The Blind Men and the Elephant

Lessons for Avoiding Psychological Blindness in Psychotherapy and in life.

There’s a lot that can be learnt from short-stories and nursery rhymes, even in the context of psychotherapy. In the children's book, The Blind Men and the Elephant, Lillian Quigley retells the ancient fable of six blind men visiting the palace of the Rajah, where the men encounter an elephant for the first time. As each man touches the animal with his hands, he announces the qualities he believes the animal to have.

The first blind man puts out his hand and touches the side of the elephant. "How smooth!  An elephant is like a wall."  

The second blind man puts out his hand and touches the trunk of the elephant. "How round! An elephant is like a snake."  

The third blind man puts out his hand and touches the tusk of the elephant. "How sharp!  An elephant is like a spear."  

The fourth blind man puts out his hand and touches the leg of the elephant. "How tall!  An elephant is like a tree."  

The fifth blind man puts out his hand and touches the ear of the elephant. "How wide! An elephant is like a fan."  

The sixth blind man puts out his hand and touches the tail of the elephant. "How thin! An elephant is like a rope."

A heated argument ensues with each blind man insisting that their perception of the elephant is the correct one. The Rajah, awakened by the commotion, calls out from the balcony. "The elephant is a big animal," he said. "Each of you touched only one part. You must put all the parts together to find out what an elephant is like."

Enlightened by the Rajah's wisdom, the blind men come to an agreement. "Each one of us knows only one part. To find out the whole truth we must put all of the parts together.".

Why is this relevant to psychotherapy?

As the ancient Greek Philosopher famously said,“The whole is greater than the sum of its parts”. What he means by this is that something is better as a combination or team of things, rather than narrowly looking at the individual things which form it. We can apply this to the human body and even to the practice of psychotherapy. For example, if you’re anxious, we shouldn’t just state the symptoms, but look into the factors which are contributing to this anxiety. To deny these factors or to put things down to just one thing, is often at the expense of oneself. 

What can we learn from this?

In the context of The Blind Men and the Elephant, if we only diagnose the cause of anxiety, it’s like misplacing the rope for the elephant, or worse, treating the elephant’s tail while the root cause is actually situated elsewhere.

We can even learn from the tale when we position it around couples. In order to live as a partnership, partners must learn to understand one another and put the pieces of the jigsaw puzzle together. 

Understanding psychological blindness

We call this misdiagnosis as psychological blindness; something we always want to avoid in counseling and psychotherapy, to ensure we sufficiently address the cause. Instead, we take a multidisciplinary approach, meaning we consider all angles in order to sufficiently understand what is happening from within. Together we look into all of the thoughts, feelings, and behaviors which are manifesting as our symptoms, no matter how varied and contradictory these may seem against one another. In addition to this, we also assess the environment we are currently living in and consider those environments even from our childhood.

We can use addiction as an illustration of this. For someone suffering from addiction (whether that be gambling, drugs, or other detrimental behaviors), simply treating their habit (e.g. removing the substance) will not help the patient identify and understand their triggers, posing the threat that they will relapse later on or exchange this addiction for another negative habit. It’s therefore critical that we seek out multiple perspectives for any form of progress to be against internal conflicts such as depression, anxiety, infidelity, emptiness, addictions, etc.

Therapy could be that place where through talking, sharing, and examining different perceptions, one can discover the missing pieces of the jigsaw puzzle and start to understand the whole of oneself. Our team is here for you to speak to in confidence, no matter what stage of the process you’re at, at any time of day. Get in touch here for a completely confidential chat to discuss how we can help you.