The Naked Self: Why Authenticity Is Vital for Healing

Oscar Wilde offered us quite a challenge with his quote: “Be yourself, everyone else is taken.”

In today’s world where image cultivation is becoming increasingly important and where many strive for acceptance from their peers, being yourself can be quite a tall order. Dig under the surface of any human being and you will find contradictions and quirks that make us all naturally unique, yet, as primarily social creatures, we are often driven by a desire to fit in. Our inherent "messiness" can make us feel exposed, so it may feel less vulnerable to follow the crowd.

This tendency to want to conform is thoroughly exploited in medical school. In his latest book Undoctored, Dr. Adam Kay refers to the "cardinal doctorly sin" as being honest about his feelings. He also mentions that during the first year of medical school, much of the focus is on removing all traces of individual expression.

This is borne out in one of my early experiences at medical school. During one histopathology lecture, I recall joy and awe bubbling up inside me as we witnessed miracles through our microscopes. I felt like a small boy again and nudged my neighbour who was equally awestruck. The harsh voice of our disgruntled professor blasted through the loudspeakers: "Quiet please, gentlemen. This is not a kindergarten. Some people are trying to study here." So much for life-inspired enthusiasm!

Years later, as a consultant, I was approached by a nurse: "Please would you come to room B12 and tell the father of 6-year-old Benjamin to sort himself out? He is being verbally abusive." My protective instincts fully engaged, I strode to room B12. Before I entered, I took a few moments to set myself straight. As an image of my youngest daughter Naima melted my heart, I pondered how this frightened father might be feeling. Leaving my role as a doctor at the door, I stepped in as a fellow father. From there we were able to make peace with the situation.

While there are obviously standards of competence and conduct that benefit medical professionals and their patients, I would question whether eliminating those personality traits that encourage authentic connection between people is entirely necessary. Surely patients would rather see and be seen by a doctor, nurse, or therapist whom they can relate to as a human being beyond their professional role.

What does it mean to be authentic?

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Acting with authenticity means being congruent with your own feelings, thoughts, and values. When you can be true to yourself without contorting to satisfy other people, you start to build self-trust and rely less on external validation. The quality of integrity that you exude when you are being authentic inspires others to trust you.

It takes real courage to live in true integrity with yourself. You can probably count on one hand the number of people you’ve met in your life who demonstrate real authenticity. But I’d like to bet they made an impression! Living by your own code builds self-acceptance and can encourage others to feel safe enough to share more of themselves.

Continuous authenticity is certainly a work in progress for me. I went into medical school with the belief that I could help people by caring about them. What I learned was that caring is deemed secondary to data and logic and that having any emotion was perceived to get in the way of my objective assessment. When you are trying to understand a condition, this analytical approach can be useful because it avoids jumping to conclusions.

However, this approach only builds on congruency of thought and is not necessarily aligned with our feelings and values. Unless we also check in with them, we’re missing out. In psychiatry and psychology, this is a well-recognised principle that is still finding its way into mainstream medicine.

Why is authenticity so vital for healing?

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Being authentic is important because true healing can only happen in an environment of trust. An effective therapeutic alliance between a health care professional and their patient is a cornerstone of this trust. But sometimes our roles get in the way.

Deep trust does not arise from acquired professionalism. Nor does it thrive when a patient is not an active part of the healing equation. When doctors and patients assume the role that they think has been assigned to them, neither can be fully available to the present moment. It’s as if the whole interaction becomes cloaked in expectation, severely constraining the space for spontaneity and true connection.

Consultations with my patients have been most effective when both of us have had the courage to see the person before us rather than just each other’s role. The trust this creates allows me to keep my professional skillset in service without it leading the conversation. Where there is mutual trust and honest communication, there is an opportunity to understand conditions from a place beyond deductive reasoning, which is aligned with my emotions and values. It has changed the whole way I practise medicine.

My authenticity invites the patient to feel safe enough to be vulnerable. As a result, I learn so much more about who is suffering in addition to what they are suffering from. This context has reliably deepened my understanding of their medical condition and opened new healing opportunities.

Every time a patient shows up vulnerable, I receive an invitation to step out of the professional shoes of a rescuing hero. This unmasks my unmet need to have all the answers, so I can relax into a shared responsibility of co-creating a unique healing journey.

What gets in the way of authenticity?

During medical training, the first impression you receive is that you know nothing in relation to the volume of information you are expected to absorb. The second impression is that you are in competition with everyone else to learn enough to pass your exams. If you finish medical school and enter residency, your performance is scrutinized and measured against the standards expected of you. All of these are external validation mechanisms. Sooner or later, you will have patients of your own, and your focus will be on serving their needs. Once again, you will seek validity outside yourself. If you go on to write scientific papers, they will be peer-reviewed. More external validation.

While all these checks on our autonomy are valuable, the muscle that we’re not exercising in medicine is self-validation. When self-reflection is left out of the equation, we overlook what we learn from our own experience, relying instead on external references and hoping the system will protect us from mistakes. When it doesn’t, cynicism and disillusion can arise, blocking our authenticity.

Plugging into just our intellect is not the full solution. As humans and health care professionals, we understand that our authenticity depends on so much more than simply what we know. The intelligence that is carried in our bodies and beyond can be equally valuable and reliable, but science has not yet learned to embrace it. Operating from authenticity means asking, "Do I have the courage and ability to show up as my full, naked self?"

Teaching internal validation methods in medical school and including them in educational credits would help strengthen our capacity to show up more authentically and ultimately more professionally. Acquiring the courage to be comfortable with our "naked selves" is likely to do more to address professional burnout and patient dissatisfaction than many workarounds.