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Reflections on Conflict between Warriors and Healers

An “archetype” is a comprehensive pattern of thoughts, feelings, and behaviors that characterizes a person as being of a certain type or even stereotype. Archetypes are the subjects of Greek mythology, Jungian psychology, and Joseph Campbell’s exploration of the power of myths. Two such archetypes are the “Warrior” and the “Healer.”


The Warrior must prove self-worth through courageous acts 
that improve the world. The Warrior’s strategy is to be as strong and capable as possible. The Warrior’s strength is competence and courage. The Warrior’s weakness is arrogance and the need to fight another battle. The Warrior’s fear is being or appearing weak or vulnerable. The Warrior craves adulation.


The Healer must prove self-worth through selfless acts of protecting and caring for others. The Healer’s strategy is to do things that benefit others.
 The Healer’s strength is compassion and generosity. The Healer’s weakness is martyrdom and being exploited. The Healer’s fear is being or appearing selfish or unkind.
 The Healer craves gratitude.


Initially, the Warrior and the Healer complement one another and, therefore, are attracted to one another sufficiently to form a relationship. The Healer takes care of the Warrior. The Warrior fights the Healer’s battles. The Healer fulfills the Warrior’s craving for adulation. The Warrior fulfills the Healer’s craving for gratitude. This relationship system—of positively reciprocally assisting one another in different but complementary ways and fulfilling one another’s fundamental cravings—is initially stable and self-sustaining.


This relationship system, ultimately however, is inherently unstable. The Warrior’s craving for adulation is insatiable and no one person, not even the Healer, can fulfill it. The Warrior responds directly or indirectly to the Healer with arrogance and the need to fight. The Warrior at this stage also may seek additional sources of adulation. The Healer feels (or the Warrior expresses) the Warrior’s disapproval or rejection of the Healer, which is devastating to the Healer’s craving for gratitude. The Healer reacts with feelings of martyrdom and being exploited. The Warrior responds with even more arrogance and a greater need to fight. This new relationship system—of negatively reciprocally frustrating or betraying one another because of failing to fulfill one another’s fundamental cravings—is highly unstable and self-destructive.


Because it is easier for the Healer to grow stronger and more capable and thereby better able to protect and care for self or others (than it is for the Warrior to grow more compassionate and generous toward the Healer), the Healer typically finds the strength to survive or end the unstable and self-destructive relationship with the Warrior. This incites the Warrior’s fear of appearing weak or vulnerable, which provokes the Warrior to turn on, fight with, and attack the Healer (especially if they have children who are caught in the middle of their parents’ fight). So, instead of the relationship dissolving, it becomes perpetually ever more negative and destructive.


To manage this high-conflict system of interaction, the Healer tactically can communicate with the Warrior in ways that do not exacerbate the Warrior’s negative behavior. Bill Eddy, the author of the recent book, It’s All Your Fault! 12 Tips for Managing People Who Blame Others for Everything, suggests a method of responding to high-conflict people which he calls “BIFF” (i.e., by being Brief, Informative, Friendly and Firm). A BIFF response may help the Healer end a high-conflict discussion with the Warrior, and may even help the parties resolve the problem that is the subject of the high-conflict discussion, but it will not end their high-conflict relationship. Therefore, the Healer must become self-protective and protective of others (e.g., children) who are adversely affected by the ongoing negative relationship with the Warrior.


It also may help the Healer to understand the concept of “moral injury” identified by psychologists in the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs who work with combat veterans suffering from a particular kind of psychological distress. Military personnel serving in war are confronted with experiences that challenge core ethical and moral beliefs. This can lead to a serious inner conflict called “moral injury.” Moral injury typically occurs when:

    • a soldier feels that he or she has betrayed his or her deeply held moral beliefs;
    • the actions of someone else, especially a person of authority, betrays a soldier’s deeply held moral beliefs; or
    • a soldier witnesses human suffering or the grotesque aftermath of battle.

Some of the symptoms of moral injury include depression, suicide and suicidal ideation, survivor guilt, grief, shame, a sense of anger or betrayal, inability to maintain relationships, the need to make amends, and loss of faith.


In a high-conflict relationship between a Warrior and a Healer, the Healer similarly may feel that:

    • the Healer has betrayed his or her deeply held moral beliefs by choosing the Warrior as a relationship partner;
    • the Warrior’s actions have betrayed the Healer’s deeply held moral beliefs; or
    • the Healer has witnessed the Warrior inflict human suffering (e.g., on the Healer or their children) during their high-conflict relationship.

Because the Healer may experience depression, guilt, grief, shame, a sense of anger or betrayal, inability to maintain relationships, the need to make amends, and loss of faith, the Healer may need expert psychological counseling. Strategically, the Healer must grieve through the loss of the initial relationship with the Warrior, forgive oneself for choosing the Warrior as a relationship partner in the first place, accept the fact that the Warrior is behaving in the only way the Warrior can under the circumstances, and forgive the Warrior for behaving that way. This may not end the high-conflict relationship, but it may enable the Healer to move on with life.


6 Responses to “Reflections on Conflict between Warriors and Healers”

  1. Kayla Clark on 13 Dec 2013 at 3:40 pm

    Not referring to the section on “moral injury”, the whole idea of the healer and the warrior’s relationship is SO MUCH like what people expect the relationship between men and women to be like–women of course being the healer, and men being the warrior. Although it’s becoming less and less because society is progressing, I think the complexity of out personalities and relationships now exceeds that of fifty years ago. Nobody simply steps into or assume one role anymore. We have complex needs and dialectical tensions to manage–and this keeps our relationships dynamic.

  2. Devin Sturgeon on 13 Dec 2013 at 7:25 pm

    Not that you need me to tell you this, but this is very well wrote. I think you stay true to describing the relationship between a warrior and healer while still being detailed enough to imply aspects of other relationships. Interesting note my dad is a retired military officer of 20+ years while my mom has been an on and off nurse for just as long. Not to this extent but from what I’ve observed from some of their few arguments is that definitely their ideologies can come up in seemingly mundane conflicts.

  3. Mario Beadle on 25 Nov 2014 at 12:07 pm

    The beginning of this article reminded me of a lecture I’ve had in one communications class describing a theory of Relational Communication and the ups and downs that come with an argument. Sometimes we just need to level the playing field or take a step back instead of ratcheting up the rhetoric and escalating the situation needlessly.

  4. Justin Stewart on 09 Dec 2014 at 3:49 pm

    relationship system—of negatively reciprocally frustrating or betraying one another because of failing to fulfill one another’s fundamental cravings—is highly unstable and self-destructive.
    I believe opposites might attract but we still need commonality to have health relationships.

  5. Jane Leo on 11 Dec 2014 at 7:56 pm

    Warriors and healers complement each other perfectly, each filling the other’s needs, however they are bombs waiting to go off. During conflict each side’s weaknesses are incited, which can lead to an irreversible spiral down. In conflict the differences in their personalities that originally helped their relationship only hurt them, drawing them further apart. This article focuses more on the failure of these relationships, but with the ones that survive and persevere I feel that they would be the some of the strongest bonds between partners that there is.

  6. Daniel Bean on 12 Dec 2014 at 9:11 am

    I really liked your take on this. As far as relationship systems go, it doesn’t get a whole lot more yin-yang than warriors and healers. Two pieces of puzzle that can complete each other (or at other times, one can stab the other while they’re trying to heal something. I’ve played video games, I know what’s going on.)

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