When the Law Lost Its Soul: How an Ignorance of Childhood Trauma Is Making Lawyers Sick & How Psychospiritual Awareness Can Heal the Profession

The legal system is sick, very sick and is dying a slow, agonising death, not only in terms of its reputation and the public's trust in it, but also in the very real mortality of those working within it. And no-one seems to know why or how to make it better.

The statistics on mental illness in lawyers are alarming, with an acute crisis of burnout, anxiety, depression, alcoholism, substance use, and suicide; all being far higher than that of the general population, and indeed higher than for any other profession. Yet the statistics only tell part of the story: Beneath the surface lies a silent epidemic of unprocessed emotional pain.

I have extensive personal experience of the intersection of positive psychology, childhood Trauma, philosophy, spirituality, psychospiritual Supercoaching, and the legal system as it now stands, or rather, staggers. This article is my deep personal reflection of my lived experience on the silent, yet deep, unhealed wounds that have, completely unbeknownst to it, shaped the legal world and those in it.

I propose why and how a much needed reconnection of the law with its compassion, its Soul, its heart, if it is not too late, combined with an awareness about childhood Trauma in the legal system, in lawyers (what made them choose law as a profession, what drives them but makes them so ill), and in those they are purporting to represent and help, through education and a psychospiritual approach, could restore both meaning and purpose to the law.

Wariness in the courtroom reflects a weariness that the legal system knows virtually nothing about childhood Trauma or how to heal and recover from it. What follows are the lessons that I have learned as a survivor of childhood Trauma, and are intended for the legal system, those in training, lawyers, litigators, the people that they represent, as well as for the psychiatrists who act as 'expert witnesses' without any expertise in childhood Trauma. This article explores how childhood Trauma shapes both lawyers and their clients, and how awareness, reflection, and compassion can restore meaning to legal work.

Many lawyers enter the profession driven by idealism, only to find themselves overwhelmed, anxious, and disconnected. This article is especially for law students and junior lawyers (and their coaches and mentors if they have any) who have become particularly disillusioned with how the profession that they once looked up to is making them ill, very ill: Junior lawyers have the highest rates of mental illness of all.

By understanding the hidden impact of childhood Trauma, and embracing psychospiritual wisdom, we can show the legal system the way to reclaim humanity in the courtroom and the path to their own well-being and awareness.

The good news is that healing is contagious: Presence spreads through the quiet example of compassion and understanding more than through endless reports saying the same thing but missing the point. One compassionate lawyer can shift a culture. Will that be you?

Mental illness in the legal profession: A psychospiritual approach to healing all those involved involves a shift from the shiny but superficial ego to the depths of the Soul

Law and the Soul

Law is meant to serve justice, but too often it silently erodes the humanity of those within it. Many lawyers carry the wounds of unrecognised and unhealed childhood Trauma, and the legal system rarely acknowledges how this shapes behaviour, stress, and judgement. This article explores how an awareness of childhood Trauma, psychospiritual reflection, and compassion can help lawyers reclaim their wellbeing, and restore the Soul to the practice of law.

We all suffer from the human condition and so law should not just be a system of rules without any understanding: It should be a mirror of that human condition. And its condition is critical: Burnout, anxiety, mental illness, spiritual dis-ease, and moral injury are running rampant in the legal profession, yet the powerful role of childhood Trauma is very rarely addressed, if at all. In that mirror, something vital has been lost. Behind the polished surfaces of the profession lie sleepless nights, quiet despair, and the aching question many dare not ask: What happened to the Soul of law?

This article highlights how childhood Trauma affect lawyers, their clients, and their cases and why psychospiritual practices can protect well-being while improving conflict resolution with compassion.

The law was never meant to be Soul-less. It was meant to hold suffering, not amplify it. If childhood Trauma awareness and psychospiritual reflection become woven into the profession, law could again serve justice and humanity.

The spiritual bankruptcy of modern legal culture

In his brilliant book by Robin Sharma 'The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari', which is in my 'Suggested Reading' list, and is one of the first books about spirituality that I signpost my coachees to (as my first coach did for me), Julian Mantle, a brilliant, high-powered, yet miserable lawyer who, after suffering a severe and near fatal heart attack, gives up his obsession with material gain, including his prized Ferrari, travels to the Himalayas to find the secrets to a more meaningful Soul-full life, the author brilliantly encapsulates how the legal system has become sick and how spirituality may well be the cure. There, the stressed-out, successful, but miserable lawyer meets a sect of Enlightened monks who have mastered the art of living a joyful and purposeful life. Julian returns to the West a transformed man, sharing the ancient wisdom he learned. Well-being and abundance are inseparable, when one adopts a psychospiritual lens through which to view the world.

Sharma says that “The mind is a wonderful servant, but a terrible master.” He is referring, of course, to the ego mind. If we let it direct our thinking and run the show, without a psychospiritual understanding of it, it will rule our world. Dr Carl Jung, one of the greatest psychiatrists of all time, the father of psychoanalysis, a spiritual master, who was recognised as a 'prophet' to the world of psychology, wrote famously that "Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate." The unconscious ego-mind is currently running the rule of law. It's time to metaphorically give up that Ferrari, reconnect with your own Soul, and the long-lost Soul of the legal profession.

The ego is the petrified child that resides in all of us and that runs our life, even as adults, Aristotle, the great Greek philosopher, wrote "Give me a child until he is 7 and I will show you the man." The quote emphasises the profound impact of early childhood on a person's development. It suggests that a child's character is largely formed during their first seven years. The psychologist Dr Peter Levine, a world expert on childhood Trauma, says that “All trauma is preverbal,” indicating that it is in our earliest years that are so influential on our later well-being. Dr Levine explored Buddhism and incorporated Buddhist principles, particularly the ‘Four Noble Truths’, into his work on trauma healing. He integrates spiritual concepts like the acceptance of suffering and finding peace through mindful, present-moment awareness. His writing and talks frequently draw parallels between trauma work and Buddhist philosophy, discussing themes like non-attachment to opinions, finding balance, and the role of suffering in transformation.

Sharma's lead character, collapsing and then seeking meaning through a spiritual journey symbolises the crisis facing the legal profession today and my proposed path ahead. Sharma reminds us of Ralph Waldo Emerson's quote “What lies behind you and what lies before you are tiny matters compared to what lies within you.”

As Sharma warns, material success without inner peace is “The ultimate failure.” This failure to look within, and do the inner work required, leads to spiritual bankruptcy.

Yet the current legal profession rarely looks within. It celebrates intellect but mistrusts introspection. It prizes resilience but punishes vulnerability. When lawyers lose touch with their inner lives, the law itself loses compassion. And without compassion, justice becomes mere procedure.

The legal system is sick

William Shakespeare, the greatest author who ever lived, who was also a spiritual master, who had a distinctly psychospiritual wisdom, as described in my article ‘Psychospirituality and Shakespeare’ wrote in Henry VI, Part 2 "Let's kill all the lawyers". Meanwhile, lawyers are currently killing themselves.

In the play's context and deeper meaning, as Shakespeare often hid in the implicit nature of his writing, he was referring to those characters who want to ‘kill the lawyers’ are the ones who would benefit from the destruction of the law and justice system. We all want the legal system to survive, but in order for it to do so, it must revive its Soul.

There is a rapidly growing crisis beneath the robes of the courtroom. Its power is that of a tsunami, which, if left unchecked, will destroy everything in its path. Poor mental well-being in lawyers can lead to a range of negative outcomes for the individuals involved in legal cases, for lawyers, their firms, related organisations, the economy, and society as a whole.

The International Bar Association (IBA) report "Mental Wellbeing in the Legal Profession: A Global Study", published in 2021, highlighted the widespread mental health issues in the legal field, with lawyers reporting below than population average wellbeing. Here is the link to the report:

Mental Health Issues in the Legal Profession

Shockingly, and especially tragically, the rates of mental illness, substance use, and suicide, are highest for younger lawyers, who are increasingly disillusioned by the legal system: It is not what they thought it was when they chose their profession.

Due to these concerns, the IBA has since published 'International Guidelines for Well-being in Legal Education'. Dr Emma Jones, IBA Professional Wellbeing Commissioner and co-author of the Guidelines, said that “The IBA’s 2021 report refers to a crisis in well-being within the legal profession. These new guidelines place legal education at the heart of our response. We must act now to ensure the lawyers of the future are able to prioritise well-being without fear of stigmatisation. We need to challenge the damaging cultural norms which have come to exist within the law, and promote thriving and flourishing amongst students, faculty and staff." As part of its ten recommendations it includes that:

1. Issues around stigma: The legal system needs to abandon its view that well-being issues should be seen as signs of weakness

2. There should be a commitment to addressing systemic problems in the legal system, such as excessive competitiveness and lack of empathy;

The competitive nature of the profession, the high-pressure environment and the academic demands of the legal field have been linked to higher-than-average levels of stress, anxiety and depression among students, faculty and staff in legal education, according to research, even higher than those of qualified lawyers.

What law students will currently not find in their law texts is this: That emotional literacy is legal literacy.

Compassion is not weakness; it is wisdom applied to human complexity. Compassion is a superpower. In a ‘take and take’ culture, compassion remains the only thing that one can truly give to another.

Beneath the stress, perfectionism, exhaustion, and mental illness that now plague so many in the legal world lies a deeper emotional wound so rarely named in law: The wound of untreated childhood Trauma. Yes, the statistics on mental illness in law are of huge concern, but they only tell part of the story. Without recognising and healing these pervasive wounds, they find fertile soil in the legal culture. Unacknowledged childhood Trauma doesn’t disappear; it mutates, into burnout, anxiety, depression, and addiction.

Sone psychologists call childhood Trauma Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs). These have been extensively studied outside of the legal system, but remain unexplored in law as the underlying cause of both mental and physical illnesses. The profession refers increasingly to vicarious trauma and secondary trauma in adult lawyers, and there are a plethora of research articles on these, so there must be a primary trauma: That of childhood Trauma. Despite extensive searches, I could only find a single peer-reviewed article on childhood Trauma and the legal profession.

Deploying harmful coping mechanisms for their unresolved emotional pain from childhood Trauma has led to levels of alcohol and substance abuse among lawyers that, again, are higher than the norm for members of the general population. It has been suggested that this abuse may be ingrained and normalised as part of the legal culture. Dr Gabor Maté, the renowned world expert on childhood Trauma and its pervasive effect on our mental, and even our physical, lives, states that "Addiction is not a choice, it's a response to emotional pain." He further elaborates with his oft-cited mantra that "The question is not ‘Why the addiction?, but ‘Why the pain?’” This perspective suggests that addiction is a coping mechanism for underlying emotional suffering rather than a moral failing or a disease in itself. Maté advises us to look beyond the addictive behaviour itself and to instead focus on understanding the root cause: namely childhood Trauma.

Law rewards 'drive', ever longer hours, and intellect, but discourages Self-reflection, feeling emotion, and showing compassion. Dr Maté, writes in his essential book 'The Myth of Normal', which is in my 'Suggested Reading' list, that “The attempt to shut down emotion, to disconnect from it, exacts a price: it fragments our wholeness, and without wholeness we cannot be healthy.” Many lawyers become masters of detachment. Tragically, they learn early that survival in the system means suppressing feeling. Over time, the mind sharpens but the Soul dulls. A profession once dedicated to justice becomes an arena of endurance.

These factors are having repercussions on lawyers' interpersonal relationships, including friends and families, with lawyers having the highest divorce rates of all careers and professions (interestingly the lowest rates are among creatives).

Mental illness in law is systemic, not personal. Childhood Trauma awareness is not optional. Without awareness of childhood Trauma, wellness programs are no more that sticking plasters on invisible wounds. This requires more than a superficial nod to well-being by a sick system that is on its knees, even its last legs, unless something is done quickly to revive and repair it.

Conflict will kill you

Conflict is the anti-Christ of compassion. Conflict will kill you, compassion will save you. Sharma wrote that “You can measure the true strength of a man by how calmly he deals with conflict.”

Max Lucado wrote that "Conflict is inevitable, but combat is optional", highlighting the choice between destructive fighting and constructive resolution. The Bible lends us its wisdom, stating in Proverbs 15:18 "A hot-tempered person stirs up conflict, but the one who is patient calms a quarrel."

There are no winners in conflict. As Dale Carnegie wrote "You can't win an argument. You can't because if you lose it, you lose it; and if you win it, you lose it."

Martin Luther King Jr., a spiritual seeker wrote with great wisdom about conflict that "We must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools."

Mahatma Gandhi, the most famous lawyer who ever lived, said that "The problem of the world is that humanity is not in its right mind." Marianne Williamson, the philosopher, spiritual teacher, and American presidential candidate (imagine if she had won!), frequently uses this quote to emphasise that the world's challenges stem from a fundamental disconnection from love, compassion, and a spiritual foundation. In other words, the problem of the legal world is that it is not in its right mind: It is stuck in its ego mind.

How childhood Trauma shapes the lawyer's psyche

For lawyers with unresolved childhood Trauma, the same traits that earn them praise, such as perfectionism, relentless studying, vigilance, and control, may actually be remnants of old survival strategies. The perfectionist was once the child who learned love had to be earned, and yet only never received unconditional love. The workaholic was once the child who felt safest when busy and lost in their homework. The detached advocate was once the child who learned that emotions were dangerous and that they should be repressed, suppressed, and denied, which terms used by Dr Simund Freud, who said that all emotions, when buried, always reemerge, sometimes decades later, as mental illness. These adaptations look like professionalism, but inside they often breed anxiety and exhaustion.

Bessel van der Kolk, the doyen of Trauma, reminds us in the 'Bible' of trauma "The Body Keeps the Score", which also in my 'Suggested Reading' list that “The greatest sources of our suffering are the lies we tell ourselves.” Lawyers tell themselves they’re fine. Their bodies tell another story: Migraines, panic attacks, insomnia, and moral fatigue. The body remembers what the mind denies. Trauma, he says, is stored in the body.

The cost of denial is not only mental illness, but moral injury.

Van der Kolk writes that “Being able to feel safe with other people is probably the single most important aspect of mental health; safe connections are fundamental to meaningful and satisfying lives.”

But the legal system, as it stands currently, is built for conflict, not safety. For those whose childhoods were unsafe, its constant combat feels grimly familiar. The adrenaline of litigation mimics the chaos of early life, keeping the nervous system in perpetual fight-or-flight.

This breeds moral injury, which is the pain of acting against one’s values. Lawyers begin to feel complicit in a culture that prizes victory over a higher Truth, and efficiency over empathy. As Maté notes:“When we disconnect from our authenticity, we lose our vitality. And when we lose our vitality, illness begins.”

Childhood Trauma in clients and the courtroom

Courtrooms are crowded with unspoken trauma histories. A defendant’s hostility may be a shield against the toxic shame that is synonymous with childhood Trauma. A claimant’s volatility may mask deep childhood abandonment wounds. An opposing counsel’s rabid dog-like aggression may echo childhood battles for control.

Without trauma awareness, these reactions are misread as defiance, manipulation, or dishonesty. Every misunderstanding deepens the adversarial divide, and this is as wide, desolate, and dangerous, as 'No Mans land'. Wilson Kanadi wrote "Those who judge will never understand, and those who understand will never judge".

Dr Maté explains that“Trauma is not what happens to you, it’s what happens inside you as a result of what happens to you.”

When childhood Trauma goes unseen, lawyers absorb its echo. They react instead of responding, and attack instead of understanding. The entire legal system becomes an endless hall of mirrors, with each person’s pervasive pain reflecting another’s.

Spiritual teachings on not judging others

Whatever the problem, spirituality has the answer. All your problems are due to living from your ego mind instead of your true Self. Judging is the domain of the ego.

Jesus, the great teacher, brilliant philosopher, and spiritual master, said in Matthew 7:1-6 “Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you. Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye. Do not give dogs what is sacred; do not throw your pearls to pigs. If you do, they may trample them under their feet, and turn and tear you to pieces."

Conclusion

The law’s extends a hidden invitation to psychospirituality for the healing of childhood Trauma. It has been hidden due to stigma around mental illness and a desire by lawyers to appear invincible, like a child wearing a superman costume. The great philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche talked much about the ‘superman’, writing “All beings so far have created something beyond themselves. Do you want to be the ebb of that great tide, and revert back to the beast rather than surpass mankind?" In this he highlighted the psychospiritual philosophy of nurturing and choosing to show up as one’s higher True Self, overcoming one’s self (the ego) is essential to human existence and a rejection of the alternative of stagnation. Ironically, tellingly, and in the ultimate example of ‘do I say not as I do', ‘Nietzsche, according to Dr Jung, was unable to free himself from his giant ego’s chains and died from mental illness.

Dr Van der Kolk reminds us about how childhood Trauma is stored in the body that “Once you start approaching your body with curiosity rather than with fear, everything shifts.” So too with law. When we approach it with curiosity and compassion rather than fear and competition, it can begin to heal.

And perhaps then, as Dr Maté writes “We can begin to live the Truth of who we are, rather than the story of who we were taught to be.” For the legal world, that truth is clear: The time has come to remember its heart.