Metaphors in Mind

This book goes along with a video 'A Strange and Strong Sensation', which illustrates the practice of the 'symbolic modelling' technique using 'clean language' to reflect back emerging patterns and metaphors to the client. This approach was pioneered by David Grove and is designed to facilitate an understanding of how people organise their symbolic perceptions and how these can be changed through a five-stage process leading to an evolving transformation. The book contains three transcripts and an account of the technique and the sequence of simple questions that shape the therapeutic encounter. The video shows this all in action with a 50-minute session with a client who presents with the problem of always being late. She uses and develops a number of images (which are helpfully annotated on the screen) and is then shown how to move through and dissolve the blocks that they represent. We then hear her comments and an upbeat assessment four months later. It would have been helpful to know more about the person before the session, as there was much that only became clear to the viewer four months later; and a slightly longer introduction would have been useful. The video is accompanied by a booklet which makes it possible to study the patterns in some detail. Both the book and video seemed to be of most value to those already working in psychotherapy although general readers can begin to draw out their own metaphors in the process.