Comparación de los datos obtenidos entre los análisis de APEX y

Some psychoanalysts argue that the use of metaphor is central to

psychoanalytic practice (Borbely, 2008; Enckell, 1999; Fellenor, 2011; Modell, 2009b). For example, Adelsen (1997) describes this principle in psychoanalytic work, as a core component of the change process for patients with SMI, suggesting that therapeutic change can occur because of the implicit emergence of the metaphor representing a trauma in a new form. Therefore, Adelsen proposes that metaphors have the potential to become a non-threatening method of making sense of

experiences.

Bollas (1980) suggests that the formation of metaphor is considered to happen through a process of playful exploration (Bollas, 1980, p.119), but that the metaphor becomes a way of safely communicating personal trauma. Reider (1972, p. 468) also looks at the development of playfulness in clinical practice to be ‘a kind of metaphor in action’. This is a move away from the verbalised linguistically structured metaphor, and suggests that there are metaphors that occur as part of psychological functioning without recourse to words. Further to this, Wright (1976, p. 98) states that metaphors are not only linguistic devices but that symptoms are ‘an abortive metaphor that stops below the level of speech’. Ogden (1997, p. 728) concurs that ‘dreams, reverie, symptoms are metaphors’ on the basis that there is an inherent mapping process of a psychological expression and the symptom. This theory is based on Freud’s original hypothesis that mechanisms of displacement and condensation are structured

be a metaphor for a heavy burden; a sore throat the metaphor of not having a voice24_. Campbell and Eckell (2005), also propose that the psyche works through the medium of ‘non-verbal metaphors’.

“Thus, an unconscious configuration (a wish, or unconscious fantasy) is transferred to a medium in which it finds representation, and, by this means, actualisation.” (Campbell and Enckell, 2005)

The problematic is that metaphor becomes equivalent to communicating something symbolic. Further to this, Campbell and Eckell (2005) describe the concretisation of metaphors, without losing metaphorical structure and therefore communicated through concrete means25.

The best way of resolving this debate is to refer to the linguistic model that has a clear conceptual focus based on linguistic structures. According to Rizzutto (2001) the verbal comparison remains central to metaphorisation. Rizzutto (2001) states,

“Finally, all metaphors, regardless of their unquestionable private function, are created for another person, an intended listener…” (Rizzuto, 2001)

The ‘private function’ of the metaphor can be closed off from communication, can be distorting and reductive. Bion demarcates a quality of metaphor in the

‘pregnant statement’ that can be carried across or thwarted in the process of metaphorisation. By pregnant statement, Bion is referring to the statement that is suggestive of a significant relational meaning. Bion (1965) framed this in terms of the expulsion of undigested experience to concretise the metaphoric meaning.

24 _{See also Adelson, (1997 p.223)}

“…the difficulty that arises when a term that in some contexts gains by its metaphorical quality (a “pregnant statement”) loses communicative quality if it is employed in a context where its metaphorical quality ceases to be

metaphorical because its context has approximated it to a β-element—it is, relative to its context, saturated. Some psychotic patients show skill in manipulating the analytic situation to bring this about.” [italics mine] (Bion, 1965, p.122)

The metaphoric ‘quality’ is defined by Bion as a psychic potentiality and described as a ‘pregnant statement’. Bion goes on to describes a problem encountered with psychotic conditions that he defines as ‘saturation’ of the ‘beta element’. By this it is likely that he is referring to a probability of distortion of the metaphor based on the literal meaning so that the potentiality is made concrete. For example ‘pregnant statement’ which suggests a new, if dormant, symbolic quality created by the interactions of two people, can be interpreted through the fantasy that dialogue has actually produced a real baby, suggested as a basic assumption, (Bion, 1991) or concretisation (Segal, 1957).

This is a similar premise to Lakoff and Johnson (1980) who argue that metaphor has a conceptual basis that puts intentional communication at the centre of metaphor interpretation. Whilst a psychoanalytic hypothesis of metaphors as being unconscious offers clarity about the process of metaphor formation, regarding condensation in particular, the existence of nonverbal metaphors contradicts an interactive and psycholinguistic model. Psycholinguists have argued that metaphor

interpretation is dependent upon the intentions of the speaker and that they are conveyed through words. Metaphors bridge nonverbal and verbal expression rather than being either a purely linguistic device (Deignan, 1998; Goatly, 2002; Kittay, 1987), as some linguists believe, or a nonverbal communication (Ogden, 1997; Wright, 1976).

For the purposes of this thesis and the application of the theory to clinical contexts I am considering the metaphor as being formed by psychological

mechanisms. These mechanisms include condensation as a formative process and the conscious or preconscious verbal communication as a cognitive process of

comparison based on a process of convergence.

2.20 A Critical Review of Two Papers on the Use of Metaphor