Metaphor in Psychotherapy

A descriptive and prescriptive analysis

Dennis Tay | The Hong Kong Polytechnic University

Hardbound – Available

ISBN 9789027202055 | EUR 90.00 | USD 135.00

e-Book –

ISBN 9789027271617 | EUR 90.00 | USD 135.00

This book represents a bold attempt to address contemporary issues in both metaphor and psychotherapy research. On one hand, metaphor research is increasingly concerned not just with describing metaphors in discourse, but how they could be used more adroitly in purposive ‘real world’ contexts such as psychotherapy. On the other hand, while a growing number of mental health professionals believe that metaphors contribute in some way to the psychotherapy process, their ability and willingness to use metaphors might be compromised by a relative unfamiliarity with the various nuanced aspects of metaphor theory. The present analysis of metaphors in authentic psychotherapeutic talk brings these theoretical aspects to the forefront, and suggests how they can be applied to enhance the use of communication of metaphors in psychotherapy. It should be of interest to metaphor researchers, mental health professionals, and discourse analysts in general.

[Metaphor in Language, Cognition, and Communication, 1] 2013. vii, 211 pp.

Publishing status: Available
Published online on 15 July 2013

https://doi.org/10.1075/milcc.1

Table of Contents

1. Introduction: A metaphor renaissance | pp. 1–12

2. The nature of psychotherapeutic discourse | pp. 13–46

3. The ideational resources of metaphors: Embodied, cultural, and individual-specific knowledge | pp. 47–74

4. Metaphor types and the rhetorical development of metaphors | pp. 75–104

5. Metaphoric consistency and variability as therapeutic discourse strategies | pp. 105–122

6. From therapeutic discourse to the discourse of therapy: THERAPY IS A JOURNEY as a discourse metaphor | pp. 123–148

7. The co-text of metaphors: Discourse markers as signalling devices | pp. 149–170

8. Summary, emergent themes and future directions | pp. 171–182

Name index | pp. 205–208

Subject index | pp. 209–211

“[A]n insightful contextualised analysis of metaphors in a discipline which has concerned itself with their utility in clinical practice.”

Julia T. Williams Camus, University of Cantabria, in Metaphor and the Social World Vol. 5:2 (2015)

“Tay’s book is one of the relatively rare publications in the field of metaphor research with a truly interdisciplinary perspective. Tay displays great expertise in both discourse analysis and psychotherapy, and his book is a fountain of knowledge and inspiration for readers whose research interests lie in metaphor, psychotherapy and discourse analysis in general.”

Wen Ma and Yijin Wu, Shandong University, P.R. China, in Discourse Studies, Vol. 17:4 (2015), pp. 493-495.

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[no author supplied]

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This list is based on CrossRef data as of 25 october 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.

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