STOP SMOKING EMBEDDED METAPHORS

EXTRACT FROM MULTIPLE EMBEDDED METAPHOR SCRIPT

To illustrate how multiple embedded metaphors might work, consider a case where a person cannot give up smoking. The person feels helpless in being unable to change, realises that smoking is socially unacceptable and is causing isolation, and the smoking is noticeably affecting their health. The problem is that the person cannot access the resources needed to change.

An analysis of the problem situation might show that there are four areas needing to be addressed.

Helplessness

Isolation

Becoming ill

Lack of resources to change

Each issue would have a therapeutic metaphor created for it, and be embedded into a multiple metaphor story:

First Metaphor - Helplessness

Second Metaphor - Social isolation

Third Metaphor - Becoming Ill

Direct Suggestion - Confidence to change

Third Metaphor - solution

Second Metaphor - solution

First Metaphor - solution

The metaphor therapy starts with the first metaphoric story, gets to a crisis, and then leaves that crisis unresolved. Then the second metaphor story is started, gets to a crisis and is also left hanging. The third metaphor story is started, taken to a crisis point, but this time the crisis is resolved, by suggesting some resource that removes the crisis. The resource is usually a lesson in how to solve that type of problem. This allows the third metaphor to be wrapped up and tidied away.

Then the second metaphor is taken up again, and it is also resolved. Finally, the first metaphor is taken up again, and it too is resolved. Metaphor therapy is based on identifying situations metaphorically similar to the client's situation, and then showing that they can be fixed.

Embedding metaphors like this gives more power to the metaphors than just telling them as three separate metaphor stories. Leaving each metaphor unresolved means that the unconscious mind is busy seeking closure, trying to make sense of the unfinished metaphors and therefore constantly re-examining all its assumptions about the problem and how to solve those problems. By the time the crisis point in the third metaphor is reached, the mind has three unresolved crises to deal with. When the resource is found for the third crisis, the mind automatically tests that resource against the first two crises. Resolving embedded metaphors two and one reinforces the mind's belief that the first two can be solved. After the metaphor therapy the client's subconscious mind will make the metaphoric connection between the events in the story and the problems in their own life, and the fact that they can be fixed.

Using this template an original three part story was created to illustrate how the framework is used. In this example an anthropomorphic style was chosen:

First Metaphor - Helplessness

There once was a doll who was sat high up on a shelf. The doll didn't know how she got there, and the shelf was so high that she was afraid of falling, and so she sat very very still.

Second Metaphor - Social isolation

All day long the doll sat on the shelf and looked down at all the other toys on the floor and wished that she could join them. But week after week the doll would sit there, afraid to move and feeling very very lonely.

Third Metaphor - Increasing ill health

The doll had also realized something else. With all that sitting there and not moving she was beginning to get ill. Instead of running around with all her friends she was getting no exercise at all and her arms and legs were getting very very weak.

Direct Suggestion - Connection to resources - ask for help

Well one day the doll was looking down at the toys and feeling very far away and there was another doll lying there in the middle of the floor. This was the Dancing Doll. He had lost one of his legs. He was lying there crying and trying to move but it wasn't working and all the other toys, the teddy bears and the soldiers and the big stuffed tiger with the one eye missing were not looking at him and pretending to be doing something else. When suddenly the Big Purple Elephant appeared. The Big Purple Elephant was the oldest toy in the house and all the other toys were afraid of the Big Purple Elephant. The elephant went over to the Dancing Doll and asked what had happened. The dancing doll explained that he had been trying to do a new dance when it all went wrong and he came crashing down and broke his leg off. And now he was stuck and nobody would help him. And he felt so unhappy, so useless and helpless.