Should Therapists, Coaches and Healers Even Exist?

A somatic exploration of a question more people are whispering than asking out loud.

Should therapists, coaches, healers even exist? Good question, right? It’s a question that surfaced for me recently through a series of real-life conversations that landed not just in my mind but in my body. In that place where truth starts as a sensation long before it becomes language.

And it feels important enough to bring here. Not to offer a tidy answer, but to open the door to a deeper inquiry about the purpose of healing work, how far we’ve drifted from collective care, and why practitioners may still be essential in this particular moment in history.

The Conversation That Sparked It

A few weeks ago I was chatting with a peer, a fellow coach. In the middle of our conversation she said something that crystallised a truth I’ve been circling for years: “My aim is to get to a place where my job is no longer needed.”

I felt that land deep in my system. Because isn’t this the heart of ethical healing? Not creating dependency. Not being the authority. Not positioning ourselves as the solution.

But supporting people back into relationship with their own inner authority, their own body, their own wisdom.

The best healing work makes us obsolete ...eventually. Or at least, it should.

A Moment That Brought It Home

Shortly after that, a lover asked me: “Do you want to talk about your week?”

(He knew it had been an emotionally dense one.)

I said, “I can’t, it’s confidential. But don’t worry, I have my therapist, my supervisor. A hug would be nice.”

He paused, hugged me, and then said: “Isn’t that wicked? You’re all just passing it between each other - this trauma.”

I laughed because, in a strange way, he wasn’t wrong. It echoed a thought I’ve had for years: Is the wellness world just one big pyramid scheme of feelings?

Not maliciously but structurally. A network of humans supporting humans because the structures that used to hold us… no longer do.

But then the Deeper Truth Emerged

It’s kind of never been any different. Before colonisation, before capitalism, before the nuclear family model…we healed in community. We healed through relational field, ritual, land, co-regulation, and shared nervous systems.

We were never meant to heal alone. Never meant to carry our grief, our fear, our transitions, our trauma as individuals.

Humans were designed to metabolise pain in groups through presence, witnessing, song, movement, touch, elders, rituals, initiation.

So when my lover said we’re “passing trauma between each other”…part of me thought: Yes. Because that is exactly how humans were built to heal.

So, Should Practitioners Exist?

I don’t know whether they should in an ideal world.

In a world where community was intact, land was central, elders existed, and bodies were honoured…perhaps there would be fewer therapists, coaches or healers. At least in the form we recognise today.

But in this world? The one marked by chronic stress, digital disconnection, fragmented families, systemic oppression, and collective nervous system overwhelm?

Yes. They are needed. Deeply.

Not as saviours. Not as authorities. Not as replacements for community. But as bridges.

Bridges back to connection. Back to the body. Back to our emotional literacy. Back to each other. Back to the parts of us that never got to be held.

A More Honest Truth About the Healing Landscape

We are currently asking single nervous systems to hold the weight of:

• systemic injustice

• intergenerational trauma

• capitalism-level productivity

• ongoing global crises

• the emotional labour of families and workplaces

• the chronic absence of community care

  
  

That load was never meant for one person. Not psychologically. Not somatically. Not spiritually. So practitioners - the good, grounded, ethically trained ones - become temporary scaffolding. Not the structure. Not the solution. Just the scaffolding that allows people to rebuild their connection to themselves and the world around them.

What this Means for the Future of Healing

This reflection isn’t an answer; it’s an opening. An invitation to imagine:

What would healing look like if community care was restored? If we lived in environments where emotional expression was normalised, not pathologised?

How might our nervous systems feel if we weren’t carrying everything alone? If co-regulation was available in daily life, not only in scheduled sessions?

What role does somatic work play in a society that has lost its communal nervous system? Is our work a stopgap? A bridge? A remembering?

My sense is this: We may not always need therapists, coaches or healers in their current form. But for now, in a world this dysregulated, disconnected, and structurally isolating, their presence matters.

Not as the answer. But as a necessary tether until community, land, and collective care can be restored.

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