Chapter published in:
The Language of Crisis: Metaphors, frames and discourses
Edited by Mimi Huang and Lise-Lotte Holmgreen
[Discourse Approaches to Politics, Society and Culture 87] 2020
► pp. 231–254

Co-constructing ‘crisis’ with metaphor

A quantitative approach to metaphor use in psychotherapy talk

Mental health professionals and their patients often use figurative language like metaphors to depict complex cognitions and emotions that lie at the heart of personal crises during psychotherapy. While qualitative analysis of these metaphors is crucial, understanding usage patterns that develop over time requires complementary quantitative techniques. This chapter illustrates an exploratory log-linear analytic approach to the relationships between speakers, functions, targets, and phase of occurrence of metaphor vehicle terms over 29.5 hours of Chinese psychotherapy talk. The use of factor maps as a data visualization tool is also discussed. Variable associations are interpreted as usage patterns highlighting the nature of metaphor co-construction in psychotherapy. Key discussion points include interactions between time, institutional roles of speakers, and prevailing discussion topics.
Keywords: metaphor, psychotherapy, counseling, Chinese context
Published online: 16 July 2020
https://doi.org/10.1075/dapsac.87.08tay
References

References

Altman, Douglas G.
1991 Practical Statistics for Medical Research. London: Chapman and Hall.Google Scholar
Angus, Lynne E. and Korman Yifaht
2002 “A Metaphor Theme Analysis: Conflicts, Coherence and Change in Brief Psychotherapy.” In The Verbal Communication of Emotions: Interdisciplinary Perspectives, ed. by Susan. R. Fussell, 151–165. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Barlow, Jack M., Pollio, Howard R., and Fine J. Harold
1977 “Insight and Figurative Language in Psychotherapy.” Psychotherapy: Theory, Research and Practice 14 (3): 212–222. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Blenkiron, Paul
2010 Stories and Analogies in Cognitive Behaviour Therapy. West Sussex: John Wiley & Sons.Google Scholar
Cameron, Lynne, and Maslen Robert
(eds.) 2010 Metaphor Analysis. London, UK: Equinox.Google Scholar
Ceccagno, Antonella, and Basciano Bianca
2007 “Compound Headedness in Chinese: An Analysis of Neologisms.” Morphology 17 (2): 207–231. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Cirillo, Leonard, and Crider Cathleen
1995 “Distinctive Therapeutic Uses of Metaphor.” Psychotherapy 32 (4): 511–519. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Cohen, Joel E.
1988 Statistical Power Analysis for the Behavioral Sciences. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Elliott, Gregory C.
1988 “Interpreting Higher Order Interactions in Log-Linear Analysis.” Psychological Bulletin 103 (1): 121–130. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Ferrara, Kathleen W.
1994 Therapeutic Ways with Words. Oxford Studies in Sociolinguistics. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Field, Andy
2013 Discovering Statistics using SPSS (4th ed). London: Sage Publications.Google Scholar
Gelo, Omar Carlo G.
2008 Metaphor and Emotional-Cognitive Regulation in Psychotherapy. A Single Case Study. Ulm: Ulmer Textbank.Google Scholar
Gelo, Omar Carlo G., and Mergenthaler E.
2003 “Psychotherapy and Metaphorical Language.” Psicoterapia 27: 53–65.Google Scholar
Gilbert, Nigel G.
1993 Analyzing Tabular Data. Loglinear and Logistic Models for Social Researchers. London: UCL Press.Google Scholar
Greenacre, Michael, and Blasius Jorg
(eds.) 2006 Multiple Correspondence Analysis and Related Methods. London: Chapman and Hall. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Hill, C. E., and Regan, A. M.
1991 “The Use of Metaphors in One Case of Brief Psychotherapy.” Journal of Integrative and Eclectic Psychotherapy, 10 (): 56–67.Google Scholar
Hui, Siu L., Slemenda, Charles W., and Johnston C. Conrad
1988 “Age and Bone Mass as Predictors of Fracture in A Prospective Study.” Journal of Clinical Investigation, 81 (6): 1804–1809. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
James, K. R., and Gilliland E. Burl
2001 Crisis Intervention Strategies. Pacific Grove, PA: Brook/Cole.Google Scholar
JASP Team
2018 JASP (Version 0.10.0) [Computer software]. Retrieved from https://​jasp​-stats​.org
Kimmel, Michael
2012 “Optimizing the Analysis of Metaphor in Discourse: How to Make the Most of Qualitative Software and Find a Good Research Design.” Review of Cognitive Linguistics 10 (1): 1–48. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Kopp, Richard R.
1995 Metaphor Therapy: Using Client-Generated Metaphors in Psychotherapy. New York: Brunnel/Mazel.Google Scholar
Kopp, R. Richard, and Craw J. Michael
1998 “Metaphoric Language, Metaphoric Cognition, and Cognitive Therapy.” Psychotherapy 35 (3): 306–311. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Kopp, Richard, and Eckstein Daniel
2004 “Using Early Memory Metaphors and Client-Generated Metaphors in Adlerian Therapy.” Journal of Individual Psychology 60 (2): 163–174.Google Scholar
Levitt, Heidi, Korman Yifaht, and Angus Lynne
2000 “A Metaphor Analysis in Treatments of Depression: Metaphor as A Marker of Change.” Counselling Psychology Quarterly 13 (1): 23–35. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Li, Ping
2002 “Log Linear Models for the Analysis of Language Acquisition Data.” Journal of Cognitive Science 3: 27–41.Google Scholar
Low, Graham, Todd Zazie, Deignan Alice, and Cameron Lynne
(eds.) 2010 Researching and Applying Metaphor in the Real World. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Lyddon, J. William, Clay L. Alison, and Sparks L. Cherl
2001 “Metaphor and Change in Counselling.” Journal of Counseling & Development 79 (3): 269–274. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
McMullen, Linda M.
1996 “Studying the use of figurative language in psyschotherapy: the search for researchable questions.” Metaphor and Symbolic Activity, 11(4), 241–255Google Scholar
2008 “Putting It in Context: Metaphor and Psychotherapy.” In The Cambridge Handbook of Metaphor and Thought, ed. by Raymond W. Gibbs, 397–411. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Nicaise, Laurent
2010 “Metaphor and The Context of Use: A Multidimensional Approach.” Metaphor and Symbol 25 (2): 63–73. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Norcross, John C.
1990 “An Eclectic Definition of Psychotherapy.” In What is Psychotherapy? Contemporary Perspectives, eds. by Jeffrey K. Zeig and Michael W. Munion, 218–220. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.Google Scholar
Pollio, R. Howard, and Barlow M. Jack
1975 “A Behavioural Analysis of Figurative Language in Psychotherapy: One Session in A Single Case-Study.” Language and Speech 18 (3): 236–254. Retrieved from http://​www​.ncbi​.nlm​.nih​.gov​/pubmed​/1234613
Pragglejaz Group
2007 “MIP: A Method for Identifying Metaphorically Used Words in Discourse.” Metaphor and Symbol 22 (1): 1–39. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Schiepek, K. Günter, Tominschek Igor, and Heinzel Stephan
2014 “Self-Organization in Psychotherapy Testing the Synergetic Model of Change Processes. Frontiers in Psychology 5 (SEP): 1–11.Google Scholar
Semino, Elena
2008 Metaphor in Discourse. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Sims, A. Peter
2003 “Working with Metaphor.” American Journal of Psychotherapy 57 (4): 528–536. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Sourial, Nadla, Wolfson, C., Zhu, B, Quail, J., Fletcher, J…. Bergman, H.
2009 “Correspondence Analysis is A Useful Tool to Uncover the Relationships among Categorical Variables.” Journal of Clinical Epidemiology 63 (6): 638–646. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Stacey, Margret, Batstone Eric, Bell Colin, and Murcott Anne
1975 Power, Persistence, and Change. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.Google Scholar
Steen, J. Gerard, Dorst G. Aletta, Herrmann J. Berenike, Kaal A. Anna, Krennmayr Tina, and Pasma Trijntje
2010 A Method for Linguistic Metaphor Identification: From MIP to MIPVU. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
Stott, Richard, Mansell Warren, Salkovskis, Paul, Lavender Anna, and Cartwright-Hatton Sam
2010 Oxford Guide to Metaphors in CBT. Building Cognitive Bridges. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Tabachnick, G. Barbara, and Fidell S. Linda
2007 Using Multivariate Statistics (5th ed.). Boston, MA: Allyn and Bacon.Google Scholar
Tay, Dennis
2012 “Applying the Notion of Metaphor Types to Enhance Counseling Protocols.” Journal of Counseling & Development 90 (2): 142–149. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
2016 “Finding the Middle Ground between Therapist-Centred and Client-Centred Metaphor Research in Psychotherapy.” In The Palgrave Handbook of Adult Mental Health, eds. by Michelle O’Reilly and Jessica N. Lester, 558–576. London: Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar
2017a “Quantitative Metaphor Usage Patterns in Chinese Psychotherapy Talk.” Communication & Medicine 14 (1): 51–68. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
2017b “The Nuances of Metaphor Theory for Constructivist Psychotherapy.” Journal of Constructivist Psychology 30 (2): 165–181. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
2017c “Time Series Analysis of Discourse. A Case Study of Metaphor in Psychotherapy Sessions.” Discourse Studies 19 (6): 694–710. CrossrefGoogle Scholar
2019 Time Series Analysis of Discourse. Method and Case Studies. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
The Jamovi Project
2019 jamovi (Version 1.0.1) [Computer software]. Retrieved from www​.jamovi​.org
Witztum, Ely, van der Hart Onno, and Friedman Barbara
1988 “The Use of Metaphors in Psychotherapy.” Journal of Contemporary Psychotherapy 18 (4): 270–290. Crossref