ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the author visits a qualitative research study of therapists' literary reading. The "self" of the therapist is an essential tool in this approach. This perspective on personal/professional development is a generic one, coherent with many therapeutic modalities and with training philosophies which recognise and value the particular combination of skills and knowledge required to practise the art of therapy. The link between one person's distress and the transformative power of the mountaineering metaphor was intuitive, using the literary resource brought by one individual to gather and orchestrate the group response. Figurative language underpins the bridge between the reality of the everyday world and the intentional "irrealisation" of literature. Figurative language constructs, like the complex of talk around the mountain and mountaineering metaphors above, were identified and their elaboration mapped. The author also visits the notion that literary reading in particular, and the arts in general, both generate and depend upon a "different world" of consciousness and association.
