Insight and figurative language in psychotherapy.

Abstract

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.

Studying the Use of Figurative Language in Psychotherapy: The Search for Researchable Questions

“…Further support for the co-occurrence of metaphors and insight was reported by Hill and Regan (1991). In their study, however, this relation pertained to the therapist's judgments of his own intentions, rather than to judgments about the client's behavior as was the focus in Barlow et al (1977). That is, Hill and Regan found that the therapist's use of metaphors co-occurred more often than chance with his self-rated intention to encourage insight (i.e., an understanding of the underlying reasons, dynamics, assumptions, or unconscious motivations for cognitions, behaviors, attitudes, or feelings) on the part of the client.…”

“…In an early investigation of the use of figurative language and the occurrence of insight, Barlow et al (1977) analyzed the same highly successful hour that was analyzed by Pollio and Barlow (1975). They identified two patterns in the transcript of this hour.…”

Dominance and Nurturance in the Figurative Expressions of Psychotherapy Clients

“…In early studies (e.g., Barlow, H. R. Pollio, & Fine, 1977;McMullen, 1985; H. R. Pollio & Barlow, 1975), researchers relied on the distinction between novel figures (those considered by the receiver to be original contributions within the context of the speaker's communication) and frozen figures (cliched expressions or those words and phrases that are commonly used, accepted parts of speech, such as the legs of a chair), with novel figures judged to be of most signrficance for the tasks of therapy. This distinction is now considered by some researchers (e.g., Amira, 1982; McMullen, 1989) to be an inadequate way of selecting instances for analysis because not all novel figures are implicated in the tasks of therapy and many frozen or conventional figures are indicators of major themes in therapy.…”

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.…”