Space for Metaphor

Introduction

Metaphor is so fundamental to the foundation andunderstanding of the psyche that it can be overlooked as a device to be utilized within the therapy. The etymology of the word “metaphor” originates in the Greek “meta-forein” meaning “to bring beyond”. Paul Ricoeur (1986), the French philosopher and psychologist, argues that metaphor works between two systems of language—those of rational thinking and the analogical language of the emotions, imagination and affections. Metaphor works as an “interface”, or “bridge”, between these two languages.

Freud made liberal use of metaphors. Closer examination of his writing suggests, however, that not only did he explain his ideas in metaphorical terms, but he in fact conceived his ideas in metaphor. His work on dream symbolism is entrenched in a logic of metaphor. Further, both Freud and Jung identified the unconscious as communicating psychic material through symbolic representations of three-dimensional objects or constructs. Freud’s dream analysis operated not simply in a metaphorical realm, but specifically in mapping unconscious processes against three-dimensional spatial constructs. He (1976) linked the presentation of a house or building in dreams to a representation of the body, while Jung (1974) linked the presentation of a building with its different levels to various levels of consciousness, both individual and collective. Klein’s theory of Object Relations implicitly depends on the conceptualization of an interior platform upon which internal objects operate. Indeed, systems theorist Bateson (1979) argued that metaphors represent the logic upon which the biological world is built—that metaphor is the main characteristic of the organization of mental processes.

The process of therapy itself is implicitly conceptualized against an array of spatial metaphors. Therapy, generally, is conceived as a “container”, while the therapist is active in making this containment felt through the observation of specific “boundaries”. These “boundaries” rest upon a “platform” of values established by psychological academies, professional ethics, mores and social norms and these comprise set parameters for practice. This “platform” is made up of values such as respect for punctuality and setting, continuity over time and setting, as well as respect for autonomy and confidentiality.

Even when this “platform” is presented to the patient at the outset of treatment, it is often only through the therapist’s repeated recall of this “platform” that these values become “real” or “tangible” or “felt” by the patient. The nature of this engagement between the patient and the therapist’s holding of the “frame” through reflection of the psychological principles underpinning this platform also allows for the development of a co-created awareness of the therapeutic “space”. This constitutes what we might call the unique “floor” or “ground” of therapy and, as tiles rest upon concrete beneath, so this “ground” is laid upon the established “platform” of values and psychological principles.

Similarly on this “ground” the exploration of the arrangement of material brought by the patient begins to elaborate on the constructs within the patient’s psychic space. As this material is explored, the defences against, or fluidity inherent in, this process begin to emerge. These defences and flow can be mapped against the idea of “corridors”, “barriers”, and “thresholds” to entry or “doors”. “Doors”, whether open or shut, are associated with opportunity or barriers to access. Part-open doors may suggest the growing awareness of new possibility both within the therapeutic relationship as well as within the self. “Windows” are long understood to represent the visual bridge between inside and out, whether between self and other or awareness and emerging consciousness. “Windows” bring both welcome light but also threat due to what the light might expose. “Ceilings” might be thought of as a further boundary, but this upper boundary demarcates the limits of each human consciousness in relation to ideas of hope, the divine or a collective unconscious. The relationship between or arrangement of these constructs are unique to each therapy.

Presentation of Spatial Metaphors in Therapy

Not only do spatial metaphors capture the general process of therapy, the use of these metaphors is also uniquely valuable in the therapy session itself. Metaphor is fundamental in the relationship between patient and therapist to communicate what is beyond what is immediately present in order to express something that is “beyond” an immediate logical understanding. The metaphorical modelling of the patient’s interior world can be as useful for the therapy session as the theoretical conceptualization of the psychodynamic process is for the therapist’s own insight. Founded on the metaphoric “platform” of psychological theories and insights, the therapist, in a sense, plots or maps in interaction with the patient both the unique address of the patient’s psychodynamic functioning in relation to a larger collective and, at the same time, models the patient’s emerging representation of the unique “construct” located at this “address”.

Metaphors of space are particularly powerful in this regard and are often spontaneously utilized by patients in efforts to articulate their experience. Attention to this fact does not require that the therapist rigidly yoke systems of metaphor to meaning but, rather, that openness to metaphor and its potential meaning creates the possibility of creative or playful illimination of inner processes in order to create a mutually understood methaphoric world.

Firstly, the ways in which spatial metaphors are used by patients can be indicative of the nature of underlying dysfunction even when such is not indicated in the presenting problem. Secondly, these metaphors assist both patients and therapists in mapping and plotting changes or transitions in the psychological processes. Because of their visual nature, these metaphors also provide a practical way of accessing or linking with material presented in earlier therapy. Thirdly, mutually understood spatial imagery also allows for a co-created languaging of experience that also facilitates a medium for the transfer of insights. Finally, and particularly relevant to the South African context, spatial metaphors also afford a medium between therapist and patient for exploring mutual demarcations of otherwise often invisible cultural differences.

Case material: Spatial Metaphor in Grieving and Bereavement

I have observed in work with patients dealing with unresolved grief or complicated bereavement that they often spontaneously present an array of spatial images that express a common theme. In each of these situations my role as therapist is to pay attention to these large or containing metaphors, which function as flags to the patient’s psychological state as well as to the course of the therapeutic process. The recurrent presentation of metaphors of an enclosed or contained area or a bounded space within which is “housed” a “space of devastation” is a marker both for the nature and extent of the grieving work ahead. It is also indicative of the transference regarding the patient’s capacity for receiving support. Patients speak of entering a location or “site”, a “building”, or a “house”. Often the “door” to entry is significant. There is hesitation, foreboding or terror and a reluctance to enter. The patient finds the door “hard to push”, or it is “stuck”, or may itself be damaged in some way. Yet, unlike as is so often the case with trauma itself, the entry into the room does and must happen. These metaphors repeatedly communicate the idea of contained or private grief, the extent of which is apparent only upon entering a particular space or “crossing a threshold”, the possibility of which must be presented by the patient.

Patients describing interior settings of devastation speak of “collapsed structures”, “debris”, previously functional matter that has now been destroyed or which lies abandoned and without value. The patient may describe a “vast” room or a room that has “imploded” or “a site of catastrophe”. When such images occur spontaneously I have found that reflecting such metaphors back to the patient has made possible the expression of significant previously unexpressed affect. The metaphor offered often becomes the “house” for the feelings within the individual. Previously unspeakable affect now becomes modelled against the physical descriptions of actual features within the metaphorical “area of devastation”, for example, a“collapsed ceiling”, “an imploded floor”, or a “hanging staircase”.

The focus and selection of such images themselves are also redolent with the meanings of, for example, Freud’s dream symbolism, and are indicative of specific parts to the grieving process requiring further attention. Indeed, images of a damaged ceiling have led to reflections on disappointed faith while the gentle exploration in therapy of the image of a room with a “hanging staircase” has almost immediately introduced a focus on the grief of the interrupted sexual partnership. The allusion to “cracks in the walls”, or even particular items in a mass of scattered and broken materials within, have each been indicative of the various “parts” of the grief.

The process of mapping through metaphor an interior space facilitates, over time, the general sense of experience becoming bounded or contained. In this way the metaphor harnesses the unprocessed psychic material and draws it into language, thus facilitating its conversion into conscious and spoken material that is available for reflection and reconstitution through the psychodynamic process. Secondly, the careful recording by the therapist of the patient’s personal stock of imagery of the interior allows material evidence and experiencing of the therapist’s witnessing of the grieving process. Use of these images over many sessions allows for the process of reducing and integrating of the affective charge associated with this material.

Mapping out of these metaphors together also facilitates a useful way for the patient and therapist to mutually acknowledge developments or milestones in the grieving process within this metaphorically represented psychological construct. Over time it is common that the spatial imagery shifts and changes accordingly. Gradually, the “house” is described in a way that suggests some form of reconstitution, or the “room” is described as less chaotic.

The pace of these shifts, as mapped through metaphor, varies between clients. Perhaps the most persistent grief is that of a patient who lost a child. Here, even two years of therapy saw no shifts in the description of the devastated “room” presented at the outset of therapy. However, it was in relation to the “door” to the room that some change was apparent. Whereas the door to the site had, in the earliest metaphoric descriptions, been irrelevant, only a minor detail in relation to the horror within, as time passed this door was given a colour, and a texture, a handle and a key-hole. Significantly the experience of the grief within remained as raw as at the outset of therapy, but the capacity and manner for containing this grief as expressed through metaphor became more substantial.

Attention to spatial metaphor employed in bereavement does require a tentative handling. Single-minded efforts to interpret images can be disruptive to an excruciatingly sensitive process. Metaphors can often apparently be “simple” or transparent with meaning. Sometimes only one such image is necessary for a whole session or a month of sessions, but as they appear the therapist’s task is to engage with these images as unobtrusively as possible. I have found that spatial metaphors return repeatedly in such sessions. It is only with long patience and silence that some of the most delicate nuances or aspects of the image connecting it to the underlying affect are able to emerge. While the “process” of such therapy itself may be clear, its effectiveness is imparted through the repeated surrender to ever more sensitive witnessing. Further, any such metaphors, once explored, should be as easily released by the therapist, as the charge of grief contained in the imagery is released.

Often the patient and the therapist have both noted a loss or even a number of losses in the history-taking but none of the affect is apparent in the patient’s account of these losses. In such cases it has occurred on a number of occasions that spontaneous reflection by the patient on metaphors of an inaccessible interior “space” is indicative of the nature of the problem confronting the therapy. One patient, whose mother had died when she was three, presented as struggling with depression during the final year of school. Despite a recollection of her happy childhood and sense of security in her current family, she described ongoing frustration in exam situations that she “knew the answers to the questions" but that they were "locked away in another room", "just out of reach".

Sometimes the patient may refer to material of this type in different ways, for example; to a “road”, or “pathway” that has been obstructed. There might be allusion to a “door” or “rooms” that are “boarded-off” or simply unvisited, or even “rooms” or a “cellar/basement” that is known to exist but which has never been visited. Such details can be incidental and do not appear to comprise the main purpose of the account. The observation or reflection of these images back to the patient allows her to bring back to awareness an affect that has been disowned. Similarly, language used to describe the patient’s own current or repeated life experience may, as in the case of the patient writing exams, allude to knowledge that is present but inaccessible. In such cases the therapist’s willingness to engage in metaphorical exploration becomes a signal for opportunity for mining these experiences for their links to blocked affect.

Case Material: Spatial Metaphor in Trauma

Among patients experiencing trauma, the metaphors presented are typically connected to the idea of rupture, or disorientation, or disconnection from a larger whole. The common theme is not only that of an internal grief that is contained within the “house”, as it were, (although this type of metaphor may also be present) it is the added feature of metaphors that express a sense of disconnect from the broader collective. This difference is expressed by the idea that, instead of working within what we might call the specific “psychic address” of the patient, the metaphors presented here are more reflective of an experience of dislocation from such an address. These metaphors reflect a house torn from its moorings, or of an entity wandering without a house, or of a landscape or site. The “house” remains representative of the individual while the “landscape” creates the sense of community at large. Further, as a consequence of the damage or destruction to the patient’s sense of safety, metaphors describing space are often subject to rapid expansion and contraction. In these cases typical images encountered at the outset of therapy might be represented by “enormity” or “vastness” as well as by “unfamiliarity” or “strangeness”. These may be descriptions of a “landscape”, a “moonscape” or a “desert”, a “town” or “city”. These places often present the aftermath of devastation, “a tornado”, or a “bombing”, “tsunami” or “natural distaster”. Implicit in these metaphors is the experience of an apparently uncontainable and boundless devastation.

Often the patient describes feeling like a “disembodied reporter” or “an observer” of the site. The patient may convey the idea that there is an expectation of familiarity but this expectation is often disappointed. There may also be references to specific items, tiny fragments, pieces or objects of familiarity within an unfamiliar space or site of destruction. This kind of metaphorical detail provides the therapist with the opportunity to conduct a survey of the “landscape” as well as presenting opportunities to “ground” the patient in an area or metaphorical “locale” from which direct engagement with the “landscape” can resume.

Therapists working with traumatized patients may recognize how the psychic damage is many times conveyed through the metaphor of the “approach” towards a “room” or a “doorway”. This “door” is sometimes “closed” but the approach towards the “doorway” is linked with powerful feelings of panic that are evidenced in the patient’s body during descriptions of this imagery. This metaphorical “approach” towards the trauma evokes the unprocessed feelings and allows for their articulation in language in a way that facilitates the transfer of affect from the unconscious into consciousawareness. In these cases the therapist’s repeated respect for the process of approach and attention to the experience of approach is fundamental to the process of facilitating the reconstructing psychic boundaries.

Case Material: Spatial Metaphor and Cultural Mapping

Culturally invisible differences between therapist and patient may be manifest effectively through the spatial mapping of psychic spaces through metaphors. In a case of complicated bereavement and trauma, (common in African patients living with and processing the scourge of AIDS and HIV) the spatial representation of the metaphor of a containing structure is practical. The form of this container, however, is often manifest differently to its usual Western presentation. Often, spontaneously presented material in such patients maps the psyche against a metaphor of a “corral” or an “encampment” or “collection of huts”. Usually there is a formal point of entry, like the door of the house. There may be a “threshold” that is physically metaphorized by a “bower of branches” or an “archway” of wood that opens into an arrangement of loosely connected “dwellings” orientated around a central area where “food is prepared”, the “fire is made” or the “members gather”.

In this imagery it is interesting to note that the presenting structure typically does not draw on height or depth for reference but rather on distance and connectedness. So where some might describe a “house” with “basements” and “attics” or “second floors” or even “balconies”, it is more appropriate to speak of concepts of “farness” and “strange-farness”. Imagery of “farness” includes descriptions of an “encampment” surrounded by “hills” and “fields” and “valleys”. These are described existing beyond the encampment. At the same time, just beyond the furthest “boundary” of the “encampment” there is often described a type of “forest” or “dead area”. This is the area of “strange- farness”. This space is recognized as connected to the “encampment”, yet not quite part of it. This type of metaphorical space is also commonly associated with feelings of foreboding.

The power of spatial metaphor in articulating cultural difference between therapist and client is effectively conveyed in sessions with a young African man.

This man, having grown up in a township, had gone on to study advertising. Although passionate about his work and emerging career, this patient’s life trajectory was overwhelmed by the sudden onset of waking nightmares of creatures sitting on his chest and maliciously invading his body. He was subject to increasing tiredness and felt he had lost his “life spark”. He was vibrant and articulate in sessions and resisted interpretations of depression. He denied sadness around his separation from his family and expressed fervent pleasure in his digs lifestyle, his acquisition of status symbols, and so on. Gradually, the tremendous impact of numerous deaths, both immediate family and near family due to HIV/AIDS, emerged in the therapy. The affect connected with these, however, was really only accessible through metaphor. Although ostensibly managed by the patient in his rational life, the underlying impact of these eventswas communicated in his stumbling evocation of the experience of inviting me, the therapist, to enter his “house”. At the outset of his description he introduced me to the front of a “formal two storey” structure, the “door” to which he conveyed hesitation in opening. Finally, upon entering, at his invitation, the building within was revealed, only gradually and through tentative exploration, not so much as a house, but in fact more akin to a series of “rooms”. As these images were reflected back to the patient, they became increasingly aligned with the idea of “shelters” and finally “huts”. The occupants of these “rooms”, or “shelters” were missing and the area itself conveyed the sense of abandonment and neglect. The previously neat, boxy “bedrooms” of the “large house” he had at first allowed me to enter was not in even in metaphor able to contain the feelings he carried within. It was only in encountering the “emptiness” in the “encampment”, the familiar strangeness, in finding these “huts” empty, that the charge of unbearable affect become apparent in the therapy.

References

Bateson, G. (1979) Mind and Nature: A Necessary Unity. E. P. Dutton, New York.

Freud, S (1976) The Interpretation of Dreams. Penguin Books, London.

Jung, C. (1974) Dreams, from The Collected Works of C. G. Jung. Volumes 4, 8. 12, 16. Bollingen Series XX. Princeton University Press, Princeton.

Ricoeur, P. (1984) Time and Narrative. University of Chicago Press, Chicago.

Becky Apteker completed a Ph.D at Wits in theories of poetic analysis, spent some years working as an award-winning writer and then completed her Masters degree in clinical psychology at Wits University in Johannesburg, South Africa. She now works in private practice and with the Personality Disorders Unit at Tara Hospital in Johannesburg.