Using Metaphors and Analogies

PRACTICE GUIDE – Inner Scriptwriter

What is a Metaphor and an Analogy?

A metaphor is seen to be a symbol that represents something in the mind that is difficult to define, except by association with something that is already known. For example, you might use the words “band ” which could mean different very things to different people until it is associated with a concept already in a person’s mind. They can then make sense of it. Is it like a band of gold or a band of coloured cloth? The mind searches for similarities and differences to make comparisons to make sense from by making associations that our concepts allow us to make. The more detailed those concepts become, the more distinctions we can make. If something is literally true then it’s not a metaphor.

Judy Rees in her book on Clean Language makes the point that context is key! If it isn’t explained we create it for ourselves. In the following examples, ask yourself, “In what circumstances could this be literally true?”

• He was kind and helpful so I trusted him
• He pushed himself through the wall
• She broke through the glass ceiling
• He was under the weather
• She fell in love
• He broke his duck.

When making assessments we need to make a distinction between statements that are metaphorical and those that are grounded in fact.  The brain and its nervous system use the process of “analogy making” to build a framework of concepts about the world that will determine how we think when to interpret what we are experiencing.  We need language to access and find the patterns in our unconscious mind through powerful observation of our Way of Being. Let’s understand what’s happening from the bottom-up.

1.  VAST AMOUNTS OF SENSORY DATA ENTER THE BRAIN UNCONSCIOUSLY AS WE GROW.

2. OUR NERVOUS SYSTEM HOLDS ON TO SYMBOLIC SIMILARITIES AND DIFFERENCES.

3. THE BRAIN CATEGORISES AND STORES THE CONNECTIONS AS ANALOGIES.   

4.  THE WHOLE-BODY’S NERVOUS SYSTEM STRUCTURES THE ANALOGIES AS CONCEPTS.

5.  CONCEPTS ARE TRIGGERED BY ANALOGIES AND THEN DETERMINE OUR THOUGHTS.

6.  THOUGHTS COMBINE TO ENERGISE AND COMBINE METAPHORS AND FACTS.

8.  OBSERVING IN LANGUAGE ENABLES US TO USE ANALOGIES AND  CONCEPTS TO AID OUR THINKING.

These elements are best explained in the diagram below.  On the surface is the conscious awareness that enables us to see what’s happening just below the surface of our unconscious mind.  We get a sense of the essence of our unconscious thoughts in the form of concepts that enable us to make sense of shapes and patterns of things.  The concepts are formed from polarities hidden in the depths of our unconscious mind that are the hardwired structures that take the form of metaphors and analogies.

This process of thinking is revealed when we ask questions and search our memories for explanations and preferences. The pictures, symbols and moving images are the language of the unconscious mind that we seek to put into words.  Donald Hofstadter calls analogies “the fuel and fire of thinking” that we use to make sense of facts and feelings.

So What does this mean?

Metaphors are the basic stuff of mind, consciousness, and thought. We use them to help us make sense of things by assessing what is the same or different from previous interpretations.  We are asking ourselves what something is like and in what ways is it different?  We look for analogies to help us understand and make sense of what we are seeing, hearing and feeling to know how to react.

Back in the 1940s, Gestalt Psychologist Fritz Heider and Marianne Simmel made a simple animated film. They used it in an experiment, asking people to watch the film and describe what they saw happening. Try it out yourself.

What does it mean to you?

For example, when we are asked to describe a past experience it’s like a movie we have seen before. We use metaphors to explain what it made us feel like, what it looked like and why we acted and reacted in the way we did. We see it as if it actually happened, but it is our perception of what we believe actually happened.  But it’s an illusion as the story is presented in a way that reflects what it means to me now in my chosen context. Assessments are made in-the-moment with our current level of consciousness and experience.

 “The greatest thing by far is to have a command of metaphor.”  Aristotle

There is no doubting that some of the words we choose to label things can have a massive impact on our mood and the behaviour of others. We relate to our environment in metaphor, we relate to other people in metaphor, we relate to our bodies in metaphor – often outside of our awareness. I love Jonathan Haidt‘s metaphor of the mind as being like being the “rider” (the conscious mind) on an “elephant” (the unconscious mind).  Metaphors are fundamental to our thinking about both the elephant and the rider. So we use metaphor to enhance communication between our elephant and rider, but also between your elephant and other people’s elephants, and between multiple riders. That’s why it’s so useful in creating the conditions for groups to get clarity in order to collaborate.

Recent research into embodied cognition makes the point that if you hold a warm drink, for example, you’ll find other people “warmer” than if you hold a cold one. People who’ve just ascended an escalator give more generously to charity than those who’ve just descended. And so on.  

Clean Language works as a catalyst to this chain reaction. It uses metaphors in language and gesture to help people feel differently so that they behave differently. Have you tried these ways of using your body to change your thoughts:

• For added willpower, grip tightly.
• For perseverance, fold your arms.
• For recollection, adopt the same posture as when you formed the memory.
• To remember what you went upstairs for, go back to where you were!

Now What?

The best toolkit for directing attention to the metaphors which underpin our thinking, and which drive our behaviour can be found in Clean Language. Using metaphor is not just the playground of scriptwriters and authors. Everyone is thinking in metaphor continuously. Human beings think by comparing one kind of thing to another and do it unconsciously.

Everyone’s view of what counts as a metaphor will be different. At a conscious and a semi-conscious level, we’re constantly telling stories – to ourselves and to other people – comparing this thing to that, this experience to that one. And it’s happening at an unconscious level, too. Research in Somatics suggests that our gestures, body movement, and facial expressions can be metaphorical. The metaphors we can hear in everyday language are a side-effect of the metaphors in our unconscious thoughts.

Practices

Watch this video of Judy demonstrating Clean Language in action to get an idea of how it works.

Below is a list of David Grove’s core Clean Language questions?

Practice using them with a friend. Stick to the questions to keep the language neutral and accept whatever is said.  Build on what they actually say in the way they say it, not as you hear it.  For example, “If X is also Y and W and Z, what is the relationship between X and Y, W and Z? What is X like now?

Foundation Question:  What is it that you want to have happen in your life or at work?  For example, I want X. (Turn anything not wanted into something they do.)

Developing Questions:

• What kind of X (is that X)?
• Is there anything else about X?
• Where is X now? or (And) whereabouts is X?
• Is there a relationship between X and Y?
• When X, what happens to Y?
• That X is like what?

Sequence and Source:

• Then what happens?
• What happens just before X?
• Where could X have come from?

Intention Questions:

• What would X like to have happen?
• What needs to happen for X?
• Can X happen?

“X” stands for one or more of the person’s own words, quoted as closely as possible.

References

Surfaces and Essences by Donald Hofstadter & Emmanual Stander.  Basic Books 2013

Metaphors in Mind by James Lawley & Penny Tompkins. Developing Company 2000

Focusing by Eugene Gendler.  Rider 2003

Clean Language by Wendy Sullivan & Judy Rees.  Crown House 2008

The Righteous Mind by Jonathan Haidt.   Penguin 2013