E-Book of Articles - World Federation of Music Therapy

Bonde, Lars Ole: Analogy And Metapher In Music Therapy Theory ...
the quality mentioned by Ricoeur in a very interesting section in The Rule of
Metaphor (p. 247). The headline is “Towards the concept of ‘metaphorical
truth’, and the assumption is: ”In service to the poetic function, metaphor
is that strategy of discourse by which language divests itself of its function
of direct description in order to reach the mythic level where its function of
discovery is set free....We can presume to speak of metaphorical truth in
order to designate the ’realistic’ intention that belongs to the redescriptive
power of poetic language.”
Levels of metaphoric thinking in GIM
I will go on by presenting three levels of metaphoric thinking and examplify
how they appear in GIM therapy. The clinical material is mainly from my
own practice, with clients using GIM for self development purposes. I
include references to the GIM literature. The theoretical inspiration comes
from the French philosopher Paul Ricoeur and his theory of metaphor and
narrative (Ricoeur 1977, 1984; Kemp 1995). A brief introduction to this
theory will follow.
Level one:
The Key Image as a discrete metaphor of an important problem area. A
narrative episode.
Example: “The Leg” (Client: Harriet) - (Example: Session excerpt and
transcript)
Level one: GIM Session transcript (excerpt)
(Music: Sibelius: The Swan of Tuonela, final section)
It is awkward to hop on one leg. And it is easier just to sit down, doing
nothing.
It is easier to do nothing?
Yes, when you have only one leg it is much easier just to sit or lie down.....
Then nothing will happen... eh....when you just sit there.
Mm. How does it feel to sit there?
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