Metaphor: Integrating Action, Fantasy and Language in Development

Abstract

Metaphor, the transfer of meaning from one thing to another (e.g., “The bicycle is a charging horse”), usually has been studied within language expressions. Some investigators, criticizing the assumption that words are the exclusive locus of metaphor, urge that metaphor construction be expanded to include play and imaging. This report proposes a reformulation of metaphor as habitual organizations of action, fantasy, and language behaviors which follow developmental principles in representing past experiences, while also construing present situations and prescribing behaviors to deal with them. The value of this conceptualization for studies of normal and pathological personality development is illustrated by metaphors two children constructed and restructured during psychoanalytic treatment and by associated changes in their functioning. The proposal is also related to issues in the literature.