The Wounded Companion

Most people who accompany the wounded were never trained to. They were the one who was there, and then the one who was there again. A friend in the small hours. A catechist after the class. A prayer team member when the singing has stopped and someone has not moved from the chair. This book is written for them.

It is not a manual of technique. It is about what it means to walk beside a person without needing to fix them, and about where Christ is in that walk. The disciples on the Emmaus road were not healed by an explanation. They were joined, and asked what had happened, and given seven miles before anything was made clear. That order is the shape of the whole book. Presence before intervention. Story before theology. Safety before spirituality.

Seven parts and fifty-eight chapters cover the ground: what a wound is and what it does to a person; what accompaniment is and what it is not; the companion's own fear, fatigue and limits; when to hand someone on to a doctor, a counsellor or the police, and how to do it without it feeling like abandonment; praying with someone without taking over; and the companion's own wounds, which are never far away. Safeguarding runs through it rather than sitting in an appendix, said in a companion's words rather than a lawyer's, with every safety truth kept exact.

The book speaks first to the companion, but it should make sense to a wounded reader too. The ones who are met on the road are the ones who are sent. Most companions were the wounded once, and most of the wounded will one day be companions.

Where it stands

The full manuscript is in its second draft. Theological, clinical, safeguarding and legal reviews are open, and it will not be released until they close. The practical toolkit that used to be its final part has become a separate free Handbook, so that the main book can be read as a book.

Letters drawn from it will appear here as they are written.