Research Report by Joanna Macapagal

Research Report: Lessons From The Little Prince

By Joanna Macapagal, member of The Little Prince Project

Abstract:        

The powerful metaphors found in the book The Little Prince and its relevance to relationships between counselors and child clients is the main focus of this article.  The author, Janelle Cowles, believes that metaphors have the potential to “impact how counselors are in their relationships with clients.”  In this article, she utilizes the metaphors found in the relationship that develops between the Little Prince and the fox in order to illustrate her point.

Description:  

This Professional School Counseling journal article opens with Janelle Cowles citing a few examples of the power of literary metaphors. She briefly discusses how the well-known story of The Ugly Duckling provides a positive outlook for adolescents when dealing with “the struggles of maturing.”  Cowles also effectively illustrates how metaphors can “have the potential power to transform meaning and therefore behavior” by evoking a scene from The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.  Along with these examples, Cowles’ opening paragraphs also include her assertion that metaphors are employed, and have been for many generations, by various people who have taken on the arduous occupations of “influencing the lives of people.”  More recently, “mental health professionals […] are now utilizing [metaphors] as potent interventions in their work with clients.” The importance of the previous examples found in The Ugly Duckling and The Adventures of Tom Sawyer notwithstanding, Cowles posits that the particular metaphors found in The Little Prince have the power to influence and improve the interactions between a counselor and his/her child client. 

Janelle Cowles’ main focus for this article is how the metaphors developed through the interactions between the Little Prince and the fox can offer a positive model for a counselor and child client relationship.  At their first encounter, the Little Prince asks the fox to play with him. The fox tells the Little Prince that he cannot play with him due to his untamed nature.  He explains to the Little Prince:

“To me, you are still nothing more than a little boy who is just like a hundred thousand other little boys. And I have no need of you. And you, on your part, have no need of me. To you, I am nothing more than a fox like a hundred thousand other foxes. But if you tame me, then we shall need each other. To me, you will be unique in all the world. To you, I shall be unique in all the world.” 

The Little Prince thus “tames” the fox by offering patience and being aware of the fox’s needs.  Cowles asserts that “De Saint-Exupery captures an essential feature of the counseling relationship as he describes the necessity of first going through the process of being tamed, [and] of establishing ties with another.”  Furthermore, she says that “stories are a special form of metaphor” and that they “can motivate us, cause us to recall, ponder, and embrace new ideas."

In this metaphor, the Little Prince is analogous to counselors who are eager to accomplish their given task to “fix” a child.  Given time constraints, counselors are inclined to skip “the process of building a relationship with the child client” which is an essential part of the counseling process.  Sadly, counselors have the tendency to simply assume that one automatically develops.  But just as the fox needed to be “tamed” by the Little Prince, Cowles stresses that children clients must also be “tamed.”  Taming or establishing ties with their child client requires the counselor to become familiar with the individual nature of the child by establishing meaningful connections.   Doing so gives the child the opportunity to stand “apart from all the rest.”   Once the child feels that the counselor has established a connection with him or her, the fox “suggests that the counselor and the child will begin to need each other.”  Cowles puts great emphasis on the importance of a genuine relationship between a counselor and their child client.  She says that “an effective counseling relationship creates a unique kind of intimacy.” Likewise to the Little Prince, counselors expect for the child to “play” with them right away in an attempt to omit the process of developing a relationship with the child.  However, the fox illustrates that there are no shortcuts to understanding and that a person only understands what they have been able to tame.

Janelle Cowles effectively parallels the story of the Little Prince and the fox to the necessity of a sincere relationship that must develop between a counselor and a child client.  She states that, “The little prince's encounter with the fox is a metaphor rich with implications for the counselor who works with children. […] What is offered is a way of being with children.” Accordingly, Cowles believes that the counselors who can appreciate and comprehend the metaphors illustrated by the Little Prince and the fox can become masters of the counseling practice. 

Commentary:

This article is useful to the Little Prince Project team in confirming their thesis that the characters of The Little Prince merit close inspection due to their potential to influence people’s lives.  A part of the team’s plan for close analysis is to diagnose the characters with a specific mental ailment based on their actions and dialogue.  In doing so, the characters can serve as psychological models that readers can either deter from or perhaps recognize in themselves and vow to remedy.  This article explains in great detail how a psychological model was constructed based on a couple of the characters.

Using the interaction between the Little Prince and the fox, Janelle Cowles effectively created an exemplary paradigm for counseling children.  She productively paralleled the Little Prince to counselors and the fox to their child clients.  The power that she was able to illustrate from this metaphor shows that scrutiny and close study of these characters can bring to fruition practical models for psychological practices.  The team member who is responsible for analyzing the fox will particularly benefit enormously from this source.  However, the team as a whole can benefit from it as well because of the fact that a couple of the characters were able to be used to create a psychological model.  The analysis offered in this article clearly show how Janelle Cowles came to her psychological model using the dialogue exchanged between the Little Prince and the fox.  In fact, she states the following:

“The little prince's encounter with the fox is a metaphor rich with implications for the counselor who works with children. There is little in the way of technique building in the story. What is offered is a way of being with children. Counselors who understand this way of being with children will have truly mastered the art of the counseling process.”

Stating that The Little Prince and its metaphors can assist counselors to become masters of the art of counseling is a significant claim to make considering that the counseling of children is something that most people want to see done correctly.  Nonetheless, it is a claim Cowles was able to substantiate in this article by analyzing the dialogue.  The team also plans to analyze dialogue exchanged between the characters in the hopes of coming to significant and meaningful conclusions.  This article demonstrates how this can be executed with profitable results.

 Although the team’s thesis or goal is not solely to prove that The Little Prince is of psychological value, this article is nonetheless beneficial because it clearly explains the profound influence two of the characters have had on people.  The values of this source notwithstanding, there are a few limitations with this article.  Because this article only addresses the powerful influence that the Little Prince and the fox have on the paradigms of counseling, it does very little to help the team demonstrate the significance of the other eight characters.  Another limitation is that this source is concerned primarily with the metaphors surrounding the relationship between the Little Prince and the fox.  Cowles does not actually do a close analysis of the characters themselves.

Resources for Further Study:

Cowles, Janelle. "Lessons from The Little Prince: Therapeutic Relationships with Children." Professional School Counseling 1.1 (Oct. 1997): 57-60. Academic Search Complete. EBSCO. [Library name], [City], [State abbreviation]. 18 Feb. 2009 <http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=26566662&site=ehost-live>.

Cumming, Margaret. "The little prince." Therapy Today 19.6 (July 2008): 42-42. Academic Search Complete. EBSCO. [Library name], [City], [State abbreviation]. 18 Feb. 2009 http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=33467601&site=ehost-live.

"In case you haven't heardߪ." Mental Health Weekly 15.39 (10 Oct. 2005): 8-8. Academic Search Complete. EBSCO. [Library name], [City], [State abbreviation]. 18 Feb. 2009 http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=18561374&site=ehost-live.

Lankton, C. H., & Lankton, S. R. (1989). Tales of enchantment: Goal orient ed metaphors for adults and children in therapy. New York: Brunner-Mazel.

Wilcox, Glenn. "The Medium and the Thing Itself." Journal of Architectural Education 58.2 (Nov. 2004): 25-27. Academic Search Complete. EBSCO. [Library name], [City], [State abbreviation]. 18 Feb. 2009