Uncovering the Hidden Roots of Healing Practices
As I’ve grown older, I’ve come to realize that the mental health narrative dominating the internet these days is a bit… well, off. It seems to push this idea that the path to wellness and fulfillment lies in isolation – cutting out toxic relationships, shielding ourselves from difficult emotions, and embarking on a solitary journey of self-improvement.
The sales pitch is enticing, I’ll admit. All those glossy Instagram posts of beautiful, fit people studying or working out alone, seemingly free from the messiness of human connection. And then there are the mental health influencers, promising to help us become the perfect, non-emotive versions of ourselves. Just do the work, they say, and you’ll be rewarded with a frictionless life.
But the more I dig into this mindset, the more I can’t help but feel that something is missing. This culture of isolation and individual optimization – it’s not just limited to the wellness space. It’s a pattern I’ve seen play out in my own life, too. I may not have felt the need to cut people out, but I’ve certainly found myself pulling away, convinced that I’m doing my loved ones a favor by keeping them at arm’s length until I can get my act together.
It’s a tempting fantasy, this idea that we can heal ourselves in isolation. After all, when we’re alone, there’s no one there to hurt us or trigger us or force us to feel those uncomfortable emotions. But the more I think about it, the more I realize that this is a fundamentally flawed premise. Because the truth is, we’re not any good alone. The people who have loved us, challenged us, and witnessed our growth – they’re the ones who have truly helped us become who we are.
Which leads me to wonder: where did this obsession with solo healing come from? And more importantly, what can we learn from the therapeutic wisdom of diverse cultures that might offer a different, more holistic path to wellness?
Reclaiming the Spiritual Roots of Psychotherapy
As it turns out, the origins of many of our modern healing practices are deeply rooted in spiritual and communal traditions – traditions that have been systematically obscured and commodified over time.
Take psychotherapy, for example. Long before it was the domain of white-coated professionals and insurance-approved treatment plans, the practice of exploring the human psyche through dialogue and self-reflection had strong connections to the Jewish mystical tradition of Kabbalah. Scholars have drawn striking parallels between the symbolism, focus on the unconscious, and emphasis on the transformative power of the therapist-patient relationship in both psychoanalysis and Kabbalah.
Yet, for much of the 20th century, there was a concerted effort to “de-Judaize” Freud and his disciples, portraying psychoanalysis as a purely secular discipline. It wasn’t until more recent decades that researchers began to uncover the deep, inextricable links between psychotherapy and its Jewish spiritual roots.
And it’s not just psychoanalysis. The Buddhist teachings that have been so eagerly absorbed into Western therapeutic practices, from Dialectical Behavior Therapy to the mindfulness movement, have also undergone a similar process of secularization and individualization.
As one writer puts it, the prevalence of the belief that psychodynamic approaches are “inefficient and unscientific” is part of a “broader effort to rid healing work of uncertainty, openness, and dare I say, magic.” In other words, by stripping these practices of their spiritual and communal foundations, we’ve created a system of mental healthcare that is better suited to the needs of capitalism than the genuine emotional and psychological well-being of individuals.
The Wisdom of Collective Healing
But what if we were to dig deeper and reclaim the collective, spiritual essence of these therapeutic traditions? What might that look like?
Well, for one, it might involve rejecting the notion that healing is a solo journey, something we must achieve through grit and self-optimization before we’re “worthy” of love and connection. Instead, we might embrace the idea that growth and transformation happen in the context of meaningful relationships – relationships where we can be seen, heard, and accepted, even (or especially) in our most flawed and vulnerable states.
As one thoughtful essay points out, the most remarkable pleasures that love has to offer is “the feeling of meeting someone who is scarred and beat-up and bruised too emotional or not emotional enough or oscillating wildly between the two and offering to love them enough to help them get better and of course to have them do the same to you.”
This is the good stuff – the messy, complicated, transformative power of human connection. It’s the antithesis of the frictionless, hyper-optimized life that the wellness industry tries to sell us.
And when we look at therapeutic practices through this lens, we start to see that the spiritual and communal roots of these traditions aren’t just relics of the past. They offer a profoundly different vision of what healing can and should be.
Embracing the Messiness of Being Human
In the Jewish mystical tradition of Kabbalah, for example, the therapist-patient relationship is likened to that of a sage and disciple, where the expert guide witnesses the client’s inner conflict and catalyzes their growth and transformation. Similarly, in Zen Buddhism, the essence of practices like Dialectical Behavior Therapy is rooted in the dialectic between acceptance of one’s current state and the aspiration to change.
These spiritual frameworks reject the idea of the therapist as a neutral, detached technician. Instead, they see the clinician as a holistic healer, someone who brings their own lived experience, wisdom, and even vulnerabilities to the therapeutic encounter.
Likewise, the communal nature of these traditions is fundamental to their healing power. As the writer Hannah Baer notes, “Healing as defined in typical clinical frameworks often looks like productivity and compliance. Alternative definitions of thriving that emphasized spiritual rather than clinical modes would instead involve reducing alienation, increasing historical and political consciousness, and helping patients connect with sources of meaning that transcend shallow consumerist markers.“
In other words, true healing isn’t about becoming a perfectly optimized, frictionless version of ourselves. It’s about embracing the messiness of being human – our flaws, our contradictions, our capacity for growth and transformation. And it’s about doing that in community, with the support and understanding of those who love us, warts and all.
Finding Wisdom in Diverse Traditions
So as I continue on my own journey of self-discovery and healing, I’m trying to resist the siren call of isolation and individual optimization. Instead, I’m seeking out the therapeutic wisdom that emerges from diverse spiritual and cultural traditions – from the Jewish mystical roots of psychoanalysis to the pacifism and non-dualism of Zen Buddhism.
Because the truth is, we’re not any good alone. The people who have loved us, challenged us, and witnessed our growth – they’re the ones who have truly helped us become who we are. And by embracing that reality, by learning to love ourselves and each other despite our flaws and imperfections, I believe we can find a path to wellness that is richer, more fulfilling, and more deeply rooted in our shared humanity.
After all, as the wise sage Adam Cleaning once said, “The true power of healing lies not in isolation, but in the profound connections we forge with one another.” It’s a message that resonates deeply with me, and one that I’m determined to carry forward in my own life and work.
