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Metaphor and the violent.

Donald Campbell1, Henrik Enckell

  • 1Provost Road, London, NW3 4 ST, UK.

The International Journal of Psycho-Analysis
|August 13, 2005
PubMed
Summary
This summary is machine-generated.

Violent individuals sometimes use metaphors that become concretized, leading to physical assaults. This suggests a breakdown in psychic coherence and the ego

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Area of Science:

  • Psychology
  • Linguistics
  • Psychoanalysis

Background:

  • The study explores the relationship between language, metaphor, and violence in clinical settings.
  • It examines the function of metaphors in the psychic lives of individuals undergoing treatment.

Observation:

  • A correlation was observed between the use of metaphors and subsequent physical assaults in highly verbal, violent patients.
  • Metaphors ceased functioning as 'as if' devices and became 'concretised' before violent episodes.

Findings:

  • The capacity for psychic interconnection, essential for mental functioning, relies on a primary mental 'warp' or 'frame'.
  • Distortions in this mental warp weaken the ego's interconnecting function, analogous to linguistic metaphor breakdown.
  • Concretised metaphors represent a failed attempt to maintain psychic coherence during imminent psychological breakdown.

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Implications:

  • Understanding metaphor concretization can offer insights into the پیش‌بینی (prediction) and treatment of violent behavior.
  • This research highlights the critical role of linguistic and psychic interconnectedness in maintaining psychological stability.
  • Clinical interventions may benefit from addressing the underlying psychic fragmentation indicated by concretised metaphors.