The Two Travellers’, Jack Butler Yeats, 1942

Fellow Travelers: The tale of two healers

Mindful Music
Nov 8 · 6 min read

** This is not really a music post, but I am inserting a couple of songs from my favourite Persian band: kiosk — the so called persian dire straits — that are perfectly complimenting my current mood whilst writing this post**

Agha! Nigah Dar — Kiosk
Varda Bebar — Kiosk
Charkheshe Pooch — Kiosk

Recently, I graduated from counselling school and officially received the title therapist — a shift from the last few years of being a trainee therapist. The excitement of this new qualification lasted all but about 5 minutes before the imposter syndrome kicked in. Who the f*ck decided that I- Sahar Habib- is a therapist in her own right- a real live- f*cking therapist . Knowing fully that I earned this title and that most of the time, I do my job well- does not quiet the voice telling me “you f*cking suck” and “you incompetent piece of sh*t, get off your high horse-therapist chair and tell your clients you’re nothing and you can’t help them- tell them to run for the hills”. Harsh, I know! What does your inner critic say these days?

My response to my own self-loathing vacillates between overcompensating (reading as many therapy books as possible, double booking supervision sessions, venting to colleagues, crying at the gym, long meditations and aggressive journaling) and avoidance (pretending everything is ok and suppressing/denying the shame and feelings of deep inadequacy by binge watching any xyz tv show).

The bright side of this is the discovery (or re-discovery) of The Gift of Therapy by Irvin D. Yalom. I am currently 9 pages in and immediately struck by chapter 3 that follows the tale of two healers — a chapter I’ve glossed over in the four years ago when I first skimmed through this gem of a book.

“One of my favorite tales of healing, found in Hermann Hesse’s Magister Ludi, involves Joseph and Dion, two renowned healers, who lived in biblical times. Though both were highly effective, they worked in different ways. The younger healer, Joseph, healed through quiet, inspired listening. Pilgrims trusted Joseph. Suffering and anxiety poured into his ears vanished like water on the desert sand and penitents left his presence emptied and calmed. On the other hand, Dion, the older healer, actively confronted those who sought his help. He divined their unconfessed sin. He was a great judge, chastiser, scolder, and rectifier, and he healed through active intervention. Treating the penitents as children, he gave advice, punished by assigning penance, ordered pilgrimages and marriages, and compelled enemies to make up.

The two healers never met, and they worked as rivals for many years until Joseph grew spiritually ill, fell into dark despair, and was assailed with ideas of self-destruction. Unable to heal himself with his own therapeutic methods, he set out on a journey to the south to seek help from Dion.

On his pilgrimage, Joseph rested one evening at an oasis, where he fell into a conversation with an older traveler. When Joseph described the purpose and destination of his pilgrimage, the traveler offered himself as a guide to assist in the search for Dion. Later, in the midst of their long journey together the old traveler revealed his identity to Joseph. Miribile dictum: he himself was Dion — the very man Joseph sought.

Without hesitation Dion invited his younger, despairing rival into his home, where they lived and worked together for many years. Dion first asked Joseph to be a servant. Later he elevated him to a student and, finally, to full colleagueship. Years later, Dion fell ill and on his deathbed called his young colleague to him in order to hear a confession. He spoke of Joseph’s earlier terrible illness and his journey to old Dion to plead for help. He spoke of how Joseph had felt it was a miracle that his fellow traveler and guide turned out to be Dion himself.

Now that he was dying, the hour had come, Dion told Joseph, to break his silence about that miracle. Dion confessed that at the time it had seemed a miracle to him as well, for he too, had fallen into despair. He, too, felt empty and spiritually dead and, unable to help himself, had set off on a journey to seek help. On the very night that they had met at the oasis he was on a pilgrimage to a famous healer named Joseph” (pp.8–9).


As a therapist, I often don’t consider myself a healer at all, or a helper, caretaker or protector. Like Yalom describes, I see myself and my client’s as fellow travellers- learning from one another. I often see pieces of myself in each of my clients- and find those pieces being healed alongside their’s — as if their self discoveries teach me something new about myself (be clear- I am not speaking of over-identification and enmeshment, something that happens but that I am often weary off and definitely do not promote)

However, this is not what is quite described in the tale- the tale more so details the relationship between two healers — even if one is the older, wiser authority figure. In a way, this tale reminds me of Rumi and Shams and the love the two shared. Their’s two was not quite the relationship of teacher and students and often was of two travellers in the search of divine love and enlightenment.

I find myself yearning for a fellow traveller of this sort, of perhaps for a spiritual guide. Though I am also in therapy, I have never quite formed that relationship of trust and pure humanness between myself and my own therapist- finding myself on guard and often misunderstood and weary. This also compounds the imposter syndrome- who am I to be a therapist, if I don’t have faith in my own therapeutic process? These questions continue to plague me as I struggle with my own feelings of inadequacy and incompetency and my striving towards self-acceptance and self-compassion- as well as my search for my healer/guide/pir whoever that may be.

Yalom goes on to reflect on the tale and his main take-away was the emphasis on the humanness of the two healers. I too, know myself as a wounded healer- I really resonate with the revelation that the two healers were simply human “all too human” with I too am human with all my “inevitable darkness: disillusionment, aging, illness, isolation, loss, meaninglessness, painful choices, and death.” However, Yalom goes on to pick holes in the story, wondering what would have happened if they didn’t live with twenty years of secrecy. If Dion was honest and authentic from the start about his humanness, perhaps the real therapy would have begun 20 years prior, at the start of their journey together, and not instead on Dion’s death bed. Although, I’d like to remind myself of my own humanness and begin to accept my humanness in all its entirety, with its flaws, mistakes and the double edged sword of my own inner critic unceasing and relentless as it may be — right now, I just feel like someone who is wounded and am forgetting about the healer part of me that in itself is nourished and strengthened by my very own wounds.

Yalom, I. D. (2002). The Gift of Therapy: An Open Letter to a New Generation of Therapists and Their Patients (pp. 8–10). New York, NY: Harper Collins Publishers.

Mindful Music

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Sharing my love for music and how it makes me feel.

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