Surveying views of metaphor vs. literal language in psychotherapy

Five key therapeutic functions of metaphors are often discussed by psychotherapists. They (i) help clients express emotions and experiences, (ii) help therapists and clients explain difficult concepts, (iii) introduce new frames of reference, (iv) help work through client resistance, and (v) build a collaborative relationship between therapists and clients. Research on how these functions are enacted in psychotherapy talk tends to assume that they are indeed perceived as such by clients, and that metaphorical language is preferred to comparable literal language in performing them. This paper reports a survey study (N = 84) to critically interrogate these assumptions. Participants read two constructed therapy dialogues, controlled and counterbalanced for presentation sequence, where therapist and client discuss an issue using metaphorical and literal language respectively. Each dialogue is followed by a 15-item questionnaire to rate how well the presumed functions were performed (e.g. the therapist and client can work effectively together, the therapist is able to explain difficult concepts). A combined Confirmatory (CFA) and Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) suggests that, instead of the five distinct functions proposed in the literature, participants discerned three functions which reflect a more holistic view of what metaphors can do. A second EFA conducted on literal responses yielded only two factors. This contrast in factor structure further suggests that (i) literal language is less functionally nuanced, and (ii) metaphors are not simply perceived as an ‘add-on’ to literal language, but are evaluated across an extended narrative in fundamentally different ways. Within-subjects metaphor vs. literal ratings of the items under the emergent three-factor structure were then compared. Metaphor ratings were significantly higher in all factors (p < 0.01), suggesting that metaphorical language is indeed perceived as more effective than literal language when discussing clients’ issues. Implications, limitations, and future directions are discussed.

The risk of metacommunication to manage interactional trouble in online chat counseling

The main handbook on online counseling used in the Netherlands recommends counselors to use metacommunication, i. e. to state what happens during the interaction, in case of interactional trouble. The aim of this study was to explore this interactional strategy by describing how counselors may use metacommunication to respond to interactional problems in online counseling of the “helpline” type (single chat sessions). Data were derived from a corpus of 197 sessions of the Dutch information chat service on alcohol and drugs and 348 sessions from a Dutch general chat help service. The theoretical and analytical framework of (digital) conversation analysis (CA) was used to analyze the data. The analyses show that metacommunication is used, but only rarely. Clients tend to log out from problematic sessions, often even before the counselor is able to identify interactional trouble at all. This means online counselors operate under the constant risk of clients’ disengagement. Second, we identified and described three metacommunicative practices counselors use to respond to problematic interaction: 1) Self-criticizing; the counselor is regretting (s)he was not able to help due to a lack of useful advice or to the boundaries of the institutional context. This strategy seems to elicit client acknowledgement followed by an aligned closing; 2) Accusing: the counselor is questioning the client’s advice recipiency. This strategy seems to elicit even more client resistance. 3) Explaining: the counselor explains the institutional tasks and responsibilities and/or suggests the client has unrealistic expectations. We conclude that although metacommunication can be useful to restore the relationship with the client when it is apologetic, it can also be counterproductive to deal with problematic interaction when the counselor questions the client’s willingness or ability to accept the advice. For this reason, our analysis warrants the advice to avoid metacommunication as a strategy in single session counseling.