Hearing Metaphor: An Approach to Working with Family‐Generated Metaphor

Abstract

This article presents a step-by-step approach to working with family-generated metaphor in family therapy. Although the use of therapist-generated "therapeutic metaphors" has been widely advocated and practiced for many years now, less attention has been paid to the metaphors used by family members. We argue that the family's metaphors are a neglected linguistic resource in family therapy. Highlighting and validating these metaphors produces a therapeutic conversation in which the voices of family members are heard more clearly by the therapist, and the families' own imaginative energies are engaged in defining and pursuing the goals of therapy. Several case examples illustrate the use of this approach with children of various ages.

Bodily experience as both source and target of meaning making

“…In the case of the former, source concepts should be mostly prepared by therapists, typically in the form of stock metaphors and analogies which can be presented to patients when attempting to explain abstract concepts such as the nature of psychological disorders (Blenkiron 2010;Stott et al 2010). In the case of the latter, the most useful source concepts are deemed to be those which originate from patients themselves, and therapists should acknowledge and help develop these into therapeutically useful metaphors (Kopp & Craw 1998;Sims & Whynot 1997). However, both therapist and patient-centred perspectives agree that source concepts should be external to the immediate therapeutic situation.…”

At the heart of cognition, communication, and language

“…It has long been observed that the constant "struggle to find words" to convey "difficult-to-describe sensations, emotions, psychological states, and views of self " (McMullen, 1996, p. 252) is often alleviated, by both therapists and patients, with the help of metaphors. While there has long been an interest in the role of figurative language in psychotherapy (e.g., Arlow, 1979;Barlow, Pollio, & Fine, 1977;Lenrow, 1966;Rogers, 1978), the advent of cognitivist approaches to metaphor and their seeming promise in helping therapists 'access' and 'modify' conceptual systems has sparked a new wave of interest (e.g., Kopp & Craw, 1998;Stott, Mansell, Salkovskis, Lavender, & Cartwright-Hatton, 2010;Wickman, Daniels, White, & Fesmire, 1999), and opened new doors for the practical application of metaphor theory (Tay, 2012). Of particular concern is how metaphors produced by therapists and patients symbolize, introduce, elaborate, and/or change conceptualizations of therapeutically relevant topics such as emotions, careers, relationships, and the like.…”

“…The first approach focuses on metaphors produced by the therapist. These metaphors arise either spontaneously, or take the form of 'stock images' (Blenkiron, 2010;Stott et al, 2010) prepared beforehand and introduced to patients during therapy. For example, the metaphors of food as fuel and the body as a car can be helpful when counseling an anorexic patient who no longer believes food is necessary (Stott et al, 2010, pp.…”

Practical implications for the development of applied metaphor in adventure therapy

“…Sims and Whynot (1997) articulated seven stages of metaphor development within the family context. The stages are: (1) hearing metaphor; (2) validating; (3) expanding; (4) playing with possibilities; (5) involving others; (6) attending to and selecting the metaphor that will best help the situation; (7) connecting metaphor to the future.…”