This article is a reply to a paper by David Zigmond, who suggested that it was the need of the healer in the face of his own loneliness and sense of incompleteness that led him to want to help others. In his response, Adler, looking at the more positive aspect, refers in particular to Greek mythology, showing how one of the archetypal features of the healer is that he is wounded himself. He relates this insight to the practice of psychotherapy, where it is precisely the incurable wound that can be the greatest source of creativity to the psychotherapist and which gives him the power to become a healer.

It is a profound article, breaking down the labelling process that gets in the way of so much modern treatment, in favour of a human relatedness which involves the total personalities of both patient and therapist.