Kintsugi is a way of repairing broken vessels, it comes from the Wabi-Sabi philosophy, and it informs how I have learned to behold the human psyche in the experience of trauma and the process of healing traumatic wounds. Kintsugi is the practice of mending pottery by fusing together broken pieces with gold, the idea being that where the cherished thing has been broken, there is its strength, and its greatest beauty.

Sabi is the acceptance of the transient nature of earthly things, and what we do – you and I in the work of psychotherapy - is to find the corresponding pleasure in those things which bear the mark of this impermanence. We can behold the abundance that is possible when each experience is judged to have meaning, it can be seen in the grander tapestry of our life story – not as random - but ultimately with the capacity of finding its final fulfillment.

These wounds, being healed, offer internal resilience, existential purpose, and superhuman insight where there may not have been otherwise.