Strawberry feel forever: understanding metaphor as sensorimotor dynamics

ABSTRACT

Metaphor is a useful way of explaining how to do things. The literature on metaphor in the learning of physical skill has generally explicated its efficacy by examining its actionable directives for motor enactment. And yet from the perspectives of phenomenological philosophy, ecological psychology, and enactivism, action is immanently intertwined with perception, so that models of metaphor-based learning should foreground the role of sensory activity modulating motor behavior. As such, metaphor is retheorized as a sensorial constraint one imaginarily projects into one’s action–perception phenomenological landscape. I present two metaphors from an instructional video on cello technique. Whereas these metaphors are couched in action language (what one should do), their potential impact, I argue, lies in emergent goal sensations (what one should feel). These explorative sensorimotor accommodations may, in turn, bring forth yet new scopes of latent sensations coupled to unanticipated performance possibilities, which suggest further modifying and calibrating enactment in the target domain. Attending to, achieving, and maintaining emergent intermediary goal sensations regulates instrumented action by forging new affordances that bring forth new motor coordination. As teacher and student co-imagine images for action, they should attend to sensory perceptions. And the same goes for scholars of metaphor.     

The Language of Siege: Military Metaphors in the Spoken Language of Social Work

Correspondence to Chris Beckett, School of Community Health Studies, APU, East Road, Cambridge CB1 1PT, UK. E-mail: c.o.beckett{at}apu.ac.uk Summary This article discusses the language that is used by childrenand family social workers when talking about their work, andspecifically the metaphors that such language draws upon. Thequestion of the relationship between language and reality thathas been raised by postmodernist theory is considered, but itis argued that it remains sensible to see language as ‘areflection of reality’, however partial. Drawing on ideasabout metaphor from other disciplines, it is suggested thatby identifying the sources of metaphors used in spoken languageit is possible to gain insights into underlying mental concepts.Metaphors in the language of social work are found to come fromseveral sources, including medicine, business and industry,but attention is drawn here in particular to terms with militaryconnotations, implying underlying conceptual metaphors thatequate social work with war. The implications of this are discussed.     

E-Nose for News?

ABSTRACT

Many journalists claim to have a “nose for news.” This metaphor, where a body part is used in a transferred sense for metaphorical change has occupied a central place in journalists' discourses. It appears to express something essential about their identity, profession, practice, and how they “see” and experience the world. This article uses the figure/ground approach of Marshall McLuhan to inform an exploration of the “nose for news” metaphor. By studying the “nose for news” we can understand how and why electronic noses and the Internet have made this once vital and living metaphor obsolete. We can also discover ways to reanimate this metaphor in order to: (a) help recover something of the essence of journalism expressed by journalists' claims to possess a “nose for news,” and (b) re-conceptualize the current “crisis” in journalism.     

Resistance in infusing minority content in social work education

Abstract

The familiar language of codependency, while it represents an effort to name and articulate pain, has become a mythology in which the leading characters are defined as victims and as sick. This paper describes the historical evolution of the concept of codependency and discusses the dysfunctional dynamics in families that are seen as the origins of codependent behavior. An alternate language for describing such families is offered.     

The Third Time Was the Charm

Abstract

A therapist's three experiences as a recipient of psychotherapy have led her to appreciate the ways in which one therapy informs another. She examines what may be learned from a less than successful therapy. She reflects on several lessons she has learned from her own therapieslessons that have shaped her as a clinician. In particular, she notes that when the therapist and patient are remarkably similar in their values and strengths, the therapist needs to take great care that key issues are not glossed over or mishandled.     

Interpreting the Countertransference Erection

Abstract

This essay examines the interrelationship between internal experience of therapists and that of their clients in the conduct of psychotherapy. The position taken is that of relational theory, and clinical case material is used to illustrate the discussion.     

It Is Called a Mother Tongue for a Reason: A Qualitative Study of Therapists' Perspectives on Bilingual Psychotherapy—Treatment Implications

This article is a qualitative study that explored therapists' understanding of the role of language in psychotherapy with bilingual clients. Among the findings were that it is typical for bilingual clients to switch back and forth between primary and secondary languages in psychotherapy, as their narratives are often expressed incompletely in a second language. Bilingual clients tend to return to their mother tongues when expressing strong affects, in their dreams, or when dealing with death or trauma. They may also use their first language as a defense against painful material. Interviewees concurred that bilingual clients express different values or even identities in different languages. Finally, language was reported to be a factor that influenced the therapeutic alliance, as, encoded in language, were issues of trust, idealization, and hostility toward the psychotherapist.     

Message in a Bottle

Abstract

This qualitative study explores the meanings of taking antidepressant medications as well as their impact above and beyond their psychopharmacological action. The data were collected from face-to-face, audiotaped interviews with eleven people who took antidepressant medication and were engaged in psychotherapy with a non-physician therapist. My analysis yielded themes that clustered around five categories: (a) stigma and antistigma, (b) dependency, (c) biology and depression, (d) choice, control, power, and social systems, and (e) antidepressants and psychotherapy. Implications for practice and training are discussed.     

Abstracts of theses: Smith college School for social work 1945

Abstract

This paper examines various psychoanalytic conceptions of trauma, including ideas associated with classical psychoanalytic theory, object‐relations theory, self‐psychology and continuous construction theory. Clinical issues germane to the psychotherapy of children are then discussed and a clinical vignette presented. The vignette focuses upon the psychotherapy of a 10‐year‐old boy, with particular attention given to the narrative discourse that evolved in the course of the boy's therapy. The evolution of the child's narrative is illustrated through the use of transcribed material derived from different phases of the boy's treatment.     

Being the Only One: Finding Connection through the Shared Experience of “Otherness”

ABSTRACT

There is a noticeable paucity of clinical resources that help clinicians of color to name and navigate the multitude of challenges in working through racial, cultural, and power differences in psychotherapy with White clients. African American therapists rarely receive adequate preparation for clinical practice in identifying, addressing, and working through transference and countertransference reactions in racially mixed dyads. The author highlights the challenges she faced early in her career with addressing racial and sociopolitical differences as an African American female clinical social worker providing individual psychotherapy to her older White male client whose traumatic experience focused on racial issues.     

Abstracts of theses,July 1955: Smith College School for Social Work

Abstract

This commentary amplifies the dynamic strategies in Message in a Bottleto consider in working with clients who seek to augment psychotherapy with psychopharmacologic treatment. This commentary also addresses how to evaluate and enhance psychotherapy outcome independent of medications and reviews some of the factors which contribute to positive treatment outcome. In order for clinicians to resist the pervasive colonizing effects of the medical model, this commentary reevaluates some of the claims that medications seem to promise and reinforces data which demonstrate that psychotherapy remains a safe and effective first-line treatment.     

Psychotherapy as Sacrament: The Therapist as Prayerful Reader,the Client as Sacred Text

The author suggests a number of corollaries between practices of contemplative Christianity and concepts found in psychodynamic psychotherapy. The act of looking upon the suffering of another – so central to both contemplative Christianity and psychotherapy – is compared to the monastic spiritual practice of lectio divina, the meditative reading of sacred texts. The practice of psychodynamic psychotherapy is conceptualized as a vocation to the contemplative life.     

List of tables

Abstract

This paper details a model of intermittent psychotherapy defined as a sequence of time-limited psychotherapies over an extended period of time. The model emphasizes the importance of relationship, careful assessment of short-and long-term client needs, focused work in successive stages, attention to termination while maintaining connection, and planned follow-up contact. To support the intermittent model, a new conceptualization of termination is offered, allowing for maintenance of client-clinician connection. Selection and exclusion criteria are discussed, as are necessary skills for the treating clinician. A case example illustrates application of the intermittent model. A careful review of the pertinent research literature on time-limited therapies is included.     

Maybe We Should Just Shut Up: The Body as an Important Consideration for Group Work Practice

ABSTRACT

This article explores the role of the human body as an important consideration for group work. It discusses six concepts related to how the body can be paid attention to and utilized within the realm of practice. These concepts include the idea of the body as related to the sense of self; physical experience as metaphor; the body as a barometer of group experience; shared physical experience and group cohesion; physical experiences and behavior; and the notion of somatic intelligence and communication. Examples of each are discussed from the lens of the author's practice.     

Psychotherapy with Alcoholic Patients

Abstract

This paper demonstrates how use of the empathic mode in outpatient psychotherapy helped an alcoholic patient reduce his denial of the severity of his illness. Both the general psychoanalytic literature and, in particular, the self psychology literature concerning treatment of alcoholics is reviewed and evaluated. This paper also examines in depth how the empathic mode functions to promote selfobject transferences, which facilitate internalization processes that may lead to a reduction in the alcoholic patient's need to rigidly maintain his denial of the illness. The complexity of the relationship between alcoholism self-help groups and the professional psychotherapy community is also explored.     

Breaking the germline barrier in a moral vacuum

ABSTRACT

In November 2018 a Chinese scientist claimed to have used CRISPR/Cas 9 technology to genetically modify two human embryos that were then gestated in one adult woman through an IVF pregnancy and brought to term. The twin girls are allegedly the first babies born with their prenatal genomes edited. Using both English language and Chinese supporting documents, this paper discusses the background of this human experiment, the social context of Chinese science, and the alleged ethical transgressions of its principal scientist.     

Meaning making and playing in psychoanalytic therapies

Abstract

This paper explores Freud's idea of the transference as a playground, and Winnicott's assertion that psychotherapy is a subspecies of play. In the context of what those authors called “intermediate” space, a person discovers ways of interpreting or attributing meanings to inner feelings, thoughts, and being as he engages in dialogue with others. Whether with children or adults, psychoanalytic therapies have developed a specialized form of playing in the service of this necessary communication with another, as the case examples will illustrate.     

Abstracts of Doctoral Dissertations, 2005 Smith College School for Social Work

Abstract

This essay reflects on personal transformative experiences as explored using ideas from transformative learning, developmental perspectives and the practice of spiritual direction. This reflects the multi-disciplinary, relationally based perspectives that are useful in exploring transformation when spirituality is an essential dimension of understanding the meaning of critical incidents or events in one's life. Using the metaphor of spinning a kaleidoscope to identify memories that elucidate critical transitions in a personal narrative, there are memories from childhood, early professional life and recent events which afford an opportunity to revisit and explore the meaning of those events. The essay provides insight into the practice of spiritual direction that has similar parallels in clinical practice. These parallels include: the importance of attending to the relationship; of paying attention to one's own stillness and silence; and of engaging the other in owning the transformative power of insights from their explorations.     

Formalizing the Unformalized: Practitioners' Communication of Knowledge in Practice

Correspondence to Dr Jennifer Osmond, School of Human Services, Logan Campus, Griffith University, University Drive, Meadowbrook, Queensland 4131, Australia. E-mail: j.osmond{at}griffith.edu.au Summary Despite considerable debate in the literature, social work continuesto invest considerable analytical and empirical energy on understanding,recognizing and critiquing the nature and form of its knowledgebase. Although such contributions have advanced the discussion,what is largely absent but essential to this debate is an understandingof how practitioners actually express what they know. This paperfocuses specifically on this issue and in so doing, advancesone template for working with practice language. From a qualitative,multi-method research methodology, it was found that participants'communication of their knowledge was not always formal and labelled.Knowing could be expressed via examples, stories, metaphor,as well as understandings that resembled existing theoreticalknowledge or that which had been reformulated and synthesizedin practice. The paper emphasizes the necessity to recognizethis diversity in knowledge communication, so as to accuratelyand responsibly map actual practice knowledge, but in doingso, also raises the issue of addressing limitations that suchrecognition brings. The issue of competent and clear practicearticulation is a topic to which the profession should giveserious attention. The inability of practitioners to explicitlyarticulate the basis of practice behaviour places them at aconsiderable disadvantage in a competitive labour market.