Confrontation is the second stage of alchemy for the wounded healer. The goal of this stage is to confront avoidance by engaging in conscious self-reflection. Building on the self-awareness skills developed during the Disillusionment stage, this stage includes various skills to deepen your self-reflection practices and gain awareness of the impact of traumatic or painful experiences on your thoughts, feelings, and behaviors.
CONFRONTATION
"I don’t know anything about mindfulness, but you know, it could be that mindfulness is actually not only a form of attention training (which many investigators studied it as). And it is not only a form of affect regulation training (which some people were studying it as being as well). Maybe mindfulness
is actually a relational process where you become your own best friend."​​
–Dr. Dan Siegel
CONFRONTING AVOIDANCE
There are two types of avoidance: conscious and unconscious. The first type suggests an active decision while the latter suggests a more passive one. While avoidance may be effective in disconnecting you from painful experiences, it is also a thief of joy.
​
Carl Jung suggests that alchemy is the "the forerunner" for psychology of the unconscious, the integration of the conscious and unconscious mind (Crellin, 2021). Our triggers and wounds often arise from our unconscious mind, which can feel scary and confusing. It is common to want to avoid things that make us feel scared and confused but avoidance also keeps us from getting to the roots of our wounds and feeling joy.
AWARENESS
Building on the foundational skill, self-awareness, mindfulness practices can help you remain present while you identify areas in your life that you are avoiding.
Once you can identify the problem you then have an opportunity to consciously decide how you want to react.
Some questions you may ask yourself are:
-
Where do I feel it in my body?
-
What does the sensation feel like? Squeezing, warm, tingly, pressured?
-
What do I need to continue to be present with this sensation in this moment?
RADICAL ACCEPTANCE
Radical acceptance is commonly associated with Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT). Radical acceptance aims to encourage individuals to allow their emotional experiences to arise and release the impulse to control or avoid them (Segal et.al, 2023).
Radical acceptance can also be a way to show gratitude to yourself.​​​
​
You can practice acceptance by:
-
Acknowledging what you can and cannot control.
-
Being open to whatever emotions arise.
-
Separating your feelings and thoughts from the facts or details of a situation.
-
Practice expressing gratitude.
CONFRONTING
Confronting avoidance is uncomfortable, but if you are willing to sit in discomfort, then it can enhance your sense of agency to manage adverse experiences.
Confronting avoidance is about building skills to take action towards pain while still meeting your needs for love, connection, joy, and purpose.
Confronting avoidance is a skill that you will need to learn before you can fully engage in conscious self-reflection. Conscious self-reflection is another way to integrate the conscious and unconscious mind.
CONSCIOUS SELF-REFLECTION
Conscious self-reflection, or self-reflective consciousness, is the distinctive type of awareness that allows us to consider and think about ourselves. Self-reflection is like the mind’s inner mirror, it reflects to us our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors encouraging us to become aware of the connection between our inner-world and outer-world. ​
​
Self-awareness, self-compassion, and mindfulness practices are skills that you need before you can fully engage in conscious self-reflection. Conscious self-reflection is taking action towards confronting avoidance. Conscious self-reflection is a necessary skill to engage in conscious narrative processing, in the integration stage of alchemy for the wounded healer.
Ways to engage in conscious self-reflection
Journaling
Journaling is a great way to enhance your self-awareness and engage in conscious self-reflection.
​
“Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.” - Carl Jung
Shadow work journaling, is a type of writing that includes prompt that are aimed at helping you to discover your shadow parts, or in other words, the parts of you that you suppress or reject. ​
Looking for a Shadow Work Journal? Check out this journal on amazon.
Gazespotting
Developed by David Grand Ph.D., Brainspotting therapy is a therapeutic modality that uses eye movements to locate trauma memories and process them.
​
Gazespotting is a specific type of brainspotting therapy, that can be used to consciously dive deeper into your thoughts and emotions while remaining present.
Check out this self-spotting demo on youtube.
self-check in
Intentionally creating time throughout your day to check-in with yourself is about taking inventory of your emotions, thoughts, sensations, and needs.
​
Establishing a self-check in routine is a good way to get in tune with your body and respond to cues. It also creates organic opportunities for self-care.
get connected
Even the most self-aware individuals can benefit from other perspectives, from their trusted supports.
​
Connecting with a personal therapist or other clinicians in the field, mentors, and supervisors, are great ways to zoom out and gain a new perspective.
​
Staying connected with others is a good reminder that you are not alone. Knowing that you're not alone can also help to normalize your experiences as a wounded healer. ​​
"Harm to our well-being or job dissatisfaction–exactly the effects of secondary trauma–occurs when we are in a stance of passiveness. Active response results from feeling skilled and empowered."
–Dr. Brian Miller
avoidance & confrontation in clinical practice
​Secondary traumatic stress (STS), also referred to as compassion fatigue (CF) or vicarious trauma (VT), burnout, and countertransference, are all widely considered to be negative consequences associated with the emotional toll of bearing witness to the suffering of others. ​​​These negative experiences can generate a great deal of emotional distress for the wounded healer. ​
These negative experiences are commonly discussed within the helping profession, however, we do not typically discuss how to effectively confront, manage, and integrate these experiences.
Secondary traumatic stress
If we can change the ways how we make meaning of these experiences, then we begin to confront them and create space for transformative healing.
​​
STS, also referred to as compassion fatigue or vicarious trauma, is conversely not caused by a lack of compassion nor by prolonged exposure to others suffering, but rather, it is a response to prolonged feelings of helplessness that have been left unprocessed (Miller, 2022).
​
"Who are you allowing to take up space, rent free, in your mind?" Self-care practices that allow you to be present and process stressful experiences, can help reduce STS. Self-care should not solely be reserved for the weekends, vacation, or after work-hours. ​​​​
​
​
Countertransference
Countertransference is a phenomenon in which the clinician projects their own emotional reactions, both conscious and unconscious, towards their client. Countertransference is normal but it needs to be appropriately addressed or else it can detrimentally impact the therapeutic relationship (Chu, 1988).
​
On the other hand, countertransference can provide an opportunity to identify and heal your triggers. ​Your triggers can signal to you when a boundary has been crossed and or illuminate a wound that needs healing, also know as, reciprocal healing.
Reciprocal healing is the clinician’s ability to reconcile oneself to the pain of their own wounds to provide support to their client, thus leading both the clinician and the client to a reciprocal healing journey (Crusalis, 2014).