![]() ![]() In other words, we start thinking of ourselves as “healers,” even if that word never crosses our minds. We start talking about our “success rates.” 5 Selling our services turns many of us into “true believers” in our own methods and pet theories, incapable of recognizing problems with them. The ego kicks in: we start believing that we can treat practically anyone, that every patient does need us, that we do offer a unique and therapeutically potent service. It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his job depends on not understanding it. 4 Living with this conflict of interest for many years can lead to some mental gymnastics and major motivated reasoning. It often clashes with what patients need. 3 That need for self-promotion can be corrosive and corrupting. 2Īll self-employed health care professionals - “freelancers” - must make a good impression on patients in order to make a living. In fact, they often roll out the false modesty of asserting they are just “facilitating” healing - which is not actually a thing, just something that sounds wiser and more self-deprecating than it actually is. For every therapist who actually uses the word “healer,” there are a dozen who have the attitude without being foolish enough to put it right on their business card. Acute healer syndrome is just the tip of an iceberg of less obvious ego problems among freelance therapists. When therapists wear the healer identity on their sleeve, it makes them easy to avoid! Unfortunately, not all of them do. Laura Allen, Excuse me, exactly how does that work? Hocus pocus in holistic healthcare, 2014 That “healer” attitude (if not the actual label) And when I was doing it, I honestly believed it, too. They honestly believe they are helping people. I just want to gag, and I’ve felt that way since long before my Reformation. I’m appalled at the number of massage therapists-and others-who will introduce themselves as healers. Most chronic pain is extremely difficult to treat anyway: more on this below. Anyone who uses the “healer” label probably isn’t actually healing anyone. Humility is an essential ingredient in health care: if you don’t have it, it’s almost impossible to do a good job. It’s an absurd conceit, incompatible with competence and professionalism. It’s arrogant and distasteful, obviously. She seems to go out of her way to use the word, looking for excuses to mention that she’s a healer. There’s a certain kind of health care professional who likes to be known as a “healer.” 1 In the worst-case scenario, they actually use the title, like this: “Hi, my name is Joe, and I’ll be your healer today.” I know a massage therapist here in Vancouver who actually refers to herself as a “healer” on a regular basis. Healer syndrome has reached its most extreme in some of the founders of methods of therapy, what I call “ modality empires.” Such lack of humility is tragically common. ![]() “Healer syndrome” is a common delusion of grandeur in alternative medicine, especially massage therapy, naturopathy, and chiropractic, where many afflicted professionals like to be known as “healers” with allegedly unusual curative powers, vaguely defined, pseudoscientific, or based on the exaggerated importance of a single idea.
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