ABSTRACT

Psychological counselling, or psychotherapy, is a key component of intervention for many mental health conditions including mood (e.g. bi-polar), anxiety (e.g. obsessive-compulsive), and adjustment disorders. The many different types of psychotherapy (Prochaska & Norcross, 2009) share the nickname ‘the talking cure’ since treatment occurs in a conversational setting where the therapist attempts to understand and help modify feelings, values, attitudes, and behaviours which are thought to underlie the client’s condition (Meltzoff & Kornreich, 1970). The typically abstract nature of these matters suggests the potential therapeutic utility of metaphors, which may be used to conceptualize and express the abstract in terms of the concrete (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980, 1999). As McMullen remarks (1996, p. 251), therapists and clients often ‘struggle to find words’ to convey ‘difficult-to-describe sensations, emotions, psychological states, and views of self’. Metaphors used in this type of situation may also provide fascinating material for language and discourse analysts interested in the complexities of figurative speech and thought in social interaction (McMullen, 2008; Tay, 2014b). Consider the following exchange between client and therapist. Stretches of language which are metaphorical according to the criterion of contrast and comparison between basic and contextual meanings (Cameron & Maslen, 2010; Pragglejaz Group, 2007; Steen, Krennmayr, Dorst, & Herrmann, 2010) are underlined.