Chapter 17: Telling Tales to Reach the Unconscious: Stories, Fables, and Metaphors 269
To practise creating metaphors and have a little fun at the same time, try this
exercise. You need three people: Person A has a subject (like writing a book,
for example) that they want to communicate in a different way. Follow these
steps:
- Person A says: ‘[The topic] is like... .’
Using the book-writing example, Person A may say, ‘Writing a book is
like... .’
- Person B thinks of an object – any object at all to complete the
sentence ‘Writing a book is like... .’
Person B, for example, may say, ‘.. .an apple.’
- Person C makes the connection.
For example, they may say: ‘.. .because you can get your teeth into it.’
This exercise makes a good suppertime game. And you can use it to find a
metaphor to help you communicate a message in a more memorable way.Applying metaphors to fi nd new solutions
In his book Sleight of Mouth, Robert Dilts relates the story about a young
man in a psychiatric ward suffering from the delusion that he’s Jesus Christ.
He spends his days unproductively, rambling around, annoying and being
ignored by the other patients. All attempts by the psychiatrists and their
aides fail to convince the man of his delusion.One day, a new psychiatrist arrives on the scene. After observing the patient
quietly for some time, he approaches the young man. ‘I understand that you
have some experience as a carpenter,’ he says. ‘Well... yes, I guess I do,’
replies the patient. The psychiatrist explains to him that they’re building a
new recreation room at the facility and need the help of someone with the
skills of a carpenter. ‘We could sure use your assistance,’ says the psychiatrist,
‘that is, if you’re the type of person who likes to help others.’And so the story ends well. The patient has been respected for his beliefs
and becomes open to communicating with people once more. Now his
therapeutic healing can begin.In this story, the new psychiatrist connects with the client by working with
his own metaphor of carpentry. The patient believes that he’s Jesus Christ,
and so the psychiatrist accepts that and doesn’t attempt to contradict.
Instead, the psychiatrist works with the patient’s belief and adopts the same
metaphor – Jesus the carpenter – to set the patient on the road to recovery.