Metaphor, Meaning, and Mindfulness Course Information

Metaphor, Meaning, and Mindfulness: Being More Present in the Clinical Encounter

A WORD is dead
When it is said,
Some say.
I say it just
Begins to live
That day. – Emily Dickinson

Conceptual Overview:

Metaphors are often thought of as colorful augmenting features of language. However, a large body of scholarship shows that ordinary “literal” language is infused with metaphors. It is impossible to think, feel, or act without the use of metaphors. In fact, the evolution of the human mind may have depended on the use of metaphors. The words we use are not “dead” and the concepts they point to can contribute to stress, mental suffering, and unhappiness. If we can be aware of the metaphors we use and develop the skill to generate new mindfulness-based metaphors we can enrich our ability to be present in the clinical encounter and help our patients and clients to transform their distress in beneficial ways.

This workshop, taught by Dr. Arnold Kozak, integrates metaphors with mindfulness-based wisdom to provide a powerful lens for understanding wellness, distress, and the change process. Since 1992, I have had a keen interest in using metaphors in my clinical work. This interest has recently culminated in the publication of my book: Wild Chickens and Petty Tyrants: 108 Metaphors for Mindfulness (Wisdom, 2009). In this workshop, we will explore metaphors in the work of Lakoff and Johnson, Jaynes, Nietzsche, Pinker, and others. We will investigate how to use the enriched understanding that metaphors provide in the therapeutic context and work to develop new metaphors for meeting the therapeutic needs of our patients, clients, and institutions. We will accomplish this, in part, by reviewing metaphors for mind, self, “ordinary craziness,” and acceptance. These metaphors for mindfulness taken from Kozak (2009) can help patients and clients to work more efficiently with their minds, understand the nature of self and distress, and help to better manage their struggles through insight and acceptance.

Who Should Attend:

This workshop is appropriate for all professionals who work within a therapeutic context: psychologists, social workers, trauma specialists, marriage and family therapists, counselors, physicians, nurses, clergy/pastoral counselors, case managers, mental health workers, guidance counselors, alcoholism and substance abuse counselors, and body-workers.

What You Will Learn:

  • Review the ways metaphor is utilized in the therapeutic context
  • Identify both implicit and explicit metaphors in the therapeutic encounter.
  • Generate new therapeutic metaphors tailored to the unique situation of the patient or client.
  • Develop a lexicon of practical and transformative mindfulness-based metaphors for mind, self, neurosis, and acceptance and understand how these can lead to therapeutic change and the reduction of suffering.
  • Learn the basics of mindfulness meditation through metaphors and experiential practice.

Course Content:

Section One: Metaphor is Meaning

  • The role of metaphors in language, concept, and the evolution of the human mind; the special role of conceptual metaphor.
  • Survey of metaphor use in psychotherapy and other therapeutic disciplines

Section Two: Metaphors for Mind

  • Exploring the various ways to represent the mind and the therapeutic implications of each. Metaphors from Kozak (2009), for example:
    • Storytelling Mind, The Four-Floor Building, Commentarial Mind, You’ve Got Mail! Different Kinds of Snow, Over 400 Channels—for only $89.95 a Month.

Section Three: Metaphors for Self, Emotion, and Neurosis

  • The construction and amelioration of suffering
    • The Me Movie, A Flashlight in a Dark Room, Leader of the Pack, Quorum, Put On Your Own Oxygen Mask First, The Man Trap, Perfectomy, Don’t Believe Everything You Think, Man Loses Arm in Tragic Industrial Accident, Quack, Quack, Quack.  

Section Four: Metaphors for Acceptance

  • The therapeutic benefits of acceptance and forgiveness; Lessons from ACT and other mindfulness-based therapeutic modalities.
    • Wild Chickens, Petty Tyrants, Falling Down, Why Didn’t I Kneel More Deeply to Accept You? Office Hours.
  • Metaphor-work in the clinical encounter: Case examples and process.

Please note: The classes and programs offered by eMindful  are intended to be educational and do not constitute any form of clinical treatment.

The eMindful classes and programs offered on this website do not constitute professional medical advice and should not be used as a substitute for medical diagnosis, advice or services.

Nursing CEUs are approved by the CA Board of Registered Nursing
Provider No. 11646
Scottsdale Institute for Health & Medicine

Scottsdale Institute for Health and Medicine is approved by the National Certification Board for Therapeutic Massage and Bodywork (NCBTMB) as a continuing education Approved Provider. Provider No.

Please click here for schedule information on the Metaphor, Meaning, and Mindfulness class.