Traditionally it has been left to poets and novelists to unravel and discuss the relation between metaphoric language and the experience of insight. The psychological and psychoanalytic commentary on this relationship is fragmentary and implicit. This paper offers both clinical and empirical data which leads to the speculation that novel metaphoric language constitutes not only the contents of specific therapeutic insights but also the thematic interface upon which psychotherapy procedes . A clinical demonstration illustrates the simple co-occurence of a patient coming to insight while communicating with his therapist in a highly figurative manner. This is followed by an experimental study in which metaphoric language and therapeutic insight, both of which are defined operationally, are investigated quantitatively and qualitatively. The conclusions of this empirical study validate clinical impressions. Apt novel metaphors concretize troublesome experiences and function heuristically. In doing so the patient comes to experience insight. Insight is achieved by verbalizing implicit experiences in novel figurative expressions and then by working out the implication of such communications over time.

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