After a few years of being in the healing ‘business’ I have noticed a few toxic traits emerge. Some of these are just temporary steps along the way of healing and maturing like giving away your gold. The idea of giving away your ‘gold’ was popularized by Robert Bly in Iron John. It begins with a gold ball, something you play with, but it becomes the golden hair (Rapunzel…), a symbol of your higher self. Not something to play with or give away. I’m not talking about these natural stages of healing and maturing into your higher self. These are an exploration of something more insidious.

The Conquering Healer

Healing isn’t something that you conquer, it is something that begins to unfold as you put in the work and that you surrender to. It is something without a prescribed path or definite outcome, the milestones along the way cannot be predicted or planned for. There are some in the healing world who approach it with the idea that it is only for them to achieve. A badge or notch in their belt that they want to claim and show off to other people. This ties back to the idea of giving away your gold coins, introduced in the myth of Iron John. Bragging about how you have leveled up. If anything, you are leveling down.

We work a lot with the Jungian Archetypes in healing. This person wants to be the Hero of their healing. The hero is an immature masculine archetype. They want to be celebrated for the work they are doing. Like the football hero that needs to be celebrated for winning the game. But healing isn’t a game to be won. In fact, I see them as something less than the hero; the immature masculine or feminine in its toxic polarities. They are childlike in their approach to healing. Like the child in the classroom who puts his hand up first and looks around to make sure everyone can see that he knows the answer. The boastful, petulant child. You can learn more about these Jungian Archetypes in the book King Warrior Lover Magician, by Robert Moore.

They brag about their healing process as a way to impress or dominate others around them. Just like healing is to be conquered, friends, community, family, and especially lovers need to be conquered too. They are just puzzles to be solved. 

The extreme end of this category is the know it all guru. “I’ve done it all and I know how to heal you”.

As if healing is some external energy that only they can impart upon you. If you just follow their process you will heal. If it doesn’t work, you didn’t do it right. I see this a lot in the pseudo-academic healing environment. A lot of cherry picked science to back up claims of authenticity about spiritual growth. All the self-help books and 12 Steps to Easy Healing nonsense.  If you’re going to read the books, read more than one. 

“If you can see your path laid out in front of you step by step, you know it’s not your path. Your own path you make with every step you take. That’s why it’s your path.”

― Joseph Campbell