TPC Journal V7, Issue 2 - FULL ISSUE

The Professional Counselor | Volume 7, Issue 2 153 Conclusion Metaphors often seem simple, but they have a deeper conceptual role, and through observing metaphor usage in clients, actively exploring metaphors with clients and generating metaphors to address therapeutic goals for clients, metaphors can become a valuable tool in counseling. The above descriptions and examples provide some practical ways that understanding and using metaphors can positively impact counseling work. Client-generated metaphors provide a lens into the internal world of clients that combines their emotional reactions and experiences in an understandable manner and creates a bridge so clients’ internal worlds can be shared with the counselor. Counselor-generated metaphors provide a tool to further guide and support clients in the pursuit of their goals. Through both client-generated and counselor-generated metaphors, the inner experience of clients can be more directly accessed and positive change can be facilitated. Therefore, the recognition and incorporation of metaphors can be an incredibly valuable tool for counselors. It is hoped that the information provided in this manuscript will serve as a foundation for incorporating metaphor awareness and usage into counseling practice and will stimulate counselors to seek out additional training and information and develop research on the application and effectiveness of using metaphors in counseling. Conflict of Interest and Funding Disclosure The authors reported no conflict of interest or funding contributions for the development of this manuscript. References Aragno, A. (2009). Meaning’s vessel: A metapsychological understanding of metaphor. Psychoanalytic Inquiry , 29 , 30–47. doi:10.1080/07351690802247021 Baldwin, S. A., Wampold, B. E., & Imel, Z. E. (2007). Untangling the alliance-outcome correlation: Exploring the relative importance of therapist and patient variability in the alliance. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology , 75 , 842–852. doi:10.1037/0022-006X.75.6.842 Blasko, D. G. (1999). Only the tip of the iceberg: Who understands what about metaphor? Journal of Pragmatics , 31 , 1675–1683. Bohrn, I. C., Altmann, U., & Jacobs, A. M. (2012). Looking at the brains behind figurative language—A quanti- tative meta-analysis of neuroimaging studies on metaphor, idiom, and irony processing. Neuropsychologia , 50 , 2669–2683. doi:10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2012.07.021 Citron, F. M. M., & Goldberg, A. E. (2014). Metaphorical sentences are more emotionally engaging than their literal counterparts. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience , 26 , 2585–2595. doi:10.1162/jocn_a_00654 Citron, F. M. M., Güsten, J., Michaelis, N., & Goldberg, A. E. (2016). Conventional metaphors in longer passages evoke affective brain response. NeuroImage , 139 , 218–230. doi:10.1016/j.neuroimage.2016.06.020 Crawford, L. E. (2009). Conceptual metaphors of affect. Emotion Review , 1 , 129–139. doi:10.1177/1754073908100438 Del Re, A. C., Flückiger, C., Horvath, A. O., Symonds, D., & Wampold, B. E. (2012). Therapist effects in the thera- peutic alliance-outcome relationship: A restricted-maximum likelihood meta-analysis. Clinical Psychology Review , 32 , 642–649. doi:10.1016/j.cpr.2012.07.002 Evans, V. (2010). Figurative language understanding in LCCM theory. Cognitive Linguistics , 21 , 601–662. doi:10.1515/COGL.2010.020 Fainsilber, L., & Ortony, A. (1987). Metaphorical uses of language in the expression of emotions. Metaphor and Symbolic Activity , 2 , 239–250. Fetterman, A. K., Bair, J. L., Werth, M., Landkammer, F., & Robinson, M. D. (2016). The scope and consequences of metaphoric thinking: Using individual differences in metaphor usage to understand how metaphor functions. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology , 110 , 458–476. doi:10.1037/pspp0000067