bearing suffering and bearing witness

At our Grand Rounds this week, Jodie Wigren MSW, Ph.D. from the Trauma Center talked about the intersection of psychodynamic and trauma theory in working with survivors of trauma. She summarized in a beautiful way the interesting phase shift in this work:

First patients learn to bear suffering and then learn to bear witness.

In and earlier posting, I wrote about the other side of this dynamic, the therapist's learning to sit with the affect (feelings, suffering) in order to share in the bearing witness. I going to add this quote to my repertoire.