Author: Roni F. Matar

Trainer, Consultant, Alternative Therapist, & Neuro Linguist.

Metaphor Video, Training & Courses

Metaphors of Movement Q&A with Andy: MoM Practice Group

Roni F. Matar

In the 6 June 2024 practice group, we held a Q&A with Andrew T. Austin about several topics. Here is the summary.

Understanding Boundary Violations

One significant challenge in metaphor work is handling boundary violations. These occur when clients introduce elements that are not part of the metaphor, such as unrelated conversations or distractions. Andy emphasised the importance of recognising these violations, which can be understood within the model as indicating a dominance of left-hemispheric thinking. By identifying and addressing these violations, practitioners can guide clients back towards more direct engagement with their metaphors.

Encouraging Right-Hemisphere Modes of Processing

To counterbalance left-hemispheric dominance, Andy recommends using techniques that promote right-hemispheric modes of processing. These include incorporating visual stimuli, varying vocal tones and expressing emotions freely. By creating an environment rich in sensory and emotional cues, practitioners can support deeper engagement with metaphors.

Managing Boundary Violations of Dissociated Identity

Clients sometimes present metaphors in a dissociative manner, such as saying, “I see myself in a bubble.” Andy advises practitioners to shift the client’s perspective from observer to participant. Asking questions about their position and surroundings within the metaphor helps anchor them in the experience, allowing for a more detailed exploration of their metaphorical landscape.

Social Functions and Pain Avoidance

Boundary violations can serve as mechanisms for clients to avoid discomfort or social pain. These behaviours may manifest as conversational distractions or changes of subject. Recognising the possible motivations behind these actions can help practitioners navigate and address them.

Identity Changes and Internal Metaphors

Within the model, internal metaphors, such as those involving the loss of body parts, may be associated with significant identity changes. These metaphors can highlight issues related to support, understanding and personal growth. Practitioners need to assess whether clients are open to engaging in a process of healing and growth or are seeking immediate symptomatic relief. This distinction helps guide the therapeutic approach.

Practical Application: Eliciting and Idiomising Metaphors

Developing skills in metaphor work requires practice. Practitioners are encouraged to elicit and idiomise as many metaphors as possible. Engaging with peers for feedback and participating in practice sessions can improve proficiency. Understanding idioms and how they relate to metaphors is an important part of effective metaphor work.

Metaphors of Movement offers a framework for understanding and addressing complex emotional and psychological issues. By recognising boundary violations, using techniques intended to stimulate right-hemisphere modes of processing and exploring the meanings of metaphors, practitioners can support structured therapeutic exploration. Continuous practice and collaboration with peers are important to mastering this approach.

Watch the full discussion below.

Metaphor Posts

The Force and Personifications

Roni F. Matar

The Star Wars films portray the Force as a powerful energy field that Jedi knights can tap into and control. However, the way characters speak about the Force also illustrates personification and anthropomorphism: the literary techniques of attributing human qualities to non-human things.

How Star Wars Personifies the Force

Throughout the Star Wars dialogue, we see the Force personified and anthropomorphised in various ways:

  • “The Force is strong with this one.” The Force is described as accompanying or being alongside someone, as a person might.
  • “I know the Force.” The Force can be known, suggesting a relationship such as you might have with another being.
  • “That’s not how the Force works.” The Force is given agency and does things in certain ways.
  • “The Dark Side of the Force.” The Force has different “sides”, a duality reminiscent of human personalities or moral perspectives.
  • “The Force seduced your father.” The Force actively seduces people and is anthropomorphised as an enticing, persuasive entity.
  • “The true nature of the Force.” The Force has an essential, singular nature, like a person.

Such examples demonstrate how abstract concepts such as energy fields can be shaped into more human-like forms through metaphors and analogies we can relate to.

Personification Beyond Star Wars

This same linguistic process occurs well beyond Star Wars. We may describe a heavy workload as “draining my life force” or a great song as “feeding my soul”. Emotions such as anxiety could have a “bright side” and a “dark side”. Even inanimate objects are humanised when we say, “My computer hates me today.”

Why Personification Matters

Through personification and anthropomorphism, we make the intangible tangible, connecting it with recognisable human experience. It is a creative way to make sense of reality. Whether discussing a fictional force, our psychological states or daily frustrations, personification allows us to translate abstract concepts into more accessible, human-centred terms.

Although excessive anthropomorphisation can promote a distorted worldview, used judiciously it can strengthen communication and understanding. We create narratives and frames of reference that our minds can grasp. Like the Force, this literary device holds considerable linguistic power to enlighten, or perhaps seduce us to the dark side, depending on the wielder’s intentions.

Metaphor Posts, Metaphor Video, Practitioner Resources

Understanding Immersion Metaphors in Metaphors of Movement

Roni F. Matar

Immersion metaphors are an important concept in the therapeutic approach known as Metaphors of Movement. They refer to metaphorical situations where an individual is immersed in a liquid environment, either with defined boundaries, like a swimming pool, or without boundaries, like an infinite ocean. These metaphors may provide insight into a person’s childhood circumstances and the adaptations they made to those circumstances.

Key Principles of Immersion Metaphors

  1. Bounded versus unbounded immersions: A bounded immersion, like being in a swimming pool, may represent growing up in a constrained family environment with limited room to move or escape. The size of the boundaries can provide clues about the degree of limitation. An unbounded immersion, like being in an infinite ocean, may represent circumstances that are so vast they cannot be adapted to.
  2. Anomaly in the environment: In an immersion metaphor, the person is the “anomaly” in the liquid environment: a human cannot survive indefinitely in an ocean or pool. This may represent childhood circumstances that fundamentally conflict with the needs of the developing child. The person must either find a way to “escape” the environment or will be shaped by it in ways that may later prove maladaptive.
  3. Submodalities and content: Immersion metaphors can be understood in terms of their submodalities, such as sensory qualities including temperature, colour and size, and their content, meaning the facts of the metaphor. Submodalities may provide information about the emotional impact of the circumstances, while content may provide information about the logical constraints.
  4. Context within context: An individual’s immediate circumstances exist within a family context, which exists within a societal context and, in turn, within even larger contexts. Where we draw the boundaries between these nested contexts shapes how we understand immersion metaphors.

In Summary

Immersion metaphors in Metaphors of Movement provide a symbolic representation of the shaping influences of a person’s early environment and the adaptations they made to those circumstances. Analysing the boundaries, escape potential and degree of “fit” between person and environment in the metaphor may provide therapeutic insight into the origins of a person’s present-day challenges. Exploring problematic immersion metaphors may point towards fundamental changes that the individual needs to make to move forward in life.

To learn more about immersion metaphors and other key concepts in Metaphors of Movement, sign up for the Metaphors of Movement Level 3 course by visiting www.metaphorstraining.com. This in-depth training will develop your ability to explore and work with the core metaphors shaping your clients’ lives.

Training & Courses

Metaphors of Movement Level 1: Spanish Edition

Roni F. Matar

English

For the first time, Metaphors of Movement was delivered online via Zoom to an entirely Spanish-speaking audience. The course was held once a week between the middle of May and 1 July 2022.

The training was delivered by Roni F. Matar and organised by Rafael Verdigier and Sergio Minuesa.

At the time of publication, further Level 1 sessions were planned for September and October 2022, with Level 2 planned for January and February 2023, both online via Zoom.

For more information about Spanish-language training, contact the organisers:

Español

Por primera vez, Metáforas del Movimiento se impartió en línea, a través de Zoom, a un público completamente hispanohablante. El curso se celebró una vez por semana entre mediados de mayo y el 1 de julio de 2022.

El curso fue impartido por Roni F. Matar y organizado por Rafael Verdigier y Sergio Minuesa.

En el momento de la publicación, estaban previstas nuevas ediciones del Nivel 1 para septiembre y octubre de 2022, y del Nivel 2 para enero y febrero de 2023, ambas en línea a través de Zoom.

Para obtener más información sobre la formación en español, contacte con los organizadores:

Metaphor Posts

Tricky Vicky

Roni F. Matar

When it comes to eliciting metaphors, Anxiety metaphors are usually the most challenging, but the thing is, anxious people have a range of additional symptoms.

On a late night in August 2020, after the Beirut explosion, I received a text from an unknown number.

“Help. I need help.”

To which I reply, “And you are…?”

“Sorry, I know it’s late, but I am travelling in a few days to a new job abroad, and I texted you as soon as I found your website.”

Eventually, she booked a session for the following day.

She arrived at the office very tidy and neat all around, but with misaligned eyebrows.

“What’s the problem?” I ask

“My friends call me Tricky Vicky, ever since I knew I had trichotillomania.”

I was not familiar with the term, so I replied, “That’s a diagnosis, I did not ask for that. What is the problem?”

“I want to feel less anxious, I constantly pull my eyebrows, and I found a job in Qatar. I need to be more presentable and manage this.”

“Fair enough”, here I explained the three-pillar model of IEMT and how Anxiety is a cluster of emotions usually called the nexus that is a result of other emotions, I then asked, “Is this familiar?”

She nodded.

“Which of these emotions is the most familiar?”

“Guilt”

“What’s that like?” and here I shared the pit of despair and lady up to her neck stories to make it easier for her.

“It’s like I’m in a very tiny dark box, and all around me are the sides of the box. It’s very very tight.”

“Anything else?”

“Yes, ants. They’re all over my forehead.”

“Is there any light?”

“None…”

Tricky Vicky was in a container and has the hurts bias. Her burdens are small anthropomorphications that have a life of their own.

Upon growing her up and getting her to lighten up, the ants stayed the same size.

I let her go and did a follow-up a couple of weeks later.

The next session was done online, and when asked what has changed, she felt freer and more able to act, but the ants had increased.

The ants were the thoughts she had about what to do next; she had poor time management skills and relied on her memory to do her tasks.

The problem here was more of a training problem, as she was forgetting a lot of things she had to do, a simple task management software, and how to divide tasks in a productive and functional way by topic and priority.

3 months later, I followed up with her and the hair-pulling had stopped completely.

I asked her, “What happened to the ants?”

“I now have them in an ant farm in front of me, and I see what each of them is doing.”

Knowing if the problem is more of a training issue or a change work issue makes working with the client structure much easier.

 

You can check more about Roni here: https://ronimatar.com

Metaphor Posts

Possessed

Roni F. Matar

One day, a 30-year-old school teacher shows up at my office. From the look of her, I knew the session was going to be interesting.

For the conversation below, R stands for Roni, and C stands for Client.

R: “What’s the problem?”

She fidgets, looks down in shame, and mumbles incoherently.

R: “I didn’t get that…”

C: “Ugh! I made a mistake coming here, I can’t talk about this, you wouldn’t understand anyway, you’re a man!”

For those familiar with IEMT, this was an obvious 3 Stage Abreaction.

R: “Well, you didn’t fill up the questionnaire I sent you, I got to ask, or else we would be sitting in silence for the next 90 minutes.”

C- “Oh sorry, it’s just that I am ashamed of all this, and don’t know where to start…”

Again, for those familiar with IEMT, notice the 3 Pillar jump from the third pillar to the first.

C- “It’s penetration…”

R- “What do you mean?”

C-“Well, I cannot stand anything entering my body, not sexually, not even a toothbrush, and it’s making my life hell.”

R: “And how is that a problem?”

C- “Well, I am engaged to be married, I love my fiancée, but for the life of me, I cannot imagine him coming close to me. Every therapist I went to always asked me if I had any sexual trauma, but I’ve never had any. They kept insisting, and I kept running away until Jim told me about you and that you work in a different way. But, but I’m worried this will not go anywhere…”

Another pillar jump to the anxiety, worry, panic pillar.

R- “And what do you want from me?”

C- ” I want you to make it stop!”

Now the “IT” as Andy always says is the most loaded word in the English language, I could have gone with IEMT related approach but thought a metaphor elicitation would give a clearer view on what was going on.

R- “And what’s this IT like?”

C- “It’s like a demon that’s inside of me.”

A digital artwork depicts a neon-lit cityscape with abstract, brightly coloured humanoid figures, one in the foreground and one with horns in the background. | Andrew T. Austin | Metaphors of Movement

R- “Whereabouts inside of me?”

C- “In my head”

R- “And when that demon is inside of you, what’s to your left?”

C- “Hell, that’s what’s to my left. A fiery pit”

R- “And what’s to your right?”

C- “A lake, that’s a bit higher than me”

R- “What’s in front?”

C- “A brick wall”

R- “What’s behind?”

C- “Another brick wall”

R- “What are you standing on?”

C- “Mud, up to my waist”

R- “And what’s up?”

C- “A ceiling that hits my head”

R- “Right. So in real life, in real life, how do you deal with this situation? In real life, when you have this penetration problem?”

C- “I try to keep calm, but I end up more and more worried.”

R- “No wonder no one could have helped you so far. Don’t think I can help you either.”

C- “What do you mean?”

R- “Well, imagine we are walking down a strange road, and we find this woman, up to her waist in mud, (pointing to the image I just drew), and we know what to do. We’re experts. We know what to do. We tell, GET SOMEONE TO MAKE IT STOP! Nobody’s there though. Or better off, we tell her ‘just keep calm love, and watch her get more worried. Does that sound like good advice to you?”

C- Chuckles… “Umm, no…”

R- “Seems like you’re wasting your time. Can’t move forward, and any step back you hit a wall. What’s left for you burns and is kind of hellish, and what’s right could be cleansing and a bit uplifting. But to do that, you would need to take some steps, muddy steps, that is, leaving a trace wherever you go. To top it off, you’re taking the devil with you. Where are you taking it?”

C- “To hell it seems, to my own demise, losing the one thing that is good for me and losing everything. I might as well die, and take it to my grave…”

R- “What’s the point though…, anyways you know what your problem is? Nuns. I had a client once who hallucinated a nun wherever he went, and where did it show up most, in the classes he hated. He was a fun kid, an interesting experience that was. Any idea what this devil wants?”

C- “It wants to ruin my life.”

Then I ran a core transformation on the devil, and the core state was being one with God. She was an atheist that originally came from a very religious family. Her fiancée wanted to explore the sexual side of the relationship to prevent future issues when they get married, and she wanted to try, but her religious upbringing created that internal hell. Some people distract themselves with beliefs to distance themselves from the norms of what their family imposes but end up creating so much kinesthetic denial it manifests in weird ways.
After a couple of sessions, she opened up to her fiancée, he was very understanding, and they moved on to get married, and have a good relationship so far.

You can check more about Roni here: https://ronimatar.com