation will have a positive impact on the health care system, society and the nursing profession as a whole.

ASSUMPTIONS:

• All human beings experience trauma in their lives
• For nurses, trauma may be of a personal nature, a professional nature, or a combination of both
• The way nurses cope with trauma has a profound effect on patient care
• Trauma does not automatically resolve itself without intervention
• Trauma can be transformed and transcended, then used to help others
• Healing involves transforming the self from walking wounded to wounded healer
• Therapeutic use of self is dependent on the degree to which trauma has been transformed and transcended in a person’s life
• The wounded healer represents the highest level of using the self therapeutically
• Nursing is a wounded profession that needs to heal itself in order to survive