Metaphor dialog in psychotherapy

I suggest a psychotherapeutic approach which involves extended allegorical conversations between therapist and patient, and present 2 case examples. The approach, Metaphor Dialog (MD), can be described as a 4-way conversation among the conscious and unconscious aspects of both persons' psyches. Although it typically begins with patient-generated material, MD often involves empathic, intuitive, and spontaneous interventions by the therapist which may depart significantly from the metaphoric material overtly presented by the patient. I argue that such an approach represents a beneficial balance between existing metaphor-based techniques which emphasize either patient-generated or therapist-generated content. MD may offer important increases in therapeutic potency in contrast to techniques in which attention to the metaphors developed by 1 or the other party are assumed to be more effective or appropriate.