Healing Happens in Relationship

There’s a well-known saying in trauma work: “Wounding happens in relationship, and so does healing.”This truth echoes throughout depth psychology, attachment theory, and contemporary psychotherapy. But long before trauma became a common language in clinical spaces, Carl Jung recognized the centrality of the relational field in healing.

In her powerful book “The Mystery of Analytical Work: Weavings from Jung and Bion,” Barbara Stevens Sullivan highlights a passage from Jung that captures this wisdom:

“The meeting of two personalities is like the contact of two chemical substances: if there is any reaction, both are transformed.” — Carl Jung

This quote, simple yet profound, underscores how genuine relationship is inherently alchemical. It changes us. When we enter into deep, attuned connection—with a therapist, a partner, a friend, or even a spiritual figure—something in us shifts. Pain that was frozen begins to thaw. Shame that once isolated us becomes held. Our defenses begin to soften, not through force, but through being seen and known.

Relationship as the Vessel for Healing

Sullivan expands on Jung’s insights by exploring how the analytic relationship itself becomes the vessel—the container—for transformation. She argues that it’s not just the techniques or insights that heal, but the presence of another: one who can remain emotionally available, curious, and human in the face of our wounds.

In this view, the healing process isn’t something that a therapist does to a client. It unfolds betweenthem—in the lived, felt experience of being in relationship. Sullivan writes:

“The transformative element in therapy is not interpretation or insight alone, but the experience of being with another who can bear witness, hold complexity, and allow the patient to feel deeply without being alone.”

What This Means in Therapy—and in Life

Many clients arrive in therapy with wounds that emerged in the context of relationship—neglect, betrayal, abandonment, emotional misattunement. It makes sense that healing must also happen in relationship. The work of therapy is relational repair. It invites a new kind of experience: where needs are not too much, where emotions are not dangerous, and where connection doesn’t cost the self.

But this truth extends beyond the therapy room.

Every time we choose vulnerability with someone safe…

Every time we allow ourselves to be witnessed in our struggle…

Every time we show up authentically and stay present to another’s pain…

—we participate in this alchemical process of mutual healing.