Stigmatization of persons with leprosy causes the emotional harm of social, economic and spiritual deprivation. Individual counselling has benefits in addressing these psychosocial problems but is a slow process and effects few people at any one time. Our experience of group counselling of stigmatized persons achieved the following: addressing common issues to more than one person at a time, encouraging the unity of sufferers, developing compassion for others, understanding the common effects of stigmatization, and beginning to overcome its harmful effects. A man who is isolated and alone can be regarded as a sort of discarded person. He is a man cast out of society, and that type of man, in the old days, would have been killed. Let me say this-and I say it very seriously: there is nothing worse than being isolated. Dinizulu, King of the Zulus, c. 1910 Humans are holistic beings with intricately intertwined parts. Healing an illness such as leprosy has multiple facets, as we look to cure the disease and heal the fear and despair that its diagnosis and stigma engenders. Emotional pain is inflicted upon its sufferers as they are avoided, rejected, and treated as if they were animals. Their own confusion and self-doubts bring on suicidal thoughts and depression. Spiritual pain is endured as they are forbidden to enter places of worship due to the prevailing belief that the disease's aetiology is their 'sinful ' state. Economic pain ensues due to reduced ability to work from nerve damage, rejection by their employers or being put out by their family. Health education about the disease, drug treatment and self-care are important factual and objective reason-orientated aspects of the healing process. However, these alone will not heal the deep-seated wounds that years of rejection have inflicted upon the person's emotions and spirit. To heal these deeper wounds people need healing of their personhood or self-image. 1 'Many tears have been shed. Those they have loved have turned against them. Now the way back seems hard and hazardous, and the heart shrinks from the prospect of yet another rebuff at the end of the effort.' 2