ABSTRACT
For the past 10 years my research team and I have been exploring the role and functions of metaphoric expression (Angus, 1996; Angus & Rennie, 1988, 1989; Levitt, Korman, & Angus, 2000; Levitt, Korman, Angus, & Hardtke, 1997; Rasmussen & Angus, 1996, 1997) in the context of the psychotherapeutic dialogue. For these studies we have employed an expansive definition of metaphor (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980) in which figurative expressions are viewed as evoking a conceptual and experiential transaction between contexts of meaning. In accord with writers such as Black (1977), Richards (1936), and Turbayne (1970), this transaction between contexts is also viewed as transformative such that a new way of seeing or viewing the world is created.
