Rabbi Nachman, Milton Erickson and the Turkey Prince
Common sense uncommon healing
This is a guest post from the JPF family by Ruchama Feuerman, author of IN THE COURTYARD OF THE KABBALIST. A “sophisticated and engaging” novel of three innocents drawn into a criminal scheme in modern-day Jerusalem (The Wall Street Journal).
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Rabbi Nachman, Milton Erickson and the Turkey Prince
By Ruchama Feuerman
Rabbi Nachman of Breslev was a Hassidic Master who lived in the 18th century and was famous for his elliptical stories and parables.
He wrote, “If you believe you can destroy, believe that you can fix.” Here is his story, “The Turkey Under the Table”
There was a prince who thought he was a turkey, so he spent his days naked under a table, pecking at whatever crumbs or bones fell his way. His heartbroken and distraught parents, the king and queen, called in every doctor to heal their son from his madness to no avail. One sagacious person though asked for and got permission to befriend the prince and undertake his own brand of cure. The sage then removed his clothes and joined the prince naked under the table, clucking and pecking away at the crumbs.
One day the prince said, “Who are you, and what are you doing here?”
Being a Jewish sage, he asked, “And who are you?”
“I’m a turkey,” said the prince. The sage said, “I’m a turkey, too,” and they hung out together and became accustomed to each other’s company.
After some time elapsed, the sage motioned to the king’s servants to fetch him shirts. Before the prince noticed, the sage threw on the shirt, then said to the surprised prince, “What makes you think a turkey can’t wear a shirt? You can wear a shirt and still be a turkey.” The prince thought a moment, then put on the shirt, too. After a while, the sage signaled for the servants to bring trousers. Before putting them on, he said to the prince, “You know, you can be a proper turkey and wear pants, too.” The sage’s words appealed to the prince and the prince began wearing trousers. In this step-by-step way, the sage encouraged the prince to eat regular food and get out from under the table, all while insisting that he could eat whatever or go wherever he wanted and still be a proper turkey.
The sage went on like this until the prince behaved like a human being.
***
Here’s my guess as to why the sage succeeded where the other doctors failed. After getting permission from the prince’s parents — can’t forget that — he then makes himself identical to the prince, mirroring him in every way. In today’s parlance, he’s joining, meeting the young man at exactly the place where he mentally and physically resides. At the same time, the sage doesn’t seek to ingratiate himself or make contact until the prince speaks to him first. In today’s psychological terminology, it’s called ‘respecting the contact function.’ Only after some time passes and they’ve formed a connection, does the sage offer mild suggestions in a friendly casual tone that the prince is free to consider or reject. The sage understands that the prince holds his Turkey identity dear, and makes sure to not tamper unduly with it, never requiring the prince to view himself too differently from how he sees himself. (Again, in today’s parlance, not making ego-assaultive demands.)
The parable lends itself to vastly different interpretations. Some say the sage and turkey prince are one, capturing the inner dynamic of a person, and the necessity to foster a dialogue between one’s rational and irrational selves. I’ve also seen interpretations that compare the prince to the soul sent into this earthly world that has forgotten its beauty and what it was sent to accomplish. The sage then gently woos the soul to what its mission might be. Google and find many interpretations. Someone wrote an entire book on the parable, if you’re interested.
So did the Turkey Prince get healed, or did he still see himself as a fowl, albeit with good adaptation skills? The parable suggests that it doesn’t matter. The sage understands that external actions will trickle down and influence the prince far more than any discussion or analysis or flat-out coercion might. The parable puts forth a classic Jewish concept: the external arouses and profoundly influences the internal.
*
The above Turkey Tale conjures up for me the legendary Milton Erickson, a psychiatrist/psychologist who was famous for his unconventional methods. As an example, and there are so many, he once approached a psychotic man in a hospital state ward who claimed to be Jesus Christ. If memory serves me right (the story appears in “Uncommon Therapy” by Jay Haley), the man did nothing all day long but mumble and rock from side to side. Erickson said, “So I understand you have some experience as a carpenter,” a well-known fact about Jesus that the man couldn’t deny, and Erickson found a way to use the man’s side-to-side motions to saw and then build bookshelves for the hospitals, eventually drawing the man out of his shell.
The Milton Erickson story I relate to most, though, is of the young woman who was too scared to take a bus. (This took place in the 1940s, I believe.) She had fallen in love and become engaged to a young man and needed to travel to him by bus in order to get married. Every attempt to take a bus though ended with her collapsing in panic. Erickson didn’t analyze the root cause of her fear of buses — or perhaps her fear of marriage — but instead instructed her to walk backward toward the ticket booth, purchase a ticket, and still walking backward, head toward the bus, board it, and go down the aisle, still walking backward till she seated herself. Upon arrival, she was to deboard from the bus, again walking backward. The young woman was so preoccupied with following his instructions and trying to avoid falling that she elided her fear of busses altogether and managed to arrive safe and perfectly sound to marry her fiancé.
What a cool and useful concept. The power of being indirect. Walking backward, tricking and distracting yourself all the way to achieving your goal.
I first encountered these stories of Rabbi Nachman and Milton Erickson in my early twenties and was entranced by their focus on practical solutions, and the playfully strategic way they went about it. Their deceptive simplicity made me think, foolishly — hey, maybe I can do this! Or if not heal someone, at least get them out of a pickle.
Maybe that’s what led me to volunteer in a psychiatric ward which was a short bus ride from my apartment. No, I didn’t remotely heal anyone there, but later, an interesting situation fell in my lap.
Some pertinent background. I’d been living in Jerusalem and going on blind date after blind date — or shidduchim, as they’re called in my religious circles. I was not seeking a boyfriend but an old-fashioned husband. I wanted the whole package — love, children, Shabbat meals, guests at the table, magic and tradition. But why was it so hard to find this elusive man? Even as I pushed myself to go out more often, I got pickier. I didn’t want to date any oldest whose next sibling was a sister. These men, I found, were primed to be hypercritical of women. On the other hand, they tended to be responsible and take charge, which I also liked. On and on I analyzed. Yes, it was exhausting and joy-depleting to date this way, but my parents had divorced, and I guess I thought if I paid attention to these things, I could outwit the odds of a bad marriage.
One day a certain friend from childhood — we’d gone to the same summer camp — visited me in my Jerusalem apartment. She — I’ll call her Bella — had been the most pious one in the bunk, but there was something a little too fervent and off-kilter in her religious devotion, too. She came to tell me she was engaged. Before I could think Lucky her, she blurted that she couldn’t stand the fellow. I was startled and even a little fascinated. I couldn’t recall a time she’d ever said she couldn’t stand anything.
“So ditch the guy,” I stated the obvious.
The problem was, she explained, every time she tried to break it off, something terrible happened: She got fired, her purse got stolen, she fell down a few stairs and broke her wrist. As a result, Bella couldn’t bring herself to end the engagement, because she was terrified of what would happen next.
My mouth dropped. Unbelievable. I mean, not that I didn’t believe those bad things were happening to her. But did she really think she could control the future, depending on how she behaved? And what if, the day she broke up, there was a mudslide in Malibu or Wyoming? Was that on her, too?
Her rabbi, parents, teachers, friends, and everyone told her that these mishaps were a pure coincidence, and to think otherwise was pure superstition, and in fact contradicted the Torah. Bella agreed with all their points, but it didn’t make a difference. She was too scared to break up.
I felt for her, sure, even as I found myself getting annoyed. Why had she gotten engaged to someone she couldn’t stand in the first place? Must be desperate, I thought. Then I caught myself. Wasn’t I also hellbent on getting married? And wasn’t I trying to determine and control the future, too, with my obsessive analysis?
I thought then of the sage in the turkey tale and Milton Erickson, their compassion and humility, and sheer inventiveness. How they both stripped themselves of judgment and ego, how went beyond their very roles as rabbi or doctor, to achieve a radical empathy with the ones who needed help. But empathy alone wouldn’t do the trick. The troubled woman, prince, and Jesus wannabee needed someone who was totally with them and yet totally separate, someone who could see ahead and guide them through their particular circumstance.
I said, “You have two separate problems on your hands. One is, you’re engaged to a man you don’t want to marry. And two, terrible things keep happening to you when you try to break up. So you’ve already resolved the first problem. You don’t want to marry that guy, and you’re not going to. I think you know that.” I looked at her. She hesitated, then nodded.
Then she said, “But how am I going to stop those bad things from happening?”
“I have no idea,” I admitted. “But that’s a separate matter. First, break up with the guy, and then go to a kabbalist” — a mystic type rabbi — “and see what he suggests.”
Relief came over her face as if by separating the two issues, I’d uncoupled her demons.
She ended the engagement and went to a kabbalist who gave her various prayers to recite and good deeds to do — maybe to distract her? — and the matter resolved itself.
The funny thing is, in liberating Bella, I liberated myself. I realized I was putting too much pressure on myself to marry. It would happen when it would. And it did.
The above is my homage to the sage (a stand-in for Rebbe Nachman) and Dr. Erickson who both wanted to connect with the human condition without regard to glory or (excessive) recompense.
Who Was Rav Nachman of Breslov? | My Jewish Learning
What You Can Learn from Milton Erickson’s Therapy Strategies Beyond ‘Just’ Hypnosis (unk.com)
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