Metaphor Therapy

Using Client Generated Metaphors In Psychotherapy

Richard R. Kopp

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• Topic: Psychology
• eBook ISBN:
  9781134864010
• Subtopic: Mental Health in Psychology
• Index: Psychology

First published in 1995. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

PART I

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THE CREATIVE IMAGINATION IN METAPHOR THERAPY

1

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Through the Looking Glass: Exploring and Transforming Client Metaphors

T he goal of this chapter is to present and illustrate methods for guiding clients on an inner exploration and transformation of their metaphoric imagery. Two methods are discussed. The first is used when clients offer spontaneous, spoken metaphors, the second when clients are not forthcoming with their own spontaneous metaphors.

Consider the following therapy situations.

1. A woman complains to her therapist that her boyfriend is unwilling to change, saying, “I feel like I'm hitting my head against a wall.”

2. A woman diagnosed as having a manic-depressive disorder enters her therapist's office, sits down, and declares, “I feel like one of those balloons” (referring to a poster of hot-air balloons that hangs above the therapist's desk).

3. A man who is addicted to alcohol complains that his wife is not following through on things she has agreed to do. When the therapist asks if he has talked to his wife about his feelings, he replies, “I don't want to open up a can of worms.”

Entering the domain of metaphoric imagery requires a shift in attention from the logical meaning associated with the content of communication to the metaphoric meaning associated with the metaphoric image (i.e., “hitting my head against a wall,” a “balloon,” “opening a can of worms,” etc.). This shift invites clients (and therapists) to pause for a moment and, like Alice entering a land of wonder through the window of her looking glass, wander awhile in the sensory-imaginal world of March Hares and Mad Hatters.

A BRIEF NOTE ON THE “STEP-BY-STEF” APPROACH TO LEARNING THERAPY SKILLS

The following steps are designed to help therapists guide their clients on an inner exploration of metaphoric imagery. They are not intended to be used mechanically, however. Whether the pace is quick or slow, whether we stop on occasion (or frequently) to rest or linger at one step or another, depends on factors such as the degree of trust present in the therapeutic relationship, the degree of psychopathology (or ego strength) of the client, the comfort level of the therapist, the timing of the intervention in relation to the psychodynamics of the client, and the time-frame of therapy (short-term or long-term).

In short-term therapy, where we seek to achieve rapid progress and resolution of a focal problem, the pace is often quick and the steps are completed in a short time period. In contrast, more difficult and complex issues addressed in longer-term therapy may require a slower pace, perhaps taking only one or two steps at a time, extending over a period of one, two, or even several sessions or more. These short-term and longer-term approaches are demonstrated in Chapters 3 and 4, respectively.

Still, I introduce this format with some reluctance, since it is evident that effective therapy can never be reduced to rigid procedures, especially an approach that emphasizes the poetics of therapy: imagery, exploration, novelty, creativity, and metaphor. Experienced therapists, in particular, may feel constrained by a structured intervention sequence. Nevertheless, I encourage you to follow these steps as you begin to use them in your therapy. My experience teaching these methods to both new and experienced therapists suggests that following the protocol outlined in this chapter (and in Chapter 3) is the quickest and most effective way to master these methods and to observe their impact. Of course, once you are familiar with this approach, you can creatively implement these metaphoric interventions in accordance with your own therapeutic style and the unique needs of each of your clients.

An additional advantage of the outlining of a sequence of steps for exploring and transforming spoken metaphors (described below) and metaphoric childhood images (described in Chapter 3) is that these structured interventions serve as manualized training procedures, facilitating skill mastery and offering a replicable procedure for empirical investigation of the efficacy of these interventions and the validity of the theoretical principles/hypotheses on which they are founded.

Use These Methods with Caution

The methods described in this and the following chapters present intensive interventions, which should be used with care and caution. For example, persons with severe Borderline Personality disorders can sometimes become extremely anxious as they explore and transform their metaphoric imagery. As with all potentially powerful therapeutic interventions, these metaphor methods require sound clinical judgment based on solid understanding of psychodynamics and psychopathology.

PHASE 1: THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS-ENTERING THE CLIENT'S METAPHORIC IMAGINATION

Step 1

Notice metaphors! Since we are more accustomed to attending to what a metaphor refers to than to the metaphor itself, therapists have found it useful to practice listening to their own and others' spoken metaphors. With sufficient experience, you'll find metaphors all over the place (including that one).

The therapist can guide a client on an inner exploration of the metaphoric image using the following steps.

Step 2A

The therapist invites the client to explore the metaphoric image, saying, “When you say [the metapkor] what image/picture comes to mind?” or, “…what image/picture do you see in your mind's eye?” or, “Could you describe the [metaphor]?” or, “What does the [metaphor] look like?”

For example, to the woman with the unchanging boyfriend we might say, “When you say you feel like you are hitting your head against the wall, what image occurs to you?” It is important to use the client's words when referring to the metaphor. Note that the therapist invites the client to create a mental image of the metaphor. This is a crucial feature of this approach. It is the client's imagery that is central here, not the therapist's. The therapist guides the process by following the client as the client creates a narrative of her/his own images.

Step 2B

If the client doesn't understand the question or responds by continuing to describe or refer to the life situation instead of describing the metaphoric image, the therapist can say, “If I were seeing it [the metaphoric image] the way you see it (in your mind's eye), what would I see?'”^*

For example, to the woman who complains that her boyfriend is unwilling to change, saying, “I feel like I'm hitting my head against a wall,” the therapist could say, “If I were seeing you hitting your head against the wall as you see it in your mind's eye, what would I see?”

If the client fails to respond to the above prompts, the therapist can ask, “May I tell you the image that occurs to me when I hear you say [the metaphor]?”

For example, the therapist might say to the woman mentioned above, “Well, may I tell you the image that occurred to me when you said you are hitting your head against the wall?” [Client says “Yes”.] “Well, I saw a wall about six feet high made of bricks and you running toward the wall with your head down, then hitting it and falling down, getting up, stepping back a few yards, and then repeating the process over and over. Does that fit for you or do you have/get/want to create a different image in your mind's eye?”

The therapist knows that the client has shifted to the domain of creative metaphoric imagination when the client creates a unique inner image using the language of sensory-affective imagery.

For example, the dialogue between the man (C) who complains that his wife lacks follow-through and the therapist (T) might proceed as follows:

C:	We have more unfinished projects around our house than a fly has eyes. She can't seem to finish anything.
T:	Have you talked to her about how you feel about it?
C:	No. I don't want to open up a can of worms.
T:	When you think of opening up a can of worms, what image comes to mind?
C:	Umm. Well, I see them squirming out of the can and crawling all over the place.

By creating the unique image of worms “squirming out of the can and crawling all over the place,” the client moves beyond the original metaphor (and metaphoric image) of “not opening a can of worms” and enters the domain of his creative metaphoric imagination. The next step is for the therapist to guide the client on an inner exploration of the metaphoric image.

PHASE 2: CURIOUS-ER AND CURIOUS ER-EXPLORING THE CLIENT'S METAPHORIC IMAGINATION

Step 3

The therapist invites the client to explore the metaphor as a sensory image. A metaphor can be explored along the following dimensions: (1) setting (e.g., “What else do you see?” or, “Describe the scene or an aspect of the scene [associated with the metaphoric image]?”); (2) action/interaction (e.g., “What else is going on in [the metaphoric image]?” or, “What are the other people [in the metaphoric image] saying/thinking/ doing?”); (3) other additional sensory modalities (e.g., “What else are you hearing, smelling, touching, tasting?”); and/or (4) time (e.g., “What led up to this?,” “What was happening [just] before [the situation in the metaphor]?, “What happens next?”).

In practice, usually only a few of these directions will be explored in any single metaphoric intervention. The therapist chooses the most relevant questions based on the clinical situation.

Step 4

Once the exploration of the...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Full Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Foreword
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction My Husband Is a Locomotive: Client-Generated Metaphors and Metaphor Therapy
• Part I. The Creative Imagination in Metaphor Therapy
• Part II. Weaving the Tapestry: Toward an Integrative Model of Metaphor and Psychotherapy
• Epilogue The Pattern That Connects: Metaphoric Structure in Mind and Nature
• References
• Name Index
• Subject Index