4 Ways to use Symbols or Metaphor for Mental Health and the meaning of the Hawthorn for Hawthorn Counselling

If you ponder this blog title it, humans “think” in images all the time. We see this in many of the turns of phrase that we use, e.g. to go out on a limb, break a leg, once in a blue moon, under the weather. These are images that match human courses of action. Metaphors or objects, images and symbols that are considered to be representative of something else can fuel human action. Thibodeau and Boroditsky (2011) found that metaphors form our reasoning and understanding about many social topics.[1] Thus, counsellors often ask clients to pick a metaphor or symbol that matches their feelings, thoughts, situations, problems or goals.

We chose the name Hawthorn Counselling as we wanted the image for our practice to describe what we think the process of counselling is all about. In Celtic mythology the hawthorn tree and its berries are revered for their medicinal and symbolic properties. Eaten, the berries are believed to help with anxiety, sleep issues, digestion and heart health amongst others (the benefit to heart health has been proven through research!). The flowers of the tree are considered a symbol of hope and renewal and the tree was thought to be the gateway between the human and mystical world and is known as the fairy tree. It is also thought to hold the energy of cleansing and preparation. Known as the lone tree the collective rule was to never cut down a hawthorn tree. At Hawthorn counselling we think the tree represents you - resilient, not to be knocked down and your own mystical realm just waiting for discovery and renewal. Hawthorn also represents the process of counselling which can help with anxiety, a sense of peace and being able to feel the blood rush of hope and engagement with life.

Why can metaphor be so important for mental health?  Here are 5 different impacts using metaphor can have.

Metaphor can Help to Separate us from our Problems

When we are experiencing mental health challenges we can begin to view ourselves as the problem, or that the problem is our identity. Sometimes this perception can block us from remembering that we are not our problems and from creative problem-solving. Selecting a metaphor for anxiety, let’s say, can help us to view the problem as an object or something separate to ourselves. This way of seeing problems as one aspect of our experience can allow us to see the self and all of its positive qualities, as well as other aspects of our experience, alongside the mental health challenges we may be facing. It can allow us to identify strengths. Try this, say “I am anxious.” Now try saying “I notice anxiety.” Now try imagining what anxiety looks like as if it were a character in a play or a book or if it had a particular form.

How does your perception of anxiety and your relationship to it change with each activity above, particularly with the use of an image or metaphor for anxiety?

Metaphor helps to Bypass thoughts that May be Blocking Change

Humans are very easily caught in the idea that the only way to address a problem is to think your way through it using verbal reasoning. We are also very easily caught in the assumption that thoughts are true. But what if thinking your thoughts are always true is increasing your distress or moves you away from the people, tasks and situations that could make a positive difference to your well-being? What if your thoughts prevent you from facing what the actual source of your distress is, because you are so involved in thinking that you avoid feeling cleansing pain which might lead you to a different way of perceiving things?

One type of counselling, called Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) embraces the idea that language can be a trap and uses metaphor a lot, both to understand the roots of distress, and to motivate different ways of seeing things (Harris, 2019).[2] For instance, ACT metaphors include, “watching the mind train” which is a metaphor for standing back and viewing all the aspects of experience – thoughts, feelings, perceptions, judgements as trains on multiple tracks just moving along (Hayes in Stoddard and Afari, 2014).[3]

Try it – think about a problem you have been having and imagine yourself as someone on a bridge looking down on your own “train station” watching all these trains with their cars moving along their tracks and in and out of platforms. Label each train and the cars on it in relation to your problem and associated thoughts, feelings, judgements and so on. If you begin to only stay with one train, step back and try to bring your awareness to all the trains. What do you notice about the thoughts that you may have held to be true? What feelings are there that, if you felt them, might open up a different track?

Metaphor can help to inform Action

Ever wonder how motivation works? In line with the previous idea, playing with an image and then translating that into an action can help. For instance, imagine that sadness has been imagined as both legs being weighed down by being stuck in cement. Then imagine, how you, or someone else or something would help you free yourself from the concrete. Now imagine the strategy you came up with and how that translates into real life. For instance, perhaps you imagined a fire melting away the cement as the tool for freeing you from the concrete. Imagine, what does the fire represent for you in the real world? How might what the fire represents be a way to address the sadness?

Using image may allow for a different type of reasoning to open up. When we stick to words we may be hooked into a “this leads to that” way of thinking, always ending up with the same answer. Using images may help to increase flexible thinking.[2]

Many clinicians and researchers have found that images and symbols are the most appropriate way to work with children and youth, whose brain development may not yet be able to support the verbal and cognitive skills required to describe and process their experience using solely talk therapy. That is why play therapy is often used with children and youth.

Metaphor can Help to Mobilize the Body, Mind and Nervous System for Wellness

Imagine that you are overwhelmed by fear, and your whole system is taken up with that – your heart rate increases, you begin to sweat, your pupils dilate and you may be feeling like you need to run, to fight or to collapse. Now imagine a candle in the centre of your chest that is warm, bright and has a steady flame. What happens to the fear?

Images can help with emotional regulation, particularly if they have been instilled with temperature, sensation and texture. Actually imagining and feeling something can cause the body to feel different and the mind to make sense of it with alternate thinking. Imagining the candle and its warmth can perhaps change thoughts from “I am frozen in fear”, to “I notice that I am scared but that there is a part of me that trusts that I can manage this.”

We call this bottom-up processing. Start with the image and sensation that you want to experience and see how this changes thoughts or relationships to thoughts?

Metaphor can Support Self-Compassion

Developing self-compassion can be helped by using compassionate imagery. Kolts (2016) suggested images can be found for the following: a safe place (to help with feeling safe and calm); an ideal image of compassion to cue yourself to speak compassionately and without judgement to yourself when a critical voice kicks in; an image that helps to have compassion for others perhaps to help with anger regulation or an image that is about filling you up with self-compassion (e.g. a balloon pump filling a balloon with warm, floaty air, or a tea cup being filled with hot water for soothing tea).[4]

What kind of images might help cue you to be compassionate to yourself or others, or to feel safer in certain situations?

Did this post help you to understand why metaphor is used in counselling and for mental health? Want someone to partner with you in creating and using metaphor to support your mental health goals? Connect with Hawthorn Counselling: https://hawthorncounselling.ca/appointment-request

References:

1 Thibodeau PH, Boroditsky L (2011) Metaphors We Think With: The Role of Metaphor in Reasoning. PLoS ONE 6(2): e16782. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0016782

2 Harris, R. (2019). ACT made simple: An easy-to-read primer on acceptance and commitment therapy (2nd ed.). New Harbinger Publications.

3 Stoddard, J. A., & Afari, N. (2014). The big book of ACT metaphors: A practitioner’s guide to experiential exercises and metaphors in acceptance and commitment therapy. New Harbinger Publications.

4 Kolts, R. (2016). CFT Made Simple A Clinician's Guide to Practicing Compassion-Focused Therapy. New Harbinger Publications.