The Knight as Patient of the Squire

Many types of non-professional, non-credentialed relationships are seen by laypersons as analogous to those occuring in psychotherapy. This paper takes a leap backwards several centuries and describes two examples of one such type of interaction as portrayed in artistic masterpieces. In Miguel de Cervantes’ novel, “Don Quixote,” an elderly, depressed man pursues a restitutive and grandiose delusion of being a heroic knight errant. In Ingmar Bergman’s film, “The Seventh Seal,” a disillusioned knight returns from the Crusades to face the lethal bubonic plague, and he uses obsessional means in an attempt to outwit death. Both men are accompanied by squires who try, with varying degrees of success, to help their masters relinquish their infantile needs for omniscience and omnipotence, accept their human limitations, and deal more appropriately with their surrounding realities. The powerful and inspiring insights of both works have much to teach contemporary therapists whose patients wear more metaphorical suits of armor.