Psychosemantic Analysis of Metaphors in Psychological Counseling

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Abstract

The paper describes the results of a psychosemantic study of metaphors in psychological counseling for adults. The research material consisted of metaphors from the records of 25 open individual psychological consultations. The chosen metaphors were evaluated by 80 respondents (50 women and 30 men) aged 25—54 (Mage=33.08, SD=9.25). The following research methods were used: the content analysis of metaphors and psychological testing in the framework of G. Kelly’s personality constructs and the specialized method of semantic differential. We present our classification of metaphors in psychological counseling. Categorical structures for evaluating metaphors in psychological counseling were identified, and the semantic spaces of metaphors for respondents of different sexes were constructed and analyzed. The results show that respondents evaluated metaphors based on the emotional valence (positive/negative) of the state they caused; the most positively perceived were educational metaphors of counselors that affected the cognitive sphere. Moreover, women found it more important that metaphors caused a state of calm or anxiety, and men paid more attention to funny or melancholy-inducing metaphors.

General Information

Keywords: metaphors, psychological counseling, psychotherapy, psychosemantics, cognitive linguistics, intersubjective relations, evaluation utterance

Journal rubric: Workshop and Methods

DOI: https://doi.org/10.17759/cpp.2021290110

Funding. This work was supported by Russian Foundation for Basic Research (project number 18-013-01194 “An evaluative statement in the linguistic picture of a person”).

For citation: Krainyukov S.V., Goryunova Y.V. Psychosemantic Analysis of Metaphors in Psychological Counseling. Konsul'tativnaya psikhologiya i psikhoterapiya = Counseling Psychology and Psychotherapy, 2021. Vol. 29, no. 1, pp. 165–183. DOI: 10.17759/cpp.2021290110. (In Russ., аbstr. in Engl.)

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Information About the Authors

Sergei V. Krainyukov, PhD in Psychology, Head of the Department of Clinical Psychology, St. Petersburg State Institute of Psychology and Social Work, St.Petersburg, Russia, ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4173-8568, e-mail: sv_krayn@mail.ru

Yulia V. Goryunova, MA in Psychology, assistant of general developmental and differential psychology department, Saint Petersburg state institute of psychology and social work, St.Petersburg, Russia, ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5832-8311, e-mail: iuiliagoruinova@gmail.com

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