A few years ago, a young, sturdy and handsome young man came to my clinic, wearing a leather jacket and a helmet in his hand.
The reason for his arrival was, he said, "unclear physical sensations and no medical reason."
As our acquaintance deepened, it became clear that his range of emotions was extremely limited, and that in fact he felt almost nothing.
He said he developed a pattern that avoids feeling because emotions are ineffective and can be very painful.
He trained himself - as a way to survive in life - in effective and adaptive patterns of functioning and emotional avoidance.
The King of Excitement, the protagonist of Inz Levy's book, "Princess Abigail and the Factory of Emotions" (Kinneret Zmora Dvir), also came to a conclusion similar to that of my patient.
The king, who fell into what appeared to be major depression due to the death of his wife, the revered queen, remained lying in his bed for a long time, while completely neglecting the day-to-day management of the kingdom, leading to criminal neglect and civilian atmosphere in the palace.
After many good people have tried in vain to improve his emotional state, Mr. Tykonovich arrives with the 'Indifferent Shoe Emotion Model 6' device, and offers to pump out his feelings, so as not to feel any more sadness, and return to the throne as a functioning king.
This proposal, despite its strangeness and daring, sounds like a last resort that gives a glimmer of hope to the king and the whole kingdom.
Yitzhak Levy concocted for his young readers a fluid, spectacular and very clever legend about the crucial importance of emotions, because we all - so one can be mistaken and think - would have functioned better without the constant obscuration of our emotions that tend to conflict our thoughts and behavior.
Indeed, once the king's feelings are sucked in, he returns to function in a balanced and sharp manner, and "revives" his kingdom in a functional and emotionless way.
The citizens, too, who, as it turns out, were forced to give their feelings to Mr. Tykonovich, also found themselves living rational, prudent, and emotionally free lives.
And behold, the kingdom of excitement has returned to itself as it were.
It is no coincidence that Levy chose the character of the dog - whose name is Lev - to remain the only one from whom his feelings were not drawn.
The dog symbolizes the unmediated ability to express emotion in an authentic, truly raw way.
The plot gets complicated when Tykonovich returns to the kingdom after a while and starts selling emotions to her emotions in cans outlined by emotion.
A can of jealousy, a can of love, a can of joy and so on.
At first the citizens are reluctant to feel negative emotions like sadness and jealousy but Tykonovich, the shrewd merchant convinces them and says: "You drink half a can of nerve, wait an hour and then drink a can of joy, and I promise you it will be the greatest joy you have ever felt. "I recommend. The second can be reduced by half the price."
Responsiveness increases and emotions are bought back.
Abigail, the sensitive and wise princess, is very reluctant to return the emotions, fearing that her father will return to his annoyance and stop running the kingdom again.
But the king is tempted and begins to drink a can of joy, and soon finds himself addicted to the wonderful feeling.
Emotions become addictive.
Although at first life without emotion seemed simpler, but the boredom and technicality of the emotionless life led her emotions to easily become addicted to emotions again.
In his picturesque and clever way, Levy also tells us about the extremes of emotions or rather about emotional regulation, a topic that has become the focus of therapeutic-educational discourse in recent years. Even when the king regained his senses, the extreme joy to which he became addicted led him to dysfunction and lack of interest in his kingdom, as had happened in the past when he fell into abysmal sadness, and so did the rest of the kingdom. "Emotions have destroyed our kingdom. Emotions are our enemy," Princess Abigail tells her father. Already at this point it seems that Abigail, although her feelings have been sucked in, is nevertheless not entirely emotionless, which by the way is wonderfully expressed in Abby Blair's captivating illustrations. His illustrations in the book look like a successful combination of the biblical character and that of Wonder Woman (it is interesting to note her crown, whose central stone is a heart shape but inverted).
While Mr. Tykonovich plots to take over the whole kingdom and demands to erase the dead queen's portrait from the silver coins and imprint in his place his own portrait on the one hand and the picture factory for emotions he developed on the other, Princess Abigail plots to leave the palace and go directly to Mr. Tykonovich's factory.
Abigail - as the daughter of her biblical figure - is endowed with great courage, wisdom and resourcefulness.
In the climactic meeting between Abigail and Mr. Tykonovich, Levy teaches the young reader that emotions are evident on a person's face.
Abigail fails to hide her feelings, which brings us to the insight that even in an imaginary legendary world where human emotions are sucked by a miraculous device, emotions continue to nest in us and float sooner or later.
Levy describes in a charming way how Abigail, despite the storm of emotions in which she finds herself in a conversation with Mr. Tykonovich, still manages to calculate her steps and stick to the goal she has reached.
And even when she seems to be failing in the task, she comes to her rescue who if not her beloved dog, a heart, full of his sincere feelings, as a kind of statement that here the emotion saves the situation, and does not necessarily 'ruin' us always.
Another important thing that happens in this scene is the intimate dialogue created between Abigail and Mr. Tykonovich, in which he shares with her the emotional motives (!) That led him to develop the show emotion.
It turns out that he, too, like Abigail's father, fell into depression and sadness that kept him from continuing to function.
For him it was a disappointed love (only the sensitive and wise reader will perceive that it is his love for the dead queen who preferred the king over Mr. Tykonovich .. so feelings of jealousy and revenge are also involved here).
A touching authenticity of Abigail, in her excited speech to Benny Tarshia, as she returns from the ruined factory, carries an important message from Levy: "Tykonovich wants us to think there are emotions in cans, but each of you feels and can feel without any can. Just like me."
And here in fact Levy connects to the cornerstones of the cognitive-behavioral therapy approach: our interpretation of reality, our thoughts, the way we perceive ourselves, the other and the world, are what ultimately lead to our behavior.
Thoughts rise in parallel with emotions (or some would say thoughts elevate emotions and feelings) and hence our response to reality.
Her emotions realized that they did not need the cans of emotion, that the addiction and dependence they developed in the cans (behavior) is actually the result of a thought that "I do not feel that they have drawn emotions from me so I must drink a can to feel '".
Emotions exist in all of us naturally and constantly and well that way, otherwise we would not have survived, and they serve as an engine and lever for action.
However, emotional regulation, i.e. the right dose of emotions and their balance with judgment and choosing the right behavior for the same situation, is the key to effective functioning and peace of mind.
Ynetz Levy / Princess Abigail and the Emotion Factory, Illustrations: Avi Blair, Kinneret Zmora Dvir, 144 pages