The Wounds of Humiliation, Betrayal and Injustice: Why Trust and Ease Feel Hard-Won- Part 2
In Part 1 we covered rejection and abandonment — the two earliest-forming wounds in Lise Bourbeau's model. This part covers the remaining three: humiliation, betrayal, and injustice. If you haven't already, you can take the Core Wounds quiz here before reading on.
The Wound of Humiliation
What it is: shame around your own needs, desires, or body — a sense that wanting things, or having a body at all, is somehow excessive or embarrassing.
Where it usually comes from: Bourbeau associates this wound with the mother, often around early experiences of a caregiver shaming a child's natural impulses, needs, or body. The mask that forms is the masochistic type: self-sabotage, over-responsibility for others' comfort, and a habit of minimizing your own needs before anyone else can.
How it shows up:
Feeling ashamed simply for having needs, let alone stating them
Taking on far more responsibility for other people's comfort than is yours to carry
Using self-deprecating humor as a shield before someone else can criticize you first
Difficulty receiving pleasure, compliments, or ease without an undertow of guilt
Worth knowing: this wound often loosens gradually, one small allowed pleasure or need at a time, rather than all at once. A useful marker of progress is simply noticing the guilt arrive later, or less intensely, than it used to.
A practice to try: state one real need out loud today, and resist the urge to immediately apologize for it or explain it away.
The Wound of Betrayal
What it is: difficulty trusting others to follow through, be honest, or stay loyal — often paired with a strong need to control outcomes yourself.
Where it usually comes from: Bourbeau associates this wound with the opposite-sex parent, often around broken promises or ruptures of trust in childhood. The mask is the controlling type: a need to manage plans, people, and outcomes closely, because letting go once felt dangerous.
How it shows up:
Needing to control plans or outcomes to feel genuinely safe
Real difficulty delegating, or trusting someone else to do something "right"
Strong emotional reactions to feeling lied to or let down, even over small things
Being fiercely loyal yourself — sometimes an unconscious way of asking for the same in return
Worth knowing: of the five wounds, this one is often most visible in professional settings — as perfectionism about process, or discomfort handing work to others. It tends to soften as trust is rebuilt in small, low-stakes doses rather than all at once.
A practice to try: delegate one small thing this week that you'd normally keep for yourself, and notice the urge to check on it or take it back — without acting on that urge.
The Wound of Injustice
What it is: pressure to be perfect, fair, and "right," paired with a strong sensitivity to unfairness — toward yourself or anyone else.
Where it usually comes from: Bourbeau associates this wound with the same-sex parent, often around a cold, rigid, or highly perfectionistic caregiving style. The mask is the rigid type: high personal standards, difficulty relaxing, and a habit of suppressing emotion to stay composed.
How it shows up:
Holding yourself to standards you'd never actually impose on anyone else
Difficulty feeling "done" with something, even when it's genuinely finished
Strong reactions to unfairness, even in situations that don't involve you directly
Suppressing emotion to appear composed, capable, or in control
Worth knowing: this wound often eases as perfection is deliberately, repeatedly traded for "good enough" — not as a lowering of standards, but as evidence that things hold together without total control.
A practice to try: pick one low-stakes task this week and deliberately stop at "good enough" instead of polishing it further. Notice what comes up in the gap.
Where to Go From Here
Shame-focused therapeutic work tends to help most directly with the humiliation wound specifically; family-of-origin and trust-repair work suit betrayal; and somatic or perfectionism-focused coaching often helps loosen the grip of injustice. All three, like the wounds in Part 1, tend to respond to consistent, patient inner-child work over time.
Ritshi Zenati, Speaker & Life Coach
Founder at Holistika Center.
Sources Bourbeau, L. — Heal Your Wounds and Find Your True Self (2000), drawing on the five character structures of bioenergetic analysis (Reich, Lowen, Pierrakos).
Further reading
Heal Your Wounds and Find Your True Self — Lise Bourbeau
Daring Greatly — Brené Brown (on shame and vulnerability, closely related to the humiliation wound)
Perfectionism and control often have a shadow-work dimension too — what we can't stand to get wrong in ourselves, we frequently can't stand to see in others either. Our Shadow quiz explores that connection.
If you're ready to work with what you've found here more directly, Holistika's microdosing program and life & spiritual guidance coaching are two different doors into that deeper work.
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