

The Power of Mental Pictures - nikatwork
http://m.chronicle.com/article/The-Power-of-Mental-Pictures/148497/

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nikatwork
The section on using metaphor to visualize and control anxiety was of
particular interest:

 _> If a patient describes his anxious thoughts as a monkey on his back,
McGuinty will ask, "What does it look like, is it your friend, does it have a
name? Could we train it? ... Could it become a pet in some ways? Are there any
good things about it?" This kind of approach, says Lynne Angus, a psychologist
at York University who has studied the use of metaphor in clinical psychology,
can be really effective: "Instead of having something attacking you, you then
start to befriend it. It starts giving you agency over the experience."_

~~~
goldfeld
Doesn't it brush dangerously with schizophrenia, though? Given that anxiety
and stress are common factors leading a person under risk into losing sanity,
I feel that something like this could backfire and drag someone over the edge.
But then I'm no psychologist.

