Once upon a time, there were five blind brothers living together in a peaceful little village. Surrounded by lush vegetation and bright tropical flowers, their village was nestled in a beautiful valley protected by majestic mountains. A babbling brook running through the valley provided cool, clear water for all. The rich soil made farming easy and productive. Days in the valley were warm and sunny; nights, just right for restful slumber. All in all, life was good.

Almost as if to compensate the brothers for their lack of vision, nature had granted them great intelligence. As respected wise men, they were asked to teach at the village school. The villagers, in return, provided the brothers with hearth and keep. Now, being very smart, the brothers knew a great deal about a great many things… a great many things that is, except elephants. Amazingly, they knew almost nothing about elephants. They had heard of them, of course, but they had never actually encountered one, and the fates had seemingly conspired to keep them from learning about them in other ways. But that was about to change.

On a particularly fine day, while taking their usual afternoon walk about the village, the five brothers stumbled upon a friendly elephant the villagers had left in their path. As luck would have it, each brother encountered a different part of the elephant. The first, found the elephant’s trunk. “Finally!” he exclaimed, “Now, I understand elephants. They are just like big snakes.” The second wise man, holding the elephant’s ear, had made a different discovery. “What are you talking about, brother? Isn’t it obvious to you that elephants are actually like giant leathery leaves?” The third wise man, having wrapped his arms around a leg of the elephant, piped in, “Say what?! Are you both screwy? How could you delude yourselves into believing that an elephant is anything other than a tree-like creature… that hops!”

By this time, the fourth brother was relaxing against the elephant’s side. “I’m surprised and disappointed by you three,” he said, sadly shaking his head. “Have you taken leave of all your senses? Can you not see that an elephant is like a huge, breathing drum”? The unfortunate fifth brother had come upon the elephant from the rear, and was reluctantly holding its tail. “Any realistic view of an elephant,” he pontificated, “will admit that an elephant is nothing more than a hairy rope that smells bad and produces falling chunks of odoriferous, mushy paddies. Yuk!! Icky!”

At this point, the brothers, each having stated his honest opinion based on objective observation, proceeded to argue about who was right. The elephant, having more important things to do, happily shuffled off in search of some nice ripe fruit… leaving the five brothers to their deliberations.

As far as I know, they are arguing to this very day.

What meaning does our story illustrate for you?

If we use our story as a model, we might imagine that our experience will typically be limited to a particular point of view. Like the blind brothers in the story, we may grasp one particular aspect of a situation and ignore all others — as if there is only one “truth” and any other point of view is, at best, “wrong”. Unlike the story, in real life we do not randomly select our point of view. Rather, we come to situations full of predisposing biases, or beliefs, that we carry with us.

In our story, each brother has a valid perspective on, or understanding of, the elephant. What makes the brothers look ridiculous is not so much their limited perspective as it is their inflexibility. Each seems incapable of accepting the idea that there might be other valid aspects of an elephant. One of the tell-tale symptoms of mental health problems is inflexibility. And in this case, what is true for individuals is also true for relationships: inflexibility can create serious issues for a relationship.

I will leave you, for now, with this question: what might the brothers have done that would have improved their understanding of elephants?

In the physical world, you probably live in some sort of structure you call home, the place you hang your hat. In the psychological world you also have a home, a psychological structure we call “mind”. As most home owners know only too well, your physical home will occasionally benefit from a dose of home maintenance. Individual therapy is home maintenance for your mind, while couples therapy is home maintenance for your relationship. There are countless maintenance projects one might do around a physical home. Likewise, there are countless personal and relationship issues that might be resolved therapeutically. There are different types of work that might be done on your home: e.g., carpentry, plumbing, electrical, heating and air conditioning. Similarly, there are different types of work (therapies) that might be done on the home between your ears: e.g., cognitive, behavioral, psychopharmacological, psychoanalytic. Some physical home maintenance projects are simple, like oiling a squeaky door, or changing a burnt out light bulb. Others are more complex, like adding entire new rooms. The same thing is true of personal issues: some are quick and relatively easy to resolve, others are more complex.

In what other ways might therapy be like home maintenance? Well, suppose it comes to your attention that you are paying considerably more than your neighbors on your heating bill, and yet you still feel cold almost all winter. That won’t do. You know something is wrong, but you may not know exactly what it is, or how to fix it. If you are sufficiently chilly and annoyed, however, you might decide to call in a professional repair guy or gal. Once they have looked things over, it may turn out that the professional only needs to make a minor adjustment to your furnace in order to drastically improve your heating issues. Or, they may discover your issue calls for more extensive remedies: new doors, windows, insulation, furnace… all are likely to help. Which, if any, of those you decide to pursue will depend upon your motivation and resources. In a similar way, you may notice that you are working harder than your acquaintances at building relationships, but nonetheless are significantly less successful. Again, you know something is wrong, but you may not know what, or how to fix it. In this case, if you are sufficiently motivated, you might consult a therapist. After talking things over, the therapist may only need to help you adjust a few beliefs, or learn a few new skills, in order to drastically improve your relationship behavior. Or, they may uncover numerous beliefs that need updating if you are to be transformed into the love machine you want to be.

Therapy is like home maintenance in another way. When things go wrong, the sooner you take care of them, the better. It might even be argued that regular mental health/relationship check-ups are an excellent idea. After all, you tune up your car and visit the dentist almost every year. When is the last time your head or relationship had a “check up”? Are they any less important than your car or teeth? Cars are expensive, you might think. But how expensive is an unhappy relationship… or a divorce? How much is your happiness and the welfare of your family worth?