How to Be With Someone Who Is in a Core Wound

Core wounds are not like normal wounds. In this article, I share how I show up for people who are in this overwhelming part of the psyche.

Core wounds are unique. The normal tools and interventions don't work, which can be confusing for everyone. They're often misunderstood, construed simply as depression. Through my work with people and my own experience, I have come to see the core wound as the place in the psyche where the personality begins to form in response to the original injury. As such, it is a source of both great pain and powerful healing. In the hope of understanding core wounds better, I offer this article about my own experience, along with a companion piece, How to Be With Yourself When You Are in a Core Wound.

What a core wound is

Usually the core wound arises as a result of real or perceived disconnection from someone you love. The pain of this runs deep because the superego (the conscience) has one primary goal: to make you into someone to whom your loved ones will attach. Being inside a core wound is like being inside a giant self-attack for having failed at this. Whatever the true cause, it seems that the current disconnection is not only your fault, but the result of flaws at your core.

Being in this state feels like dying. In fact, many contemplative traditions, Buddhism among them, describe what I'm calling a core wound as "ego death." To be clear, what dies is an old sense of self, not you. But it feels like you.

Understandably, we often turn away from the core wound and go into the more familiar defenses and distractions. Defenses are there for a reason, and it's important that a person be able to titrate their exposure to a core wound as much as they need to. That said, a core wound is also an invitation to allow the old self to die, and rise up stronger after the difficult time has passed. I see this in clients, and in myself: strength and spirit wait on the other side of this spot, which makes sense if the core wound is where the self first took shape.

How to tell if someone is in a core wound

The put-down and the pain are one. In what I would call an ordinary wound, a person can hear the superego's voice as separate from their own. It's as if a voice is talking to them, saying, "You did this wrong, you failed at that, you suck." In a core wound, there is no voice outside their own, no distinction between the pain and the put-down. It's almost as if the person is inside the superego itself. The pain and the self-rejection feel like pure fact. With it seeming absolute, then people feel as though nothing can be done to escape the "reality" of the put-down and the pain. It's important to remember here that this is a part of the psyche, and it's not reality.

It may look like depression, but be a core wound. Some people who meet the criteria for depression are in a core wound. It doesn't help a person's transformation to treat for depression automatically. Medication may be indicated, but addressing this state as part of a person's larger transformation (as outlined below) may help them move through it. It's good to consider both traditional depression treatments and see the depression as part of a healing trajectory that requires an especially contactful therapeutic relationship.

A narrative places all the blame on the person. There may also be a narrative that gathers up all the unrest in the situation and pins it on that one person. If the core wound could talk, it would say something like, "I lost this person due to my flaws, I ruined that connection due to my mistakes, I will never have love due to my inherent badness. EVERYTHING BAD THAT HAPPENED IS MY FAULT." This perspective ignores whatever the other person did and disregards the larger circumstances. Self-blame is the mind's attempt to manage the chaos of true helplessness and loss, which are too overwhelming for a child. Unfortunately, the attempt at self-protection turns into self-harm: The mind has taken the helplessness and loss and turned those deeper feelings into a bludgeon.

How I work with someone in a core wound

When I am face-to-face with someone who is in a core wound, I strive to be simply present with them. Tools, optimistic perspectives, following the treatment plan: all of this goes out the window when someone is in that part of the psyche.

Clients say they feel better after a session of plain, deep contact. They sometimes respond well when I connect what's happening to their master story, the formative events and relationships that shaped who they are. They may also get uplifted when I contextualize the current situation in their larger path of change. But the master-story and path-of-change perspectives only help if the hurt part has already felt contacted and held.

I think one reason deep contact helps is that it supports the development of a sense of self larger than the wound. My colleagues and I are still debating whether the wound itself changes, or the safe psychological container for the wounded part grows larger and stronger. It's probably both. Either way, there is less identification with the wound, which is what causes someone to feel doomed and trapped.

I observe that the part of deep contact that has the most impact is that it provides a safe, palpable love. This asks more of the helper than ordinary therapeutic attunement: a refusal to look away, to fix anything, or to be pulled off course by the client's own self-condemnation. Most of us are accustomed to others turning away when we are hurting. What soothes a core wound is a steady presence, in Margaret Mahler's terms. The support person stays with the client's depth, without trying to fix anything, force an agenda, or get their own needs met.

Since there is so much self-blame during a core wound, the love and patience are crucial. Sometimes when I am in a core wound session, expressing steady presence and care, I can see a client's eyes flicker toward what they need and crave, but then go back into their shadow. They need me to hold the line for love and stand up for the truth: that they are acceptable as humans. Usually quickly but sometimes slowly, clients respond to the safe love. More unconscious material is able to come out, and the wound has less influence on the person's thoughts and actions. I can see more light in their eyes, and I don't think it's metaphoric.

I hope this article helps you be with clients and loved ones in their most dark and stuck places. In the companion piece, I write about what helps when you are the one inside the core wound, but reading it will also give you more ideas about how to be with others who are in it.

Questions to consider

• What are my ways of providing safe love?
• What have I learned or experienced lately that helps me be with people in a deep place?
• When have I been in a core wound myself, or been close to someone who was?