“Flying over the crisis”: A study on interdisciplinary metaphors of resilience

Abstract

Background/Aim: Metaphors on theoretical concepts may be congruent or divergent from their explicit definitions. We carried out a secondary qualitative analysis on metaphors of members of an interdisciplinary research group on resilience and investigated: (A) Which metaphors do experts in different disciplines use to describe people showing resilience? (B) Do these (implicit) metaphors support the (explicit) theses of the research group on resilience? (C) Do we find differences between experts from different disciplines in the use of metaphors on resilience? Method: Nine guideline-based interviews with experts from medicine, psychology, philosophy, and theology were studied using a systematic metaphor analysis, basing on inductive and deductive categorizations. Results: Eight metaphor sources were identified, for example, battle, path. Experts used similar metaphors to describe resilience that often overarched the concepts of resilience as a trait, process, and outcome. Moments of vulnerability within the resilience trajectory were found. Conclusions: The analysis revealed high concordance of metaphors across different disciplines, reflecting both the ideas of the group as well as the mainstream view of resilience. This supports that implicit concepts may be more difficult to reframe than explicit theories. Few differences between disciplines may point to the impact of an overarching Western concept of individual resilience.

‘We are all in the same boat’: a qualitative cross-sectional analysis of COVID-19 pandemic imagery in scientific literature and its use for people working in the German healthcare sector

“…The challenges of COVID-19 were also reflected in the language used to describe the pandemic. Linguistic imagery (e.g., metaphors, similes, personifications) was widely used in professional ( 14 – 17 ), political ( 18 – 20 ), and media ( 18 , 21 , 22 ) communication to describe the COVID-19 virus and the difficulties associated with a global pandemic. Imagery relating to struggle and war (e.g., physicians as warriors, virus as enemy) were particularly prevalent ( 14 , 18 , 20 , 23 – 25 ).…”

“…Imagery relating to struggle and war (e.g., physicians as warriors, virus as enemy) were particularly prevalent ( 14 , 18 , 20 , 23 – 25 ). However, other imagery regarding transformative processes, e.g., “People who have suffered through the crisis are different, than they were before” ( 17 ), but also fear and uncertainties, e.g., “It’s like cancer. Because you say I will not catch it, but if you don’t take precautions, it can kill” ( 15 , 26 ), were also used frequently.…”

“…Past research has also shown that seriously ill patients found it helpful when healthcare professionals used metaphors in their conversations ( 29 ). For a general overview of the use of metaphors in the healthcare sector, see ( 17 ).…”