Category: Metaphor Analysis

I’d like to share some of the interesting elements that came forth in the Metaphors of Movement training I taught in Boulder last year.

For those of you who are new to Metaphors of Movement (developed by Andrew Austin from the UK), the basic thing we ask is, “OK, the whole thing you came to me about, the whole problem, What is it like?” Then we notice what metaphor comes, such as, “It’s like I’m stuck in a rut… I’m on edge… I’m in the pit of despair… I’m in the dark… I’m banging my head against a brick wall… I can’t move forward… I don’t know which way to turn…”

You’ll start to hear these metaphors everywhere once you begin listening for them. And though they are a tiny portion of someone’s communication, they carry more information about someone’s experience than all the other words surrounding the metaphor. We’re used to ignoring the metaphor and paying attention to everything else the person tells u, the “story of woe” that focuses on examples of the problem, consequences of the problem, how we feel about the problem, or self-diagnosis. However, what Andrew Austin has found is that when we ignore all these words and instead focus on the metaphor, What it’s like, uddenly a world of information opens up to us about someone’s experience.

One woman from the training I taught last year had this metaphor for a problem situation:

“It’s like I’m at sea.”

Even this small start already tells us a lot. We can reflect back to her, “So you’re really immersed in this situation. You’re adrift, treading water. It’s sink or swim. You’re inundated. Sometimes you may be in over your head. And for anyone to get close to you, they’re going to have to get all wet for sure and put themselves at risk of getting swept away with whatever tide you’re in. You can understand how people who get close to you may think you’re a bit of a damper on the situation. And if someone doesn’t want to get their feet wet, there will always be a distance between you and that person. You’re not very grounded, so you can’t take steps of your own. And the currents that you’re caught in make you a colder and colder person…

This is just a start. There’s much more we can deduce just from the phrase “I’m at sea,” however we can learn even more when we ask about the full metaphorical landscape: “What are you standing on? And what’s to the left, right, front, back, and above?” When her group asked her these questions in the exercise on the first training day, here’s what she answered:

“I’m at sea. It’s like I’m in water that’s 3-4 ft. deep. The bottom is within reach, but I’m not standing on the bottom. I’m floating in the water, and the water is full of life, like what a sea diver would see all these wonderful things. There is endless water behind me. There’s a coastline way off to the left, and to the right, not as far, there’s an Island. In front of me, there is a coastline with people on it. Above is a blue sky.”

Her group focused mostly on pointing out the positive aspect, her surroundings being full of life and wonderful things. This left her feeling like she wasn’t getting the value of the process. This was a metaphor for a problem situation, and she came here to change. Now she just felt like people were telling her the situation was wonderful, and she knew that wasn’t the full picture, but didn’t have a clear understanding of what the full picture really was. So let’s look at what else we can add.

Having elicited the full metaphorical landscape, we now know she isn’t in this nearly as deep as one would have guessed from the phrase, “I’m at sea.” Also, she seems quite comfortable in this environment (as her group focused on). We can draw a simple picture of her metaphor like this (remembering that there is an island to her right, and a coastline to her left):

And now we can really seem like psychics, reflecting back idioms and elements that are literally true of the picture (I’ve marked out the idioms in italics):

“The right thing for you is totally isolated, but that’s only because of how you’ve positioned yourself. You look forward to this group of people who look down on you, if they see you at all… And they can never see your full self because, from their standpoint, they can’t see much beneath the surface, or if they can, it’s going to be a distorted view. You, on the other hand, are totally surrounded by this. You’re immersed in it. You can look down and see there’s a lot of life beneath the surface, and yet as you float here, you’re not taking a stand for yourself. Because what’s left for you here is “just coast.” Perhaps you’ve been coasting for a while now. You’re a drifter. You could get to the bottom of this, it’s within reach, but instead you choose to let yourself be supported by what’s around you, rather than supporting yourself. And it may be quite wonderful in many ways to be supported by your environment, but it keeps you from taking steps of your own. It keeps you from putting a foot down and standing up for yourself.

“And while you see what’s beneath the surface, and appreciate the life that’s there, you’ll always be a bit separate from that, because no matter how much you enjoy it here, this is not your environment. The only way to truly join that life is to give up breathing, and then you’d drown, the support you’re getting could kill you. You’re a visitor here. And while you may feel you are a deeper person than those standing on shore, they have a different perspective and a different understanding. They might see you and your sea creature friends as less evolved, not yet having grown the legs to crawl up onto land and stand up and support yourselves. And while you do have a certain depth that they lack, they likely just see you as a shallow person. And while you have a lot of depth in your background, that’s a depth that you’ve turned your back on, staying in this shallow place. And staying immersed in this makes you a bit of a cold person. And the longer you stay where you are, the colder you’ll get. And the funny thing is that while they don’t understand the depth of your experience, and they look down on you where you are, at the same time you look up to them, and you look forward to this group of people who see you as less evolved. So I have to wonder, “Who is this person?” Some might call her a floater. Some might call her a drifter. But I think I know who she really is, she’s a low life.

“But if she started to support herself more, she’d look up to that group a little less. And while they’re what she’s facing now, she only looks forward to them because of the position she’s taken. And while people can be criticised for changing positions, it can be done if there’s something else she’d rather look forward to other than being looked down upon by people who have a more solid understanding than she does.”

I didn’t work with her in the training, so most of the above was not delivered to her when she was doing the exercise with her group. As I mentioned, her group had focused mostly on the positives in the metaphor, completely ignoring the negative, which is, of course, what she was already doing in her life before coming to the training. That’s one of the things that keeps us from changing. So on the next training day, she asked about this, and a lively discussion ensued, which I share with you below for a sneak peek inside a metaphors training. As you read, notice how she starts out by objecting and disagreeing with me. Yet the participants and I stay with the process of stating what’s literally true in the metaphor, and by the end, she is really resonating and in agreement. You’ll also get a glimpse of how the group explores these things together in the metaphor training.

Transcript with small edits for clarity:

Woman with the metaphor: “Yesterday when I was working, I didn’t get to that place of discomfort with it… Somehow in the setup yesterday, I felt like there wasn’t a place for me to enlarge the picture so that the discomfort of it could be revealed.”

NOTE: [Had she gotten the full idioms I listed above, she would have gotten this full picture that reveals the discomfort she’s wanting to connect with and recognize, the discomfort that will allow her to consider how to take her next steps to get somewhere better. Keep in mind that it’s easier to come up with a huge list as I’ve shared above when you have the time to think about it and write it out as I did for this blog. When working with clients, I’ll share in the session as many of the idioms that come to me at the moment, and then email over any further idioms that come to me later.] Mark: “So we want to be sure we’re including the full picture… Yesterday when I came over to your group I said, ‘You can understand how somebody might think this is a cold person.’ And you were like, ‘What?!’ So those are the kinds of elements you want to bring out. Because I don’t care how tropical this is, it’s going to be significantly below body temperature, that water. Even if it’s 80 degrees, if you hang out there forever, you’re going to become a colder person.”

[laughter]

Mark: “You know, if you have a problem, and there’s no solution, what’s the best thing you can do in the situation? It’s to build the most comfort possible. [Pointing to the picture] At least there’s a lot of wonderful sea life here you can hang out with. It’s not very evolved, but it’s something.”

[laughter]

Woman with metaphor: “That’s a judgement. That’s a judgement.”

Mark: “Exactly, so get more of those judgments in there.”

NOTE: [What I mean by ‘get more of those judgments in there’ is don’t be timid about withholding insights that are accurate descriptions of the metaphor, especially if they may seem judgmental or mean, as those will likely be the insights that person has ignored, or never seen. By a certain definition, it is accurate to describe the fish and other species as “less evolved,” and yet she’s choosing to hang out with them. Bringing in this equally true description that is more negative is exactly what she was asking for. She complained that with all the “positive” descriptions her group had offered, she wasn’t “getting to the place of discomfort” she knew was there. If you make a judgement that is not true in the metaphor, then be prepared to offend. But if what you’re pointing out is literally true, even if it seems rude from the outside, the person with the metaphor usually experiences it as truly “getting” their situation, or bringing about useful insights they hadn’t noticed before. In this case, it takes a little longer than usual to get there, but as you keep reading, you’ll see how we do.]

Woman with metaphor: “Well, I won’t go into that.” Mark: “Now she’s defending her position, right?” Woman with metaphor: “Absolutely I am, I mean just depending on what sea life means.” Mark: “Exactly. [To group] So that’s what you want to be doing, right? She can have whatever experience she can have, and I can have whatever experience I can have.”

NOTE: [This is building on something shared earlier in the training. With metaphors work, we don’t have to be ‘nice’ and ‘in rapport’ with our client. In fact, we can be in a state that Andy calls ‘dis-rapport,’ where my experience as the guide doesn’t have to be linked or ‘stuck’ in rapport with my client. This allows a great deal of freedom and flexibility in delivering the insights that otherwise would seem too rude or blunt to say. Imagine a really good friend who is so close they swear in front of you and tell you what they really think because nothing could possibly threaten the relationship. That’s what we’re going for with ‘dis-rapport.’] Mark: [To group] “And you can understand how a lot of people might see this [pointing to metaphor] as less evolved, the life that she’s interacting with.” Woman with metaphor: “No, I have to say, I mean a lot of the examples that were presented yesterday, it was very… You know like somebody being in concrete, OK? And obviously, I think it was seen as something that was uncomfortable. But what I’m presenting is a situation where, yes, I am surrounded by comfort, but it isn’t the whole picture of what’s uncomfortable. So why I said it was a judgement is, it’s very evolved what’s going on around me, in this particular environment, and because of that, it makes it even harder for me to see what’s on the other side. I don’t know if that makes sense to you. It’s very compelling, it’s very engaging, it’s rich in life, that’s what I’ve said.” Mark: “Um hmm, right.” Woman with metaphor: “It’s rich in life.” Participant: “You’re also not a part of that life because your head’s above water, so you’re not interacting or a part of that sea life that’s underneath you, and you’re not with the people who are on the land either.”

Woman with metaphor: “Oh, well, yesterday I was explaining that I was interacting with that life.”

Participant: [pointing to picture] “Because in this one her head’s above water, and the sea life is beneath her.”

Woman with metaphor: “I mean, I guess I… OK. I can explain that.”

Mark: “So you’re interacting with the sea life with your hands and legs or something?”

Woman with metaphor: “The beginning image was, at sea. OK, and so when you’re at sea and you’re not uncomfortable and you’re not drowning… So when that question came up [about the sea life], it’s like, ‘No, I am interacting with it, but the way it was drawn originally, it wouldn’t suggest that, so the drawing needed to be modified along the way.”

Mark: “OK, so there’s like a starfish in this hand… and… stuff like that?” [adding to the picture some sea life that she’s touching.]

Woman with metaphor: “Yeah, there’s activity.”

Mark: “So you’re picking stuff up, or something?” Woman with metaphor: “OK, in my life today, my life is…” Mark: “No, let’s not go into that.” Woman with metaphor: “OK” Mark: “We’re doing metaphors.” Woman with metaphor: “OK, head above water, doesn’t mean… that means… you know, breathing air. You can’t always be under the water.” Mark: “So let me offer something, here. See how we can get into arguing about the meanings and interpretations?”

Woman with metaphor: “Umhmm” Mark: “That’s not what we want to do. That’s why we stick with the idioms, and what’s literally true of the metaphor.” Woman with the metaphor: “Put the water over the head if that makes it easier.” Mark: “No, it isn’t your job to change the metaphor to fit what someone says. It’s your metaphor, it is how it is. What you can do is just notice first if what someone says is actually true about the metaphor or not. If someone says something that’s not true of the metaphor, then definitely say, ‘No, that’s not true, look at the picture. Or say, ‘Wait, no, I’m interacting with the life,’ or whatever. Make those corrections, because that’s important. But when someone says something that’s literally true of the metaphor, notice how it lands for you.”

NOTE: [It’s interesting that within this metaphor, nothing has landed for her. She’s afloat and adrift. She could land if she wanted to, but she hasn’t touched down yet. So it isn’t surprising that she’s a bit afloat and adrift in this conversation about what it’s like.] Participant 2: “Can I ask a question? Because what I’m hearing her say, and I’m informed by a conversation I had with her, so I know a little bit. And we were talking about that word “evolution” and the problems with that word. Cultural problems. And so what I heard when she said about the sea life, ‘Well it’s not un-evolved,’ she was having a cultural argument with you about the interpretation.” Mark: “OK, great. So now through me saying it’s un-evolved we learn more about this situation.” [Speaking to woman with metaphor and pointing to the picture of her at sea] “So this is a place where you, in this position, you’re in a position to appreciate the variety of life, and all that it has to offer.” Woman with metaphor: “Yeah.” Mark: “These people” [pointing to the people on the coastline in the metaphor] “don’t have the same perspective. So we have a situation where you may see how evolved all of this is, and nobody else understands. They may see this person as spending all their time with stuff that’s way less evolved. How does that fit?” Woman with metaphor: “Um, yeah that’s… a piece of it, yeah.”

NOTE: [It could be further clarified that the people on shore have a different understanding than hers, and she isn’t even using her understanding, as she prefers to float and be supported by an environment that she isn’t suited for.] Mark: “Yeah, so that’s all we’re doing here, is we’re reflecting back what’s literally true of the situation, and if it’s literally true, then that’s going to resonate.” Woman with metaphor: “I just needed to get the coastline people, in the… The coastline that is accessible.” Mark: “Yeah,” [pointing to picture of the metaphor] “And so all you have to look forward to, are people who have no appreciation for what’s under the surface.” Participant 3: “That’s not how she described it in the exercise yesterday.” Woman with metaphor: “That’s fine, that’s true of the picture.” Mark: “This is how she described it, and this is literally true of the situation.” Participant 3: “But there are people there…” Mark: [pointing to elements of the picture.] “You can’t argue with this. She is looking forward, to people.” Participant 3: “Yesterday when we were doing the exercise, the people who were in reach, they were really interesting, and lively.” Mark: “So, she might be looking forward to people who are interesting and lively, they still have, ” Participant 3: “Yeah, the drawing was interesting and lively beneath the water. It was also interesting and lively people on the shore.” Mark: “Yeah, that doesn’t contradict what I just said.” [looking to woman with metaphor] “Right?” Woman with metaphor: “Right.” Mark: “People can be interesting and lively and still have no appreciation for what’s deeper.” Woman with metaphor: “Right.” Mark: “And that may be part of the problem.” Woman with metaphor: “Right.” Mark:“See how this, if you stick with what’s literally true… Don’t worry about what it means. If you go into meaning land, it’s so easy to start going into your own world, your own reality, and forget what’s actually here. And multiple conflicting things can be true in a metaphor. So, there can be contradictory things. If they’re both true of the metaphor, they will both be true. Life has paradoxes.”

Woman with metaphor:“Exactly.”

Mark:“So sticking to the idioms is really, really key. As long as we’re doing that, we know we’ll be on track. If we go into our own interpretations or meanings of it, or think that just because this is interesting, and that is interesting, that somehow that can’t coexist, then we’re going to be missing a lot that’s there.”

Woman with metaphor:“That’s the absolute crux of it.”

Mark:“Exactly, great.”

Another interesting thing happened later that day when we were exploring the taxonomy of “container metaphors.” There were lots of different container metaphors. Some people’s metaphors were that their feet were in blocks of cement, or they were trapped in a glass bottle, or standing in a kiddie pool, or a cardboard box. One man’s metaphor was like being in a pit that was over his head. In the Q & A after exploring container metaphors, I called on a lot of people, but I totally overlooked this man’s raised hand for a long time.

Afterwards, a friend who was in the training asked me, “Did you ignore him on purpose because he was in a pit? Were you intentionally interacting with him as if he was in a pit where you couldn’t see him, omeone easily overlooked?” I wish I could say that I did it intentionally, but in fact I didn’t realize his hand had been in the air for such a long time! I think this is even more interesting, and I don’t think it was just a coincidence because he was front and center in the room. I think this was an example of how our metaphors can manifest in the world, becoming self-confirming, self-fulfilling prophecies. It makes sense, because if a problem wasn’t self-reinforcing, how could it stick around so long?

If you have other thoughts on these metaphors or additional idioms to add, I hope you put them in the comments section below. And you are so welcome to join us for the training to see how this metaphor work lands for you.

Happy new year!

~Mark Andreas

The Metaphor: “It’s like I’m in a boxing arena with a giant monster that keeps punching me in the face. All my family is cheering for me to keep fighting.“

The client suffers from an undiagnosed disease which makes them cold and weak all the time.

First, some idioms:

• • He’s probably going to lose this fight.
  • He is boxed in.
  • He is too small to win this fight.
  • The problem is monstrous.
  • It’s a dangerous situation.
  • The conflict is contained, there are rules and boundaries at play here.
  • The support from his family isn’t helping.
  • This fight/conflict provides some entertainment and recreation for the supporters.
  • He is conflicted.
  • The monster he faces is a heavy hitter.
  • He might be too small and weak to fight back.
  • This is a fight for survival.

For me, this is the core idiom: The area of greatest impact on his life is what this client is facing. It is monstrous.

Ergo: The monster is a warning.

Metaphor Taxonomies

The exact details of the boxing ring are not given, but if we assume that this metaphoric boxing ring has all the standard features, we will have the stage (supports), the ropes (boundaries and container), elevation (status), the bodily contact (hurts), and anthropomorphization of the monster and the family (stereotype of other people).

Putting these all together, this takes the session in a completely different direction from what might have been presupposed or expected.

This has many of the features of the stage metaphor, which is taught at level 3 in the MoM training program. Level 3 trainees will, of course, immediately be aware of precisely what to do with this metaphor.

In addition to this, we have the issue of the monster being both the monster and the people to whom the client relates in the same way as this monster. These will be people he has to face, and in doing so, ends up getting hurt. It is painful to have to face these people every day.

Level 2 trainees will be aware that the Hurts taxonomy is about relationships, specifically the permissions we give others in order to relate to us. When such relationships become painful, a good strategy is to change the relationship with the offending party by changing one’s position relative to them.

But it’s also about the face. He is punched repeatedly in the face. This almost certainly pertains to identity issues. It’s right there in front of him, punching him in the face. It hurts, and it appears monstrous to him. He is unlikely to be able to fight this for long. He must either succumb, submit, tap out, throw in the towel, or change his position.

As this occurs within the container of the boxing ring, we know that this situation was both inevitable and not of the client’s own making. This situation reflects not a character weakness or psychological problem of the client, but rather is a description of what the client and the client alone have to deal with.

This is not only his role and identity within the family unit with which he grew up, but his family outside of this unit are actively encouraging him to continue with this.

It is undoubtedly time for him to grow up and grow out of this.

Those family members who are cheering him on with this fight may well be in opposition to this personal growth and end up disappointed with him should he succeed in growing out of this identity conflict. As a result, the conflict may end up outside of the boxing ring and move out into the greater context.

The story of Moses from his birth to the Exodus would be a good analogous story from the classics to work with for this metaphor. If you have others, do please recommend them in the comment section below.

(Please note, the cartoon image above isn’t entirely correct to the client’s description below.)

The person is in severe pain, sitting crouched and holding the stomach. Surrounded by a cage-like structure, as if he has been jailed. With jail bars on all sides. Above a brick wall. Below is solid flooring.

Left-behind [direction] pool of dark blood.

The cage is within a room. well lit.

Sees two people in front together. Attached to one of them with thin strings of silver.

The person is on his toes. Not sitting, almost kneeling, face touching the ground.

The room is heavily guarded. It looks more like a prison. strong brick walls behind.

There is one small window in the forward-right corner, which is way beyond reach. Some light is coming in from there.

If this were a client, the first thing I’d be noting to myself is that this is a very guarded person. They are both trapped by their own situation and also quite defensive (i.e., they are defended/protected by those that cage them).

This is likely to be a very cagey person. They are easily judged. Easy to condemn. As they are likely to know this and feel this, they are going to talk carefully, choose their words carefully, and disguise the truth. Clients in this type of situation tend to worry, “How will my therapist judge me?”

Of course, the natural tendency for therapists to tell their clients the classic lie is, “I am not here to judge you,” but absolutely no one on the planet ever actually believes this. Judge them and do it harshly and vocally to get it out of the way. It builds trust.

Combined with the fact that this is a dual container metaphor, i.e., a container within a container, it would not be unsurprising if we saw some childish behaviours with this too. At the very least, we should expect to see [or for the client to feel] childish/immature emotions.

In real life, this is likely to be the person who “feels like a prisoner in their own home.” They have no freedom, are constantly being watched, have to follow orders, and are punished.

Trainees of Metaphors of Movement will already be aware that we will be asking the client to “grow up,” but it is important to understand what is going to happen when we do this.

To grow up out of the first container (the cage) will compromise the relationships with the other people that are outside of this container but remain within the greater outer container of the room. This is a dangerous situation, as evidenced by the pool of blood that has seemingly been left behind.

Left behind: discarded, disposed of, of no importance. Ergo: the bloodshed that has happened is not regarded as particularly important. This inevitably pertains to some conflict where someone was badly hurt emotionally. We don’t know who was hurt or how, but the consequences remain in the background as a reminder.

Our prisoner is attached to one of these people but not to the other. We do not know the consequences of this attachment or the nature of the relationship between the other two.

There is a small exit/opening/window behind that lets some light in on the situation, but this is not sufficient to permit escape from the situation.

Growing up out of this situation will not be easy, will almost inevitably result in some kind of conflict, harsh judgement, and punishment from the family. Growing up will serve as an escape, and generally, escapees can expect to receive greater punishment if they are caught.

Any coach or therapist working with this client will need to explore the consequences with the client before proceeding to do any change work. Working with the family may also be an excellent option, but the therapist will need to be careful not to become judge and jury as each family member tries to plead their case and win over the judgement to be in their favour.

The Metaphor: “There is this fat leech on the centre of my chest and reaches the end of my torso, feels heavy and dense, and I can’t get rid of it. No matter what I do, it’s back.”

In front: “A vast empty dark sky.”

Behind: “Hard wet earth; my back is touching it; I am laying on it, but it’s floating as if in outer space.”

Left: “Empty space.”

Right: “Floating white misty thing.”

What about your hands and legs? “I can’t see my feet, but they seem tied by a rope; hands are by my side.”

The client ends her description with: “It seems like I’m banished from life.”

So, to begin with, some idioms:

• There’s something you might prefer to get off your chest.
• Something is sucking your lifeblood right out of you, and it is quite a burden.
• This thing has a life of its own, and it is taking yours.
• There is nothing left for you.
• There is nothing much right either.
• Nothing to look forward to.
• You are well grounded, but you are in the middle of nowhere.
• You cannot take any steps to change your position.
• You are not standing up for yourself or taking a stand in this situation.
• You are bound to stay where you are regarding this.
• You have not been able to let this go.
• Except for the parasite, you are all alone.

Metaphor taxonomies

Primarily, we have a burden metaphor (responsibilities) and an anthropomorphisation (the stereotype of a class of people).

The environmental metaphor is an interesting one. She is grounded in the immediate context but not in the greater context.

The “hard wet earth” she is on is not connected to the planet earth. The immediate context of the “hard wet earth” enables her to be disconnected from everyone else. This is actually the real issue, but of course, the client’s attention is likely to be preoccupied with the leech on her chest. I would suspect that she directs other people’s attention to this aspect of her experience too.

The rope around her legs is a partial container. Or is it? (Pro-tip: the rope isn’t actually there, it just seems like it.)

Time Predication

It has been my observation that the aspect of time in metaphor is the thing that is consistently overlooked by MoM trainees and yet is one of the most important things to consider. Consideration of time in metaphor will yield significant information about the client’s meta-strategies and time-oriented meta-programs.

It is clear from the metaphor that for the client in this context, time moves and she is still.

Ergo, she is passive to time. As such, she will be likely to display learned helplessness and hopelessness, passivity, and resistance to intervention. In working with such clients, the coach may begin to feel their own vital force and energy being sucked out of them. As I asked one such client recently, “Do other therapists find that working with you is about as rewarding as throwing gold coins into a black hole?”

Suggestions for change and attempts at getting the client to change what they are doing are likely to be defeated by the helplessness.

In this metaphor, the client cannot take any steps (feet tied with rope), cannot stand up for herself (leech on chest), and might even have trouble catching her breath (leech on chest). Trying to get her to handle this might be too difficult too. After all, who in their right mind wants to handle giant leeches?

It should be noted that her position on this floating patch of hard wet earth renders her to be a passive passenger in this situation. As such, she has no control over the outcome or where she, or the situation, is going.

The situation is, of course, the patch of hard dry earth, and the relationship is support between her and the leech. This situation is the background to this entire thing. (Behind: “Hard wet earth, my back is touching it, I am laying on it, but it’s floating as if in outer space.“)

Something to ponder: what else do we know about the background to the client’s problem?

Expecting her to take active control of this situation is unrealistic and, of course, would require her to change her orientation to time, which may not be something she is able to do. We would not be able to get her to switch to she moves, time is still. Think about the implications this would have on the situation.

People who are passive to time (they are still, time moves) will be waiting for “things” to change. As such, the coach will need to be the creator of change rather than attempt to empower the client in this situation.

Intervention

As per the reasons stated above, there is little to be gained in attempting to empower the client or getting her to change. Much can potentially be gained by utilising the natural orientations of the client. She is passive, so I’ll be taking charge. She is helpless, I don’t expect her help in resolving this.

Her support is currently very limited to the “hard wet earth”, and in turn, he is the full support (or even “life support”) for the people who leech off her. These people keep her down and prevent her from standing up for herself. She is simply not strong enough to do this, and any coach attempting to help her to do this might accidentally be arranging her very real murder.

When looking at a metaphor, it is important to ascertain the elements that are created by the client (feed-forward behaviours) and those which are responses to the real world (feedback behaviours). The environmental forces may be active (i.e., the sucking leech) or passive (i.e., the hard wet earth). These forces interact (pre-date (e.g., the hard wet earth) and pre-date (e.g., the leech)) with the client’s active/passive/reactive nature. The problem is that of predation. This is a genuine victim, not someone who merely thinks she is.

Based on her time orientation, we know she is passive. The active forces within the environment are predating on her. She is the victim of a blood-sucking predator, and it would be a grave mistake to underestimate the seriousness of this situation that the client is presenting. She has a blood-sucking predator in her life that is isolating her from the rest of the world, preventing her from standing up for herself, and it keeps her tied up and bound.

Now, imagine we are walking down a strange road, and we find this scene. It’s OK, we know exactly what to do, “Just grow up and stand up for yourself,” we tell her.” Does this sound like good advice?

Clearly, this is not a therapy problem.

So, real-world environmental intervention is required beyond that of the therapy office: support groups, refuge, lawyers, debt managers, mediators, men with baseball bats, that sort of thing.

This situation will not be resolved by asking her to stand up for herself or by using a humorous or provocative approach. Baseball bats first, then look at the humorous side. To do good therapy, it is important to get the sequence of things in the correct order.

In considering the status differential, I don’t perceive any elevation in the metaphor. This is more about being disconnected from the earth rather than elevated above it. So therefore, I’d treat her as a potential equal, but an equal that needs my help. I’d regard her as one of my tribe, and I’d be reintroducing her to my tribe. I know the right people, I know the sort of people who know how to deal with blood-sucking predatory leeches like the one/s in her life. These are the people in the real world that I’d be connecting her to.

Summary: this is not a therapy problem until the real-world situation has been resolved.

“Now I’m standing on the floor. My head seems to be separated from my body (there is no neck). It’s not connected to whatever. The head feels as if consisting of a swarm of particles, drifting apart horizontally in all directions around. When it is needed to focus, I grab these particles together, hoping they will fit in the right places again. When I have the feeling I don’t get them collected in the right positions again, I am faced with difficulties in balance, coordination, and talking.

Do you know the meaning of:

• Having no neck
• A head that has no connection
• A head consisting of a swarm of particles, drifting apart

Addendum: “this morning I realised it’s not my head that’s apart from my body, my brains are able to move away and back the way I wrote above.”

When analysing metaphors, it can be very easy to miss the obvious cues and focus on the more esoteric aspects. The first thing that catches my attention is the opening description, “I’m standing on the floor.” It is important to notice what is missing here: context. I ought to also point out that prefix to the word “now”.

Part of me would want to ask the Clean Language question, “… and then what happens?” but that would take us into a different area of exploration.

So it sounds like the person is grounded, but she doesn’t know where she stands. Either that or she does not care to tell us where she stands. As a result, how can we know where she stands relative to us, or where we may stand relative to her?

This is an issue about relationships and relating. So, if I were seeing her face-to-face as a client, I’d need to be on the lookout for subtle clues as to the type of relationship she is trying to create and match this against the context of the relationship we’d actually be having.

A really obvious example of the kind of thing is the patient who thinks of his cardiac surgeon as his friend and calls him “mate” in front of the assembled entourage during a ward round. There’s an obvious mismatch between context and outward relating from the patient. The surgeon may or may not reciprocate.

In less obvious situations, we may get some very subtle signs that are easy to miss. For example, in some family gatherings, the family members make lots of upbeat and positive noises towards each other, and as a result, everyone is satisfied that this is a functional family. But in that upbeat noise, there may be no meaningful communication expressed whatsoever. Any attempt to pass meaningful communication is matched with tension and discomfort.

As a result, the family all tacitly and non-verbally agree to collectively only exchange upbeat noises in order to keep one another at a safe emotional distance. Yet the family narrative is, “we are a very close and happy family,” which is collectively agreed upon, yet individually disputed by almost every family member when in private.

This would be easily missed by any casual observer, which is why what-is-not-communicated can be as important as what-is-communicated.

The next thing that stands out for me is that of strategy. Grabbing at particles to try and put them back in their place. There’s something about moving particles in that they tend to be very difficult to grab. Even if they could be grabbed, getting a whole swarm of them back to where they began seems like an impossible task.

So I am left wondering about the wisdom of such an endeavour. Some might say it’s a little bit of a brainless thing to do. Yet the failure to do so is met with some unpleasant physiological responses.

Even if they could be grabbed, getting a whole swarm of them back to where they began seems like an impossible task. So I am left wondering about the wisdom of such an endeavour. Some might say it’s a little bit of a brainless thing to do. Yet the failure to do so is met with some unpleasant physiological responses.

So this brings us to some possible boundary violations of metaphor. Clearly, her brains do not swarm about like particles, her head is not disconnected from her body, and having met the speaker of the metaphor, I can confirm she really does possess a neck.

Thus we have a boundary violation of associated identity, “I see myself…“

So I ask myself, how does she see herself? What does she see?

She sees herself as detached, her brain/mind/self in tiny pieces that don’t fit together. No matter how she tries, she (her self) doesn’t fit in. This lack of fit affects her good standing and her communication.

What we can be certain of with such a boundary violation category is that how she sees herself may mismatch how others see her.

So, what we have so far is:

• She is grounded.
• She doesn’t know, or fails to communicate, where she stands.
• She sees herself as basically brainless.
• She is not her true self.
• I don’t know how to relate to her.
• She relates to herself by trying to grasp parts of herself and put herself back into the right place.

And why does all this happen? Because she needs to focus.

Yet, focusing is what we do with our eyes. Sometimes we need to look closely at our thoughts, so we bring them into focus. This is a relationship between how we see and the distance of what we look at.

So, back to that first line again, “Now I’m standing on the floor.”

Now we can consider this line with a different set of filters. We can take a closer look at it. Personally, I’d meta-model with, “So what? Why should **I** care that you are standing on the floor?” and really insist on an answer and a discussion about it. This would both begin to open up the unspoken context but also enable me to begin to rationalise my own relationship to all this.

The backstory: “My relationships metaphor. In the romantic sense. Some identity elements involved, as I’ve been repeatedly told how ugly I am since I was little.“

Metaphor: “It’s like I’m left on the shelf. In front of me is a sheer drop off a high shelf into a toy maker’s workshop. To my left is a vast expanse of wooden shelves covered in cobwebs. The same to the right. Behind me is the back of the shelf unit. I am aware of a toy maker working somewhere in front of me and women who have selected the toys they want.”

This metaphor invokes the spirit of Pinocchio, the toy who was treated like a boy, but wasn’t really ever a boy. He was just a toy, sculpted by his “father”, who wasn’t really his father… but was his creator. Pinocchio dreamed of being a boy and fabricated a lot of stories to that effect. But he never dreamed of being… a man.

Now, in terms of taxonomy, the first thing that stands out is that of The Elevations. He isn’t just left on the shelf. He is left on the top shelf. The most important shelf. The elevation of the shelf gives him the status, but it also makes him unreachable, hidden, forbidden… maybe even pornographic. Out of sight and out of mind for all who might casually glance upon him.

Of course, I cannot help but notice the passivity with regard to waiting to be selected by women choosing their toys.

For those who know he is there, he doesn’t matter. Out of sight and out of mind. He is just a plaything to be put away until he is required for other people’s purposes. Something to be used for the pleasure of others.

Of course, this is all just child’s play for someone like him. He can shelve all notions of manhood, as he is above his creator… his father, his Maker. We do not know if he was graven in His own image, but we do know he was put in an elevated position very early on, placed above that of all the others. Made to feel special… and awkward. After all, it is a difficult position to have to maintain, not to mention lonely.

Then, of course, there is the issue of the cobwebs (taxonomy: contamination = sin). It would suggest that this position is old, ignored and not maintained very well. Maybe it is forsaken by everyone else, including his Maker.

But regardless, our little toy maintains his duty and stays in position. To do anything would be to let himself down, and to let himself down in the eyes of his Maker would surely be a grave sin.

And so it will continue. Maintain the elevated position, stay on the shelf waiting to be chosen, rather than step down and come down to earth to be more grounded and to stand on his own two feet. To do so would be to give up the support that has been provided for so long, and that is the sin that the Creator may not be able to forgive.

Now, there is another taxonomy that is not too obvious, and it is that of the Situational Relational Positioning. Our toy here is in a position where he looks down on his creator. To step down from the shelf would be to come down to the same level as the man who looks down on; the man who gets his back up (think about it).

This is suggestive of contempt being the main reason as to why such a position is being maintained, as exemplified by the cartoon below. After all, there is nothing else that is left. Just emptiness.

K asks: “I see large rubber bands around my head and connected to my wallet and large rubber bands going through my heart & connected to my wallet. Now it makes sense why it hurts to spend and to open my wallet. This is a hurt and attachment metaphor if i am correct… Since it is going through the body, what would you recommend?“

There are several interesting features to this metaphor, but first we’ll start with some idioms.

• there’s a lot of tension here.
• opening the wallet creates tension.
• it is a bit of a stretch to spend money.
• this tension is very heartfelt.

In terms of taxonomy, this metaphor has

1. "The Hurts" (relationships), the rubber bands penetrate through the body and threaten life.
2. "The Burdens" (responsibilities), the rubber bands function as a carried object, and the wallet is also a carried object.
3. "The Attachments" (double binds), the rubber bands form an attachment.
4. "The Containers" (inherited status), the rubber bands around the head form a partial container.

So, superficially, this may seem to be a simple metaphor, but in fact, it presents a highly complicated situation that will have no easy resolution.

If we begin with “The Container” element, the rubber bands around the head. This tells us that this portion of the experience is nothing new and originated earlier in childhood. The elastic nature of this partial container suggests that there is a belief component. As a result, the contemporary MoM processes for working with restricting containers would be rendered invalid in this metaphor. The probability would be that “growing up” would merely increase the tension and, so, may not be particularly beneficial.

The Attachment component reveals that when it comes to opening the wallet, the primary difficulty is a double bind: damned if you do, damned if you don’t. These attachments tend to follow the full 6-point list of Bateson (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_bind). Bateson’s “necessary ingredients” were relativised to communication and familial relationships, but exactly the same list can be rendered to explain complex environmental situations such as financial and legal difficulties, work situations, and natural disasters.

The nature of such double binds and attachment metaphors is that “escape from the field is impossible,” which, of course, places significant aspects of the experience outside of the realm of therapeutic change. As such, the creation of kinaesthetic denial, common to so many psychotherapies, would be particularly problematic were it to be successful. In actual practice though, techniques that are effective at creating this category of change would merely fail, resulting in the client realising that the therapist fails to understand the nature of the situation whilst the therapist finding the client to be difficult or resistant to change.

“The Burden” aspect of this metaphor is the most revealing. Ultimately, for the practitioner, this would be a consideration of intended outcome versus applied strategy. The exploration would be about where is he going with this burden and thus invokes the considerations of direction, distance, mode, and rate of travel.

Remember, with attachments “escape from the field is impossible” and yet this particular attachment is perfectly portable. I shall leave it to the reader to calculate what can be inferred from this.

However, there is, of course, the all-important clue of “The Hurts” component. The Hurts are typically about the nature of relationships we form with other people, the positions we adopt, and so on. “The Hurts” also implies a recurring schema, a recurring theme that exists in relationships that can often be problematic.

What we know about the particular nature of a relationship is that it is very heartfelt. It also has a beat to it. A pulse. A rhythm. (Please note: money doesn’t have a beat, it has a flow, like liquid).

Now some things can be beaten. So can some people, and so can some problems.

The question here is whether this is the best approach to take. It probably isn’t. Beating a dog doesn’t make it a better dog, it doesn’t even make it go away. Beating a problem follows the same structure, and the results aren’t always much different from those of the dog.

Can this problem be beaten? Probably. But will it help?

I shall leave it to the MoM trainee to see if they can elaborate on this further in the comments section below.

The metaphor: “I’m dead inside.”

Now, this is a bit of a challenging one. Generally, 5 words or more are needed for a full analysis, and here we just have a condensed 4-word statement. But still, let’s see what can be done with this.

First off, we start with some idioms.

• You don’t have much life left inside you.
• You are one of the living dead, just a zombie.
• You don’t have much of a life.
• You are rotten on the inside, but you hide this on the outside.
• There is something inside you that is going rotten.
• Your life is as good as over.
• You are lacking a life of your own.
• A cold person.

Now, because of the structure of this death, i.e., inside, we can be fairly sure that this person has problems communicating this to significant others. This is a secret death, an inner change masked by what is on the outside. The phrase “smiling depression” is sometimes used informally for someone who feels deeply depressed while appearing happy on the outside.

A person in this position may attempt to tell others how awful they feel and often no one believes them or takes them seriously. One only needs to see the news stories that follow a young suicide where people wax lyrical about how shocking it was because they always seemed so happy and confident and had everything to live for. A suicide may appear inexplicable to others because no one suspected that anything was wrong.

There’s a social script for an emotional death, and if you don’t follow it, the seriousness of your emotional situation may well just be ignored by everyone around you or simply disregarded.

Now, what we know from this metaphor is that it is about the body and the death of the body. This is a logical extension of “The Hurts”, or metaphor of emotional injury, and this is specifically about identity, a mismatch between what the person experiences themselves to be and how others see them to be.

Now, think about these two possible scenarios:

1. Dead on the outside, alive on the inside. 2. Dead on the inside, alive on the outside.

What has died here is not the outer identity (i.e., what others see), but rather the inner identity, of how they see and experience themselves. Chances are high that no one will have noticed.

Die on the outside, then everyone will see that something is different and that there is very clearly a problem.

So, what we have here is a situation whereby the person is maintaining a state of falsehood in the relationships they hold with others.

Self-analysis in this situation may well feel like an autopsy; it’s all too late to change or do anything about it, it’s all over anyway. The only thing that is left is the falsely positive view that others hold of the client.

So, in terms of exploring metaphors with this client, I’d be interested in knowing the mechanism of the death. This will reveal much about how the person relates to others and begin to give us some indications of what to change.

Here is something worth mentioning at this juncture: physical injury metaphors, “The Hurts,” reveal a person’s emotional and relational schemas, i.e., the recurring themes and patterns in their emotional life.

What we know here is that they have reached a threshold and cannot support such a damaging schema any longer. Things will need to change. They will need to change the way they relate to other people, their position in the world, and so on.

…they need to create a better life for themselves.

The Metaphor: “It’s like I’m in a furnace”

Clinical/hospital setting. Person is tied with hands behind their back to a pole and the flames/heat are rising up. Behind is a door. To the right is a brick wall, and on the wall is a blank whiteboard.

To the left is an operating table with a small closet. In front is a room with a big sink with taps on it. The people in front of him are in disagreement. Below is gravel and above it’s just white, but it’s not a ceiling.

First some idioms:

This is a situation that has a lot at stake. There seems to have been a bit of a witch hunt and this really is a matter of life or death. If only he was free enough to be able to change his position on things, everything could be different. It’s the kind of situation that would get a guy all hot and bothered. He will find himself burning up, getting quite hot under the collar.

It’s not an easy situation to get to grips with at all because, no matter what, his hands are tied in this situation. It’s not that he has cold feet, it’s that he has no choice. He cannot back out of this situation.

When he thinks about what is right, he draws a blank. It just all seems a bit bored. The writing is not on the wall for him just yet, though.

Because when he looks at what is left for him, there may be some operations that can be brought to the table. But there may be a skeleton or two in the closet waiting to surprise everyone. Our man may suspect that someone is hiding in the closet.

If he were free to do so, he could hotfoot it out of there and move on from all this bother. He would be able to wash his hands of this situation and cool down. His hands would be clean.

He looks forward to a disagreement, especially as he is the one who has been condemned in this situation.

Looking at this from a metaphoric taxonomy perspective, we can be sure that even though this situation itself may be a recent event, we can know that this is a recurring feature in the client’s life and that he has felt this way for much of his adult life (container metaphor).

What is interesting is the feature of both the fire and the sink. This issue is about “not shame“. All of the features in the metaphor are an antidote to shame (which would be a contamination metaphor). Thus, the emotion that this client experiences in these situations arises so that he doesn’t feel shame.

The dream: I was with some old nursing school friends, and they talked me into a boating trip. (I don’t do boats). Even though I was supposed to be with one of them in the boat, I ended up alone and panicking in an origami boat made of paper with inadequate paddles/oars . (I think they were kitchen spatulas). I got swept away on this paper boat. Ahhhh! The terror. Inevitably, it capsized/sank and I ended up swimming in the Tyne river with two strong undercurrents. I chose the current that took me to shore where some olden day ship building industry was still ongoing. I got out of the river as if it were a swimming pool. Old nursing school friends are nowhere to be seen.

Transportation metaphors such as this commonly refer to the world of work and business. There are many business metaphor structures; shipping is one example. We can talk about launching a business, getting other people on board, running a tight ship, and so on. Construction metaphors are also common in that we can talk about building a business, a business plan, a blueprint, building on solid foundations, and so on.

One of the problems that can arise with transportation modes is the level of control that the traveller can exert over the 4 criteria for reaching an outcome: mode of travel, rate of travel, direction of travel, and distance of travel.

When one is up shit creek without a paddle, then it is very easy to be carried away and end up somewhere that one doesn’t wish to be.

And so we have a similar situation here. Thus, at the beginning of the dream, the dreamer is entering into a situation whereby she relinquishes control of where she is going to end up. Only when she goes completely overboard is she able to go with the flow and exert some control over her destiny.

Of course, the vehicle for her transportation is woefully inadequate, and it seems like the wrong paperwork got her into trouble, and her whole world turns upside down.

As a result, she ends up immersed in something outside of her control, but still manages to avoid getting in too deep, even though she may well be in at the deep end. With two currents trying to take her in different directions, luckily she chooses to go along with the one that enables her to end up in a more secure place. It’s a sure thing.

Unfortunately, this whole sequence of happenings meant that she lost friends.

The metaphor: It‘s a picture of a room like a prison cell. The square is a hole in the ceiling where the only light is coming from. The character at position ‘A’ sat on a chair appears to be me. The character at position ‘B’ is where I first disassociated to, then I jumped to position ‘C’, which is to the left and above of position B and also outside of the room. From position C, I am looking into the room and have no sense of a body.

When I try and see what it’s left, right, etc from position C, all I can see is what I have drawn (it’s like it’s all in front of me and there is nothing else around me).

I have tried forcing myself to view the situation from the other positions, but I can’t associate and see it from the other perspectives.

This is a classic “boundary violation of associated identity” where the person “sees themselves.” This is often confusing to people trained in models such as NLP, where associated/dissociated is a common distinction.

When it comes to things like memory, we can be either associated, i.e., we see it through our own eyes, or dissociated, i.e., we see ourselves in the memory and we see it as though we are an observer.

The structure of memory is interesting in that it may possess movement of time, in that it is a movie, or it may be a snapshot in time, as in it’s a still picture. Memory can also be contextualised in that it may have a boundary or border around it, it may be two-dimensional and so on. NLP trainees will be familiar with the submodality distinctions in memory.

“Metaphor,” however, is characteristically different in that metaphor extends infinitely in all directions. It is never confined within a contextual boundary or confined within a submodality distinction. As a result, we can never be dissociated from our metaphoric experiences; we are always in an observer position and never see ourselves.

For example, one chap who sat in front of me told me, with quite a level of self-assurance, “I’m dead. I have no life, my life is over.” He told me those things as though this was the absolute truth.

When I asked how he knew this, he told me that he saw himself in a coffin.

Now, the naive MoMer might then try to build the metaphor from the position of the coffin, but this would be an error. It is not him that is in the coffin. He is the observer, not what he observes, so I would ask what is to his left, what is to his right, and so on, from the position of the observer and not from the position of the coffin.

And here is where the magic starts to happen. For so many people, they have never actually considered who they really are, they have always assumed themselves to be the person other people have told them to be. They see an externalised concept of themselves and assume something like that is them reflected back at them.

But it isn’t.

In this instance, the person sees themselves seeing themselves (it is not a double dissociation in NLP terms), but from the position of the real them, the observer, they have no body.

So he is a nobody. But he sees himself as being a somebody, but that somebody isn’t really him. He is at a distance from that somebody that he isn’t.

Evidently, then, this is an issue about identity. He is a no body; he doesn’t know who he really is. He lacks form and substance; he is disconnected from his true feelings, from his body. He is disconnected from his true self.

So he lives like a ghost, a spook. He is also an outsider. Maybe he wants to come in from the cold. But at least he is free. The false “self” that sees is trapped, a prisoner, contained.

He is quite transparent about it all, though, even if he doesn’t realise it himself. This room he looks at is possibly one of his regular haunts. It’s a place he goes to try and find himself.

This is common with actors and other lost souls. And many people are actors, even if they’ve never considered working on a stage. They spend their lives pretending to be some body else, for reasons noble or otherwise.

One of the problems faced by a person in such a situation is that they are never really fully present; there is always a big part of them missing or absent. It is like they are an observer, but never a participant. They may regularly feel that weird dissociation experience as though they are not sure they are dreaming and need to pinch themselves to see if they are awake.

They may also crave danger and risk to try and get the feeling of being alive, to feel something, anything. Otherwise, life for them lacks any feeling.

The metaphor: “I feel like my excess weight is a heavy coat I have to wear. It’s like those old plaid, thick woollen waist-length coats we used to wear in the winter as kids in the midwest USA. It seems to be protective, but at the same time, it’s making it difficult to move. There’s a whole world out there to explore. If I could swim across the ocean, but even if I could get the coat off, there’s something holding me back, like I’m chained to an anchor in the sand.”

If we start with the taxonomy.

Burdens: The coat is a burden and is one he wears well. Burdens are classically “responsibilities”, usually (but not always) responsibilities handed to us as children, and in this instance, is verified by the fact that it is a children’s coat.

However, he might have been an adult who was handed this as though he were a child. In which case, we can start to posit some ideas around that of identity and maturity and how he is viewed and treated by other people.

As MoM trainees will be aware, burdens can be easily grouped into simple categories:

• heavy objects such as rocks, sack loads, etc. These can be either carried externally (publicly) or internally (privately).
• shields or objects that function as shields. Typically, these are carried over the chest.
• garments that are worn, including heavy cloaks and suits of armour.

Each of these has different characteristics and functions, but all have in common the detail that they pertain to responsibilities that usually arise sometime in childhood. They are handed to the child by person/s and/or circumstance, rather than voluntarily assumed and taken up by the child. The latter rarely takes the form of a burden and instead takes on a different construct.

Burdens that are acquired through various means in adulthood often arise in metaphor as anthropomorphications, so we may see it as an elf sat on the shoulder, or the mother-in-law carrying on top of their head and so on.

When a burden is a garment, there is usually a protective function to this, as suggested by the person reporting the metaphor.

In this instance, the burden heavily restricts movement. I’ll leave it to the reader to ponder what the responsibility might be in this case.

In terms of taxonomy, we also have that pesky chain that keeps him attached to the place he cannot move from. There is a detail missing from the metaphor in that we do not know how the chain is attached to the person, so I am not able to comment on that aspect. But we do know that it is attached to an anchor.

This anchor is another burden, one that has been dropped to which there remains a strong attachment. It’s either become a bit of a drag, or will become a bit of a drag should the person be able to get moving.

There’s an additional detail which would require further exploration, and that is the sand on which the anchor is set. An ocean is mentioned, so it would be easy to assume this sand is a beach, but this may not be the case.

The client’s fantasy solution is, of course, in serious error, and we can begin to get an idea of why he may have been burdened in this manner in the first place. He writes, “There’s a whole world out there to explore. If I could swim across the ocean…“

Note: “… if only…“

This is, of course, utterly absurd. It would be foolish to try and swim across an ocean, and so this person’s reality strategy is erroneous. There is a sizeable overestimation of his potential ability, should he simply be able to cast off his burdens and free himself from his attachments. His solution to his problems would probably be more dangerous than his actual presenting weight problem. If this wasn’t spotted by the practitioner who then goes ahead to change the burdens, this is the man who returns to the clinic later, reporting that his problems are getting worse. Remember, burdens are about responsibilities!

But not all responsibilities are burdens.

A lack of creativity and imagination is demonstrated here by the use of those two little words, “if only.” We can safely know he can do more, and there are plenty of alternatives open to him, but there is a reason lurking in there somewhere. I’d want to probe a little bit about that.

This is the Erroneous Law of Opposites in action. The Erroneous Law of Opposites states that the opposite of the problem must be the solution. There’s a good reason why this is called the ERRONEOUS law.

Danny posted a metaphor on the FB page, I thought it might be interesting to play a little with it.

The metaphor: “I’m stood upright in a red velvet lined coffin (no lid), which itself is stood upright in a graveyard. Only my head and shoulders are above ground level. My left wrist is bound with a leather strip tied at the other end to a wooden peg in the ground. The graveyard is on a hillock. There are lots of gravestones behind me in each direction, and beyond the graveyard, countryside. My upright grave has no gravestone. Directly ahead, and down the hillock, is a gravel churchyard and a church. To the left is a towpath, a canal (with a few barges) and countryside. To the right is a stone wall, with an open gateway adjacent to my grave, then a country lane with a couple of walkers, and then countryside.”

Overall, this is a very common metaphor, although it can take many forms. This is the archetypal “living death” metaphor. i.e., “I don’t have a life,” “my life is over,” “I’m as good as dead,” “My life isn’t worth living.”

This is quite common following a major loss event or a series of events. It is also not uncommon with traumatic events when the casualty reports, “My life ended that day,” “I’ve had no life since then,” “I’ve lost everything, I’m lifeless,” and so on.

If we look at the taxonomy of the metaphor, there are a number of categories.

Container Metaphor: The red-lined coffin (red is the only colour mentioned in this metaphor, so it has symbolic significance). So, we know that this isn’t a new problem, but rather one that has existed since childhood. We also know that this is about the client’s family of origin.

If we add this to the element of bodily position, we can say that the client stands up for himself when it comes to his family, but he still doesn’t have much of a life.

Elevations: The coffin and graveyard are elevated on a hillock. This suggests that there is an elevated status [of the family] but not necessarily so for the client within the family.

If we add this to the missing gravestone, we can suggest that he doesn’t have the family name to identify his position.

Attachments: The leather strip bound to the left wrist (which in turn is a container metaphor) and attached to a peg in the ground.

We know that this client is very attached to this place. He’s going to be very reliable because we always know where he stands. This isn’t a man who changes his position readily. This attachment has existed since childhood (as revealed by the container element) and he’s always had a hand in it himself. Being a place for the dead, it could be suggested that this attachment is not at all healthy.

I would be left wondering if this client is haunted by ghosts from his past.

We know that the client looks down on the church, but there is also something about the church he looks forward to.

Now, if the client were to go with what is left for him: assuming he couldn’t get over it (the canal), then this would be something in which he’d need to immerse in order to cross himself.

There’s a degree of inevitability about this, and this is something he’d have to go through in order to cleanse himself of all that he’d have right behind him. He may have to barge past a few things that may get in his way, but if he lets them go with the flow, things will soon be clear to him.

It would almost be like being born again, a different kind of baptism, but the church would have no hand in this. They would regard this as taking the “left hand path,” commonly associated with the antichrist.

Meanwhile, there is an opening that is right for him. The wall is a barrier (The Obstructions = primary negative injunctive), but if he looks at what is right for him, then he can find an easy way through into the country that is right for him.

Eric writes: “I realised that going to the gym and walking from the front door to the locker room while carrying a heavy gym bag felt like pushing my torso through a 10 ft deep wall of jello (or another resistant medium.) That’s why I hate going. It doesn’t bother me if I go in and follow the same path to visit the massage therapist.”

This metaphor is incomplete in that we do not know what is outside of the jello or how far the jello extends, but encoded in here is more than enough information to get us started.

First off, if we start with some idioms that match the metaphor:

• you have trouble moving forwards
• you aren’t making much progress
• you aren’t making the progress you’d like to make
• something gets in your way
• it’s hard going forwards
• it would be easy to get stuck in
• it’s all a bit wobbly/shaky
• you are getting set to go
• everything is set but not much is happening

Suffocation idioms might be an obvious choice here, but because the reference is “my torso,” this suggests his head is clear from the jello. So we know he keeps a clear head even when he has difficulty moving himself forward. It enables him to focus on other things, as his head is elsewhere.

His mind isn’t set on this, and even if it was, it wouldn’t help.

If we explore the taxonomy, we have several overlapping metaphoric structures. First up, we have an obstruction metaphor. It’s a wall of jello (as opposed to a pit or pool of jello), so we have an obstruction, which as you will know generally relates to a rule. Well, to be specific, it’s a primary negative injunctive, and I urge people to study Gregory Bateson’s book, “Steps to an Ecology of Mind,” to learn more about this kind of thing. People tend to say things like, “But I’ve heard that Bateson is too difficult to read.” Stop making excuses and buy the book and study it. Don’t read it. STUDY IT!

Anyway, back to the jello. So we have a rule that gets in the way of the man and where he is trying to get to. His strategy to deal with this rule is not to do what is right, or to seek a different direction, but rather to try and get through this. If he is looking for some kind of breakthrough, then he will be disappointed because jello rarely breaks in this way.

I don’t know if he is normally a pushy guy when it comes to getting what he wants, but it seems that his pushiness may be the very thing that exhausts him before he reaches his destination/goal. He meets too much resistance.

The rule he faces has some flexibility, and it is something that he can get through, but it is there every time waiting for him. He hasn’t found a decent way to get around it yet, so he may want to consider what is left for him and what is right for him, as well as his background and where he has come from.

And here we have a secret. This is about moving away from his background and getting ahead, moving forward in the world, to get to a better place.

And this takes us to another taxonomy: that of contamination. Contamination metaphors are classically, but not exclusively, about shame. It isn’t being in the contaminant that reveals the shame, that actually masks it, but it is when the person is out of the material of contamination. What I mean here is that the person in the shit pit doesn’t feel the shame, but it is when they climb out of it that they experience the shame.

Shame generally requires other people to assist with its creation. Later, of course, this can lead to a division in identity whereby the person sees themselves and is shamed of what they see. Thus, they have learned to be ashamed of themselves.

So, I’d be bold and suggest that this person will experience a degree of shame entering the gym once they have gotten through the jello.

What we have here is an issue of identity. Guilt is about what we do; shame is about who we are.

When he stays in the background (i.e., this side of the jello), there is no shame, but this shame is revealed once he gets through the jello and out the other side.

Novice MoMers might be tempted to think of the jello as a container. It isn’t, and thus, any attempt at getting the client to “grow up” will only add to his difficulties.

And there I shall stop and invite further suggestions as to how we can handle this metaphor in the comments section below. Remember, I’d rather you have a go and get it wrong than not suggest anything at all. That is how we learn.

I’ll give you a clue. I mention Gregory Bateson for a good reason.

Anon writes: “My problem is like a set of padlocks and chains around my groin. Is there anything that MoM would suggest about this?”

Metaphors of this sort are quite common, especially amongst young men. An observation is that bondage-style metaphors tend to be most common amongst 1. the middle to upper class and 2. individuals with no particular predilection towards bondage. As a result, we can see much prevarication around metaphor elicitation, with numerous boundary violations that prevent first access to the metaphoric experience.

I remember one particular individual who, after much difficulty, finally said words to the effect, “Fine, then I’ll tell you!” and blushed bright red as he said his metaphor was like a rope tied around his testicles. At the other end of the rope was his wife, and she was dragging him along a beach. This whole image was quite embarrassing to him and conflicted with the narrative that he had about his relationship and his own masculinity.

For more on the masculine types of guys, That “gimp” scene from the movie “Pulp Fiction” seems to have influenced metaphoric imagery rather a lot.

Anyway, back to Anon’s metaphor. If we begin with idioms and expressions that fit the metaphor:

• he is keeping his groin safe.
• his groin is safe.
• his sexuality is safe.
• his sexuality is secure.
• he only has safe sex.
• he’s cocky (“cock key”).
• there are historical links with his groin.
• there might be a missing link.
• he has too many/insufficient links to his groin.
• he lacks sexual freedom.
• he can’t get to grips with his genitals.
• he isn’t able to take his true nature in hand.
• no one else can handle his sexuality.
• these padlocks and chains stop him from being a wanker.
• he can’t feel himself being a man.

If we explore the structure of the metaphor, there are several overlapping taxonomies:

-There is the burden aspect, the carried object. Typically, burdens denote responsibilities. Usually, these are handed to the person at some point in their history by someone else, “Here kid, take this and carry it forever.” It’s their very own personal cross to bear.

In this case, the responsibility is that of not permitting sexuality. It is a sex that must be kept under tight control, tightly constrained, inhibited, locked away out of sight. Only those with the set of keys (for there is more than one key required) may be granted access. The victim here has been given the locks and chains, but evidently, they lack the keys to reveal themselves.

Presumably, the person who handed over this burden is keeping the keys for themselves.

Historically, sex is sin, and sin is a contamination that must be washed clean. Baptised with [holy] water, cleanliness is next to Godliness, washing away the sin, purification with [holy] water, and so on. In more extreme circumstances, purity can be created with fire, whether the temple is consecrated with smoke (incense), a candle, or the sin is burnt out of the afflicted with fire (i.e., in cases of witchcraft or demonic possession).

The padlocks and chains prevent that contamination from occurring in the first place. It is a restriction against sin, an effective prevention of being dirtied by the unholy fluids of another.

Such burdens are typically carried until death because the carrier knows not that they have a choice. Jesus had no choice but to carry his cross to his death, and when he faltered, he was simply assisted to carry it. Culturally, such powerful imagery forges some interesting beliefs that go unquestioned for generations. Questioning these beliefs can get one punished, banished, or, until relatively recently, imprisoned or killed.

-The other overlapping taxonomy is that of “containers”. The chains form multiple strands of container metaphor, which tells us this is not a new problem; it has been present for all of his adult life and for a significant portion of his childhood. We also know that this was inevitable, which means there was nothing within his ability to have done anything differently. Anything he would have done differently would also have been doomed to failure. This is the nature of container metaphors.

Thus, by the time a person reaches out for help for a problem of the nature of a container metaphor, they will often be faced with a sense of helplessness, hopelessness, and desperation. Self-doubt, self-esteem, and so on may all have been compromised as the person is subjected to repeated failures.

There is nothing they could have done differently.

Other than to grow up.

But the other parties involved in the creation of the container will resist this. To grow up and out of a container metaphor is to reject all that came with it, and not everything was bad or negatively intended.

• Containers trap us, but they also protect us.
• They hide us, but they also give us identity in the world.

And so on.

As a child, there are many factors that reside outside of our awareness. These factors usually remain hidden until a person “grows up” and out of the container, and not everyone in the individual’s social and family nexus wants this.

Also, with freedom comes responsibility and fear. Freedom for the child now adult comes with apprehension and fear in the parents.

For example, the sexually precocious teenager may not perceive her 30-year-old “boyfriend” in the same way that appropriate adults will view them.

And sex is one of the greatest sources of fear and apprehension for parents when it comes to their [adult] child. It is one possible reason that people appear so comfortable with religious organisations taking control and responsibility for how our populations are supposed to have sex (i.e., our preferred cultural narrative is that no sex should really be allowed before a marriage occurs in a holy place and in front of God and then only occurs to create life. It must never be outrageously fun and outright naughty. Self-pleasure is a sin for which there must be atonement. We are most comfortable with the conservative baseline narrative, even though the actual reality is so very different.)

And herein lies a little secret, not yet taught in the MoM training. Containers also represent familial beliefs intended to protect the contained person from the outside world. For, in this instance, the outside world might demand interaction with his groin, and this outside world isn’t always quite so trustworthy or reliable as a child would like to believe.

The person contained probably thought it was the other way around, though, so he might want to think about that a little.

So, in summary, MoM trainees will know that working with container metaphors can often be a single-session job which creates an immediate change in the person’s perception. However, immediate outcomes from the work might take the form of anxiety, feeling vulnerable, feeling exposed, feeling lost, and so on. The client may not report an improvement immediately afterward, and it will be up to the skilled practitioner to decide if further work is needed, or if it is just a matter of time for the client to work through and adjust to their new position.

As always, I’d love to read your thoughts and comments below.