Abstract
Pictures are an innovative resource in the verbal activity of psychological counseling (Ginicola, Smith, & Trzaska, 2012; Malchiodi, 2011). Counselors often guide clients to interpret and explore them as figurative representations of their situation (Stevens & Spears, 2009). Picture-based counseling is, however, underexplored from both clinical and discourse perspectives, with few published guidelines and analyses of the nature of counselor prompts and client interpretations. Informed by metaphor theory, this paper examines 34 counterbalanced matched-pairs of elicited picture interpretations responding to either a topic-present or topic-absent prompt in Mandarin Chinese. Topic-present metaphor prompts indicate a specific topic to be connected to the picture, while topic-absent metaphor prompts do not. The resulting transcripts were coded for five variables reflecting key aspects of metaphor construction—sources, topics, source–topic connections, uncertainty markers, and metaphor signals. Spearman correlations were calculated and compared across the two prompt conditions, supported by qualitative analysis of examples. Results show stronger correlations and by implication greater integration among the variables in the topic-present condition. This suggests that people are better able to contextualize pictorial elements to a specified target topic of discussion. The present findings motivate follow-up research incorporating more direct counseling outcome measures.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Cameron, L., & Deignan, A. (2003). Combining large and small corpora to investigate tuning devices around metaphor in spoken discourse. Metaphor and Symbol, 18(3), 149–160.
Cameron, L., & Maslen, R. (Eds.). (2010). Metaphor Analysis. London, UK: Equinox.
Gelo, O. C. G., & Mergenthaler, E. (2012). Unconventional metaphors and emotional-cognitive regulation in a metacognitive interpersonal therapy. Psychotherapy Research, 22(2), 159–175.
George, E., Iveson, C., & Ratner, H. (1999). Problem to Solution: Brief Therapy with Individuals and Families. London, UK: BT Press.
Ginicola, M. M., Smith, C., & Trzaska, J. (2012). Counseling Through Images: Using Photography to Guide the Counseling Process and Achieve Treatment Goals. Journal of Creativity in Mental Health, 7(4), 310–329.
Goatly, A. (1997). The Language of Metaphors. London, UK: Routledge.
Goessling, K., & Doyle, C. (2009). Thru the lenz: Participatory action research, photography, and creative process in an urban high school. Journal of Creativity in Mental Health, 4(4), 343–365.
Kopp, R. R., & Craw, M. J. (1998). Metaphoric language, metaphoric cognition, and cognitive therapy. Psychotherapy, 35(3), 306–311.
Kövecses, Z. (2000). Metaphor and Emotion. Language, Culture and Body in Human Feeling. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Lakoff, G., & Johnson, M. (1999). Philosophy in the Flesh: The Embodied Mind and its Challenges to Western Thought. New York: Basic Books.
Lang, P. J., Bradley, M. M., & Cuthbert, B. N. (2008). International affective picture system (IAPS): Affective ratings of pictures and instruction manual. Technical Report A-8. Gainsville, FL.
Lyddon, W. J., Clay, A. L., & Sparks, C. L. (2001). Metaphor and change in counselling. Journal of Counseling & Development, 79(3), 269–274.
Malchiodi, C. A. (2003). Expressive Therapies. New York: Guilford Press.
Malchiodi, C. A. (Ed.). (2011). Handbook of Art Therapy (2nd ed.). New York: Guilford Press.
McMullen, L. M. (1996). Studying the use of figurative language in psychotherapy: the search for researchable questions. Metaphor and Symbolic Activity, 11(4), 241–255.
Norcross, J. C. (1990). An eclectic definition of psychotherapy. In J. K. Zeig & W. M. Munion (Eds.), What is Psychotherapy? Contemporary Perspectives (pp. 218–220). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
Pragglejaz Group. (2007). MIP: A Method for Identifying Metaphorically Used Words in Discourse. Metaphor and Symbol, 22(1), 1–39.
Prince, E., Frader, J., & Bosk, C. (1982). On hedging in physician-physician discourse. In R. J. di Pietro (Ed.), Linguistics and the Professions (pp. 83–97). Norwood, NJ: Ablex.
Rampton, T. B., Rosemann, J. L., Latta, A. L., Mandleco, B. L., Roper, S., & Dyches, T. T. (2007). Images of life: Siblings of children with Down syndrome. Journal of Family Nursing, 13(4), 420–442.
Rasmussen, B. M., & Angus, L. E. (1996). Metaphor in psychodynamic psychotherapy with borderline and non-borderline clients: A qualitative analysis. Psychotherapy, 33(4), 521–530.
Semino, E. (2008). Metaphor in Discourse. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press.
Sims, P. A., & Whynot, C. A. (1997). Hearing metaphor: An approach to working with family-generated metaphor. Family Process, 36, 341–355.
Steen, G. J., Dorst, A. G., Herrmann, J. B., Kaal, A. A., Krennmayr, T., & Pasma, T. (2010). A Method for Linguistic Metaphor Identification: From MIP to MIPVU. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
Stevens, R., & Spears, E. H. (2009). Incorporating photography as a therapeutic tool in counseling. Journal of Creativity in Mental Health, 4(1), 3–16.
Stott, R., Mansell, W., Salkovskis, P., Lavender, A., & Cartwright-Hatton, S. (2010). Oxford Guide to Metaphors in CBT. Building Cognitive Bridges. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press.
Tay, D. (2014). An analysis of metaphor hedging in psychotherapeutic talk. In M. Yamaguchi, D. Tay, & B. Blount (Eds.), Approaches to Language, Culture, and Cognition (pp. 251–267). Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave MacMillan.
Tay, D. (2016). Finding the Middle Ground between Therapist-Centred and Client-Centred Metaphor Research in Psychotherapy. In M. O’Reilly & J. N. Lester (Eds.), The Palgrave Handbook of Adult Mental Health (pp. 558–576). London: Palgrave Macmillan.
Tay, D., Huang, J., & Zeng, H. (2019). Affective and discursive outcomes of symbolic interpretations in picture-based counseling: A skin conductance and discourse analytic study. Metaphor & Symbol, 34(2), 96–110.
Van Parys, H., & Rober, P. (2013). Micro-analysis of a therapist-generated metaphor referring to the position of a parentified child in the family. Journal of Family Therapy, 35(1), 89–113.
Wee, L. (2005a). Class-inclusion and correspondence models as discourse types: A framework for approaching metaphorical discourse. Language in Society, 34(2), 219–238.
Wee, L. (2005b). Constructing the source: Metaphor as a discourse strategy. Discourse Studies, 7(3), 363–384.
Yu, N. (1998). The Contemporary Theory of Metaphor: A Perspective from Chinese. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
Zhong, J. (2011). Working with Chinese patients: Are there conflicts between Chinese culture and psychoanalysis? International Journal of Applied Psychoanalytic Studies, 8(3), 218–226.
Funding Acknowledgement
This research is supported by a General Research Fund from the Research Grants Council, University Grants Committee, Hong Kong SAR (Funding no. PolyU 156033/18H), and Departmental Research Grants from the Department of English, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University (G-UAEH, G-YBMA), awarded to the first author.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2020 Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Tay, D., Huang, J., Zeng, H. (2020). Prompting Strategies and Outcomes in Picture-Based Counseling. In: Watson, B., Krieger, J. (eds) Expanding Horizons in Health Communication. The Humanities in Asia, vol 6. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-4389-0_2
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-4389-0_2
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Singapore
Print ISBN: 978-981-15-4388-3
Online ISBN: 978-981-15-4389-0
eBook Packages: Social SciencesSocial Sciences (R0)