Using Metaphors In Psychotherapy

Philip Barker

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781135063764
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: Psychotherapy
• Index: Psychology

Published in the year 1982, Using Metaphors in Psychotherapy is a valuable contribution to the field of Psychotherapy.

1

Metaphor: A Time-Honored Way of Communicating

THE STORY OF ANNE

Anne was a bright and ordinarily happy 12-year-old who had, in the past, done well at school. Recently, however, her performance had dropped off, and she had lost interest particularly in her social studies class which she described as “boring.” Her parents, naturally concerned, discussed the matter with other family members, including their own parents.

One day Anne was visiting her maternal grandmother, a wise woman and the mother of six successful adults. During their conversation Anne mentioned that she found her social studies class boring and wasn’t doing well in it, something the grandmother had already heard about from Anne’s parents. “Gran,” as Anne called her, listened carefully to her granddaughter’s account of her troubles at school but said little for the moment.

A week later Anne was at her grandmother’s again.

“How are things at school?” asked Gran.

“The same,” replied Anne laconically. “Miss Beaton’s still behaving like an old cow. [Miss Beaton was Anne’s social studies teacher.] I hate her. She makes things so boring.”

“Would you like some ice cream?” Gran asked. “I’ve got some of the kind you like.” Gran knew that Anne had a particular liking for vanilla ice cream with chocolate chips in it and had bought some in anticipation of her visit.

Anne readily accepted her grandmother’s offer, and Gran gave her a large helping of her favorite ice cream. And as Anne sat there eating Gran started to tell her a story.

“I once knew a boy,” she said, “who lived at the seaside. This was when your mother was about your age and we lived in Devon. This boy—his name was Charles and he was about 13—came from a good family who cared a lot about him. On the whole he got along well with his parents, who thought he was a pretty good kid. But there was one problem between Charles and his parents. His parents liked to go for walks along the seashore; they did this almost every day and they expected Charles and his 9-year-old sister, Diane, to go with them. Diane still enjoyed the walks but Charles was starting to find them dull and boring. Whenever he could find an excuse to stay at home—like having a lot of homework to do—he did so, but he still ended up going on the walks most days.

“Then one day Charles, who was walking with his head hung down, well behind the others (to show his parents he was bored and in a sulk at having to be there), began to notice the seashells on the beach. He reached down and picked one up. It was quite small, reddish in color, and very pretty, Charles thought. As he walked, trailing behind his parents, he noticed other shells. There were shells of different shapes, sizes, and colors. Some were whole and in good shape, others were slightly damaged and incomplete, and still others were little more than broken fragments.

“By the time the family got home Charles had collected about a dozen shells of several different types. He took them to his room and examined them. He found himself wondering where they came from, what their names were and what kind of shellfish they had been.

“The next day Charles went to the school library and found a book on shellfish. He took it home and compared the shells he had with the pictures in the book. He was able to discover the names of about half of them. He knew now that he had to find a bigger book that contained more details about shells, so he asked his parents to take him to the public library. Here he found a much larger selection of books and picked out two that provided a lot more information than he’d found in the school library.

“Charles was now properly into shells and shellfish. He even became pleased when his parents asked him to go for walks along the shore, as this gave him opportunities to find more shells, or specimens in better shape. Over the next few months he became quite an expert on shellfish. He did a successful science project on them at school, entered the science fair, and won first prize in his class. And his walks along the seashore were no longer boring.”

WHAT IS METAPHOR?

Collins Dictionary of the English Language (Hanks, 1979) defines a metaphor as “a figure of speech in which a word or phrase is applied to an object or action that it does not literally denote in order to imply a resemblance.” This dictionary cites as an example the phrase “He is a lion in battle.”

Turbayne (1970), in his book The Myth of Metaphor, prefers Aristotle’s broader definition:

Metaphor consists in giving the thing a name that belongs to something else; the transference being either from genus to species or from species to species or on the grounds of analogy.

Turbayne advocates making Aristotle’s definition wider still. Pointing out that metaphor need not be expressed in words, he suggests that Aristotle’s “name” could mean a sign or collection of signs. Thus, Michelangelo used the figure of Leda with the swan to illustrate being lost in the rapture of physical passion, and the same figure of Leda, but without the swan, to illustrate being lost in the agony of dying. Similarly, blackboard diagrams, the toy blocks children use to represent battles, or the raised eyebrow of an actor may all be regarded as metaphorical expressions.

Turbayne (1970) concludes, following Aristotle’s definition, that the model, the parable, the fable, the allegory, and the myth are all subclasses of metaphor. All can, of course, be taken literally. To the uninitiated, Michelangelo’s Leda is just a feature of a painting, and Newton’s concepts of “force” and “attraction” are literal truths. What Turbayne, a literary scholar and not a therapist, fails to consider is that a person may take a metaphor literally on the conscious level, while on the unconscious level perceiving its symbolic meaning. It is on this assumption that the clinical use of metaphorical communication is based.

The story Anne was told by her grandmother is an example of the use of metaphor. The grandmother started by establishing rapport with Anne (a process discussed further in Chapter 11); the metaphorical part starts with the paragraph beginning, “I once knew a boy. …” Charles represented Anne. The attitude he took while walking along the seashore was a metaphor for Anne’s current attitude towards school, particularly her social studies classes. But then one day Charles discovered that there were, after all, interesting things about the seashore, namely the many varieties of seashells. What had been a dull and boring activity suddenly took on a new perspective. Some things he had formerly totally overlooked—the shells—proved to have great interest for him, and his growing interest in them, and its rewards, are described quite fully.

This story was designed to suggest, metaphorically, that there might be interesting things about social studies which Anne had hitherto overlooked. She had proved resistant to being told to work harder, and to explanations that what she was supposed to be studying was important and interesting, so Gran had the excellent (but of course not original) idea of conveying the points she wished to make metaphorically.

In the psychotherapy literature also the term “metaphor” has been given a broad meaning. Gordon’s (1978) Therapeutic Metaphors, for example, is devoted largely to explaining how to construct and deliver long stories with metaphorical meanings in the course of psychotherapy. In addition, therapists sometimes use objects (as in the metaphoric object described by Angelo, 1981) and activities (Papp, 1980) that may have metaphorical meanings.

THE USE OF METAPHOR IN RECORDED HISTORY

Metaphor has been an essential feature of human communication from time immemorial. Stories and anecdotes have long been used to convey specific messages; they are easy to apply in the course of psychotherapy. For this reason, they will be emphasized in this book, although several other metaphorical devices will also be discussed.

One of the earliest recorded stories is to be found in the Bible. The Book of Job, which appears in both Christian and Jewish scriptures and which probably dates back about 2500 years, is about God, the Devil and Job, a good and God-fearing man. The Devil challenges God to allow him to tempt Job to sin, hoping to get Job to abandon his trust in God. God accepts the challenge, subject to the condition that the Devil must spare Job’s life.

Job subsequently experiences many kinds of personal disaster. He goes from a condition of great wealth to one of abject poverty, losing not only his material possessions but his family and his own personal health. In long discussions with three friends he agonizes: Should he abandon his faith in God, who has allowed this desperate situation to come about? Has God deserted him? What shall he do?

Like the best stories, the Book of Job is spun out to provide the maximum dramatic effect, but the outcome is that Job remains faithful to God and in the end is rewarded by even greater wealth and more sons and daughters than he had before.

Many people regard the Book of Job as a piece of fiction—divinely inspired fiction, perhaps, but not an account of actual events. They see it as a piece of Jewish folklore, written to illustrate a truth about God and his relationship to human beings. Others, including many evangelical Christians, take it at its face value, believing it to be literally true.

For many people, the importance of the Book of Job, like that of much religious writing, lies in the message it carries. Those who argue over whether it is literally true may miss the point of the story—that God is ultimately in charge, that his will finally prevails, that those who believe in him will not be tempted beyond the limits they can withstand, and that faith in God has its eventual rewards. And what a compelling way of making these points! Much more persuasive than simply stating them, as we have just done.

Jesus taught in parables, stories powerful enough to have survived 2000 years. Characters from these stories, like the Good Samaritan and the Prodigal Son, have become part of our everyday vocabulary.

Greek mythology, like other mythologies, abounds with stories that are rich in symbolic meaning; the tale of Daedalus and Icarus is a good example.

Daedalus, a prince of Athens, was a skilled craftsman, the work of his hands being the pride of the gods. He was an architect, a sculptor, a builder of ships, a carpenter, and also the first plumber. One day, while he and his son Icarus were visiting the Island of Crete, Daedalus helped his cousin, Theseus, escape death. Minos, King of Crete, intended to sacrifice Theseus to the Minotaur—a monster, half man, half bull—but Daedalus showed Theseus how to find his way out of the labyrinth in which the latter was confined. The king was furious and ordered Daedalus’s arrest and imprisonment. Minos knew that even if Daedalus got out of the labyrinth he could not escape from the island, for all departing ships were searched.

Daedalus concluded that, since the king controlled the land and the sea, the only avenue of escape open to him was the sky. He began to study birds and the structure of their wings. He set his son, Icarus, to trapping seagulls and plucking their feathers, and when there were enough feathers, Daedalus skillfully sewed them together and made four wings that resembled those of giant birds. Using melted wax, he attached each wing to a wooden framework. Then he fastened one pair of wings to his own arms and the other to those of Icarus.

Day after day Daedalus and his impatient son, Icarus, practiced flying. Daedalus was a cautious man as well as a clever one and he did not want to embark on a flight across the sea until he and Icarus were skilled at flying and until their muscles were strong enough to last the journey.

At last the two men could fly with almost the same grace as birds. It was time to escape from Crete. Daedalus instructed his son as follows:

“You must steer a middle course,” he said. “Don’t fly too high or the sun may scorch your feathers or melt the wax of your wings. And don’t fly too low or the mist from the sea will cling to your wings and make them too heavy for you to lift. I will lead and you must follow closely behind me until we get to the shores of Athens.”

Daedalus and Icarus then rose gracefully into the air. At first Icarus followed closely behind his father, but as he grew more confident he went higher and higher. No man had ever been so high before. As Icarus got nearer and nearer to the sun, its hot rays melted the wax holding the feathers to his wings. As the feathers fell off, he started dropping down. He flapped his wings faster and faster, as his father had taught him, but there were no longer enough feathers to hold him up.

Icarus called to his father to save him, but there was nothing Daedalus could do. He could only watch his son plunge to his death in waters which have since been called the Icarian Sea.

This was the end of man’s first attempt to fly. A heartbroken Daedalus flew on to Sicily, where he vowed never to fly again.

This story, even in this abbreviated form, is full of symbolic meaning. Quite apart from what it says about father-son and ruler-subject relationships, it teaches us the virtues of careful observation and diligent practice and the dangers of overconfidence. In these days when many young people like to get “high” on drugs, the story offers a metaphorical meaning related to the dangers of substance abuse. All these points could, of course, be made directly, but in metaphorical form they have more force and interest than would a series of injunctions about what one should and should not do. Made indirectly, moreover, the points are less likely to be resisted, and the chances of the storyteller being seen as moralistic are much reduced.

FAIRY TALES AND OTHER LITERATURE

Fairy tales and stories are important to most societies, though they go by different names in different cultures. Such narrative accounts tell listeners or readers about the human condition in particularly graphic ways. Long before the neglect, abuse, and exploitation of children became the subject of general discussion and debate, for example, the story of Cinderella said something about the mistreatment of stepchildren. Even the simple and sad tale of Humpty Dumpty carries its message: Be careful what you do because sometimes even the experts can’t repair the damage resulting from ill-judged acts!

Bettelheim (1977) examines the use and value of fairy tales in his book The Uses of Enchantment. Such tales, Bettelheim maintains, are “a unique art form.” The fairy tale not only entertains, it also enlightens children about themselves, fosters their personality development, offers them meaning on many different levels, and enriches their lives in a great variety of ways.

According to Bettelheim, children can learn more about human beings’ inner problems and about adaptive solutions to their predicaments from folk fairy tales than from any other type of story they can comprehend. Fairy tales provide the moral education that children need, subtly and by implication only, conveying the advantages of moral behavior through stories that seem meaningful and right to the child. Fairy tales speak about the “severe inner pressures” within children in ways children unconsciously understand. Bettelheim says such stories “offer examples of both temporary and permanent solutions to pressing difficulties,” without belittling the inner struggles that growing up entails. He goes on to explain:

This is exactly the message that fairy tales get across to the child in manifold form: that a struggle against severe difficulties in life is unavoidable, is an intrinsic part of human existence—but that if one does not shy away, but steadfastly meets unexpected and often unjust hardships, one masters all obstacles and at the end emerges victorious. (Bettelheim, 1977, p. 8)

Bettelheim also points out that the figures in fairy tales are either conspicuously good or bad, virtuous or vile, industrious or lazy, stupid or clever. Such polarization, which is characteristic of the young child’s own thinking, permits the child to understand easily the difference between two extremes. The stories are also so constructed that children identify with the good person rather than with the bad one: The good person is usually more appealing (the “handsome” prince, the “beautiful” princess) and generally triumphs over the bad one.

Bettelheim goes on to discuss a number of...

Table of contents

• Front Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Foreword
• Contents
• Introduction
• Acknowledgments
• 1. Metaphor: A Time-Honored Way of Communicating
• 2. The Place of Metaphor in Psychotherapy
• 3. The Various Types of Metaphor
• 4. Establishing Treatment Goals
• 5. Metaphors for Developmental Problems
• 6. Metaphors for Conduct Disorders and Other Behavioral Problems
• 7. Metaphors for Emotional Problems
• 8. Metaphors for Family Problems
• 9. Metaphors and the Wider Social Context
• 10. Miscellaneous Uses of Metaphor
• 11. The Practical Delivery of Metaphors
• Epilogue
• References
• Author Index
• Subject Index