Metaphor in psychotherapeutic discourse: Implications for utterance interpretation

Abstract

The difficulty we have in talking about feelings and emotions without making use of metaphorical language is often noted in discussions of metaphor within cognitive linguistics and it has led to interesting claims about how we conceptualise and think about emotions. Yet, these observations have had little impact so far on pragmatic theories of metaphor processing which typically work with more de-contextualised examples of language. This paper examines figurative expressions in two passages from attested psychotherapy exchanges where explicit use is made of metaphor for therapeutic purposes. The elaborated metaphorical utterances found in these transcripts of "emotion talk" are used to assess the explanatory adequacy of a current pragmatic theory, namely the "ad hoc concept" account of metaphor proposed within Relevance Theory. In line with Carston (2010), I argue that when interpreting these extended metaphors the literal meaning of the expressions in question is entertained and metarepresented as descriptive of an imaginative conception which represents the utterer's attempt to understand his/her emotional experience. By focusing and reflecting on this metarepresented literal meaning, the client, together with the therapist, is able to draw out implications that can provide insights into his/her own feelings, reactions and behaviour. The use of psychotherapeutic discourse to support this line of argument confirms the need for pragmatic theories of metaphor to be supported by data from a range of discourses.

Critical, conceptual, and collaborative perspectives on metaphor and mental health

“…The complementary work of language analysts focuses on the characteristics of metaphor and other linguistic elements in therapist-client talk, without necessarily answering questions about their efficacy and effectiveness (McMullen, 2008;Tay, 2013Tay, , 2014b. These characteristics include source and target domains used by specific client groups (Charteris-Black, 2012;McMullen & Conway, 2002), the rhetorical development of metaphorical mappings in extended metaphors (Ferrara, 1994;Needham-Didsbury, 2014;Tay, 2010), and the co-textual elements that accompany and inflect metaphors in different ways (Tay, 2011(Tay, , 2014a(Tay, , 2018.…”

Time series analysis of discourse: A case study of metaphor in psychotherapy sessions

“…Psychotherapy is a verbal activity where therapists apply clinical methods and interpersonal stances to assist clients to modify their behaviors, cognitions, emotions and/or other personal characteristics (Norcross, 1990). There are many different types of psychotherapy, but their common linguistic nature has made it a prime context for studies of language and interaction from a variety of theoretical perspectives, ranging from conversation analysis (Peräkylä et al, 2011) to pragmatics (Labov and Fanshel, 1977;Needham-Didsbury, 2014) and sociolinguistics (Ferrara, 1994). Reciprocally, the potential clinical implications of such analyses have also been highlighted in the psychotherapy literature (O'Reilly and Lester, 2016;Spong, 2010).…”