Emotional Wound Healing: How to Recover from Emotional Devastation

By Dr. Mabel Radebe

Almost everyone suffers from an emotional blow from time to time which may cause an emotional bruise, injury, or a serious wound. Some people find healing from such emotional injuries or wounds easy while others struggle with recovery and move on with life carrying a burden of unhealed wounds. The aim of this book is to promote emotional healing to the emotionally wounded person and to provide practical guidelines on how to recover from an emotional blow resulting from a divorce, miscarriage, infidelity, death of a loved one, or the diagnosis of a life-threatening disease.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris UK
• Release date: Feb 10, 2016
• ISBN: 9781514448496

Dr. Mabel Radebe

The author is a Counselling Psychologist with extensive experience in helping people to face the challenges of blended family life. She is the author of a book ‘Towards a better understanding of the Midlife transition: Understanding the Second adolescence’ (2009). She holds a doctoral degree in Psychology and has lectured at three universities in South Africa. She is married to Pastor Rapitsi and is currently in private practice as a psychologist.

Book preview

Copyright © 2016 by Dr. Mabel Radebe.

ISBN:       Softcover       978-1-5144-4848-9

                 eBook             978-1-5144-4849-6

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Scripture quotations marked KJV are from the Holy Bible, King James Version (authorised version). First published in 1611. Quoted from the KJV Classic Reference Bible, Copyright © 1983 by The Zondervan Corporation.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Rev. date: 02/04/2016

Xlibris

800-056-3182

www.Xlibrispublishing.co.uk

519495

Contents

Acknowledgements

Preface

Chapter 1   Wound Healing

•   A wound defined

•   Wound healing

•   The healing of a physical wound

•   The healing of an emotional wound

Chapter 2   Understanding motional Wounds

•   Types of emotional wounds

•   Causes of emotional wounds

•   Signs of emotional wounding

•   Symptoms of unhealed emotional wounds in a work environment

•   How to respond to an emotional blow

•   Why a need for the healing of emotions

•   The dangers of unhealed emotional wounds

•   Causes of healing problems

Chapter 3   Steps to Emotional Healing

Chapter 4   The Stages of Emotional Healing

Chapter 5   Tools for Emotional Healing

Chapter 6   How to Help an Emotionally Wounded Person to Heal

•   Various ways of helping

•   Helping a person who has lost a loved one

•   Promoting emotional healing in a work environment

Chapter 7   The Bible and Emotional Healing

Chapter 8   Loss, Grief, and Healing

Chapter 9   Healing after a Divorce

Chapter 10   Healing after Infidelity or Cheating

Chapter 11   Healing after the Death of a Loved One

Chapter 12   Healing after a Miscarriage

Chapter 13   Healing after a Traumatic Event

Chapter 14   Healing after a Diagnosis of a Chronic or Life-Threatening Illness

Chapter 15   Hope for Emotional Healing

References

Acknowledgements

This book is the result of many years of working with people young and old who sought emotional healing from emotional injuries inflicted on them by other people or events. I am grateful to God for allowing me to have a part in touching their lives when they were hurting and in promoting the healing of their emotional injuries.

Firstly, I would like to thank all the people who had an impact in the writing of this book. My gratefulness goes to those who suggested that I write this manuscript, those who encouraged me all the way in the journey of writing the manuscript as well as those who offered me honest and valued criticisms.

I am particularly indebted to the following people for their assistance:

• My husband for his unwavering support and confidence in me.

• Those who gave me valued feedback on this book at its various stages of development, including my son, Sandile.

• The editorial and design team who professionally worked on this book.

• All those who shared their stories of emotional wounding and have used some of the healing strategies that are shared in this book. Without their contribution, this book would be incomplete.

Finally, I want to thank the almighty God from whom all things come.

Preface

Have you ever been wounded emotionally in your life?

Have you ever felt like your world is crashing under your feet?

Have you been wounded emotionally and never healed from those wounds?

Are you currently emotionally injured and would like to heal from those injuries?

If the answer is yes to any of the above questions, this book is worth reading. If not, read it all the same.

Almost everyone suffers from an emotional blow from time to time. This may cause an emotional bruise, an injury, or a serious wound, depending on the severity of the blow. The blows range from minor to more serious ones and may have devastating consequences. With a minor attack, a person may not be seriously wounded but may be bruised. Such a person may recover quickly from an emotional hurt and may easily move on with life. On the other hand, a more severe blow may cause serious emotional wounding, making it difficult for a person to regain emotional equilibrium.

While emotional wounding is a common occurrence, it is the desire of all human beings to heal from such wounds and enjoy life to the full. The topic of emotional wounding and healing poses the following questions in the minds of some people:

• How does an emotional wound look or feel like?

• What are the symptoms of emotional wounding?

• What are the typical responses to emotional wounding?

• Is there any hope of healing from an emotional devastation?

• Can God heal my emotional wounds?

• Why do some people find emotional healing easy while others do not?

• How can I treat my emotional wound?

It is the aim of this book to answer most of the above questions.

Why address emotional healing?

One may ask a question on why the topic of emotional healing is addressed in this book. The reasons for this are many and varied but the most important ones are the following:

• An interest arising from personal experiences of emotional wounding and the difficulties in obtaining healing.

• The experience of working with emotionally wounded people as a therapist. These are people who had experienced minor to severe emotional wounding and were struggling to cope with the effects of such wounding.

• As a wounded healer, I am motivated to write about emotional healing to help those who are hurting and give them hope.

Each week, I hear stories of an emotional pain from different people who come for counselling. They are all seeking emotional healing. In this book, I hope to share some strategies that worked for me and others in promoting emotional healing.

Who will benefit from this book?

People most likely to benefit from this book are those who

• are seeking understanding of emotional wounding and care,

• are currently wounded emotionally and are seeking healing,

• have been wounded in the past but have never healed from those wounds and are helping others to heal from their emotional hurts. These include people such as the pastors, social workers, counsellors, and therapists.

In general, all those who want to improve their emotional healing skills so as to be able to either help themselves or others bounce back quickly from their emotional wounding will benefit from reading this book. It is full of stories of people who have suffered various forms of emotional abuse and wounding. Some have found courage to face their emotional wounds and sought healing while others are still struggling with their wound pains and have not found healing.

Format of the book

The book starts with a general discussion on wound healing followed by a description of the process and steps in emotional healing as well as the techniques that are useful in wound healing. In chapters 8, 9, 10, and 11, hope is given to several categories of people who are emotionally wounded and need healing. In these pages, you will find insights, understanding, and guidance on how to deal with your emotional hurt and receive healing.

These chapters are packed with stories of various kinds of wounding, which include stories of the pain of divorce, the diagnosis of a chronic or life-limiting illness, death and widowhood, miscarriage, trauma, disappointment, and infidelity.

Chapter 1

WOUND HEALING

The wish for healing has always been half of health.

Lucius Annaeus Seneca

Wounds are inevitable in the lifespan of every individual. While some wounds are physical, others are emotional or psychological. In some instances, a person may suffer from both types of wounds. What is common in all of them is pain. It is, therefore, the desire of every individual in pain to receive healing whether physical or emotional healing. For a better understanding of emotional wounding and healing, it is important to define an emotion.

What is an emotion?

According to an Oxford Dictionary, an emotion is a strong feeling such as anger, love, joy, hate, sorrow, or fear deriving from one’s circumstances or relations. It is often accompanied by a physical reaction. For example, the feeling of fear can activate the autonomic nervous system to make a person ready to fight or runaway. Emotions include both positive feelings such as love and joy as well as negative feelings such as anger, sadness, and fear.

Positive emotions such as happiness can bring about a feeling of satisfaction with life in general and a feeling of well-being. They promote good mental health, and it is the wish of most people to experience these positive emotions. On the other hand, negative emotions are related to pain and misery. They are experienced when one is emotionally injured.

A wound defined

The word ‘wound’ is described in the Oxford Universal Dictionary as an injury done to an animal or vegetable tissue by a cut, stab, blow, or a tear. It goes on to say that a wound is also an injury to a person’s reputation or feelings. This definition covers both physical and emotional wounds.

A physical wound

From a physical point of view, the word ‘wound’ is generally used to refer to a living tissue that is damaged. The damage could be internal or external and could be visible to an eye or through X-rays. A physical wound is, therefore, a visible damage to the body tissues. One can see if the wound is big or small and whether it is bleeding, infected, or healing. The healing of such a wound is the healing of the body tissues.

An emotional wound

When the word ‘wound’ is linked to emotions, it is used to refer to the damage to one’s emotions. This happens when someone or something has brought hurt to one’s emotions. The terms ‘wounded heart’ or ‘wounded soul’ are generally used as metaphors for an injury to one’s emotions which occurs when a person receives a blow to his or her emotions. A wounded person may say, ‘My heart is bleeding, and I cannot be consoled, or ‘I am emotionally wounded.’

An emotional wound can also be described as a feeling or a collection of feelings that are triggered by an external event or an imagined happening which is perceived as painful by the person experiencing it. Unlike a physical wound, an emotional wound is not visible to one’s eyes. As a result, a wounded person may not get the attention he or she needs when hurting as others may not be aware of the presence of an emotional injury or a wound and that he or she is hurting. They may, consequently, not be as supportive and caring as they would to a person who is physically injured. In some instances, they may not even believe that a person has been emotionally injured and is hurting. Instead of providing the supportive care that a person needs, they may aggravate the situation through lack of understanding.

A couple who came to see me for counselling had serious relationship problems and were on the verge of divorcing because the