Metaphor

Metaphor means, etymologically, the transfer to one word of the meaning of another.

In psychotherapy, its use makes it possible to interpret – to grant another meaning to – symbolic or concrete situations. The symbols of dreams, even before Freud, were understood as a highly metaphorical language; and symptoms likewise.

We therapists ordinarily work by constructing meanings that are new, different and even “better” than those the clients bring; and for that purpose, the use of metaphor within the therapeutic conversation proves extremely useful. The “transfer to one word of the meaning of another” that we find in the definition can be transposed to therapeutic work by taking the latter as a metaphor of that definition: “the transfer of the meaning of one situation to another”, which implies its redefinition.

The decision to separate

Very often, the decision to marry “for a whole lifetime” can collide with the new decision to separate. It is common for people to feel that their decision to undo the couple is not entirely justified: what is happening in their relationship is not serious enough to disobey that mandate of eternity. The one who in fact wishes to separate lives this idea with a great deal of guilt and expects the other to help them in it, to forgive them or to “allow” it. And that generally does not happen: quite the contrary.

This is ordinarily observed in couples where one of the members is very dependent on the other. The degree of complementarity is so great that the person who thinks of separating has the feeling of abandoning what is almost a creature that will not survive without them. If it is the man who wants to separate, his guilt runs through the woman’s economic dependence, through her “incapacity” to survive without him; if it is the woman who wants it, her guilt has more to do with an abandonment of an emotional kind, in which the other will die without her support (and there are sometimes overt threats of suicide from the “abandoned” man).

It is appropriate, in such cases, to manage to redefine the complementary role as a submission and/or an annulment of the other; that is, to make separation appear as a possibility of growth, of developing the capacity that was not shown during the years of life together.

It also helps to link the beginning of the couple to a given moment of life: a moment which, once it changes, no longer allows the relationship to be sustained in the same form.

A case

I shall illustrate this theme with an interview I conducted with a couple, by way of a consultation, in Colombia. Jorgelina and Guillermo are its protagonists; they are accompanied by the therapist who is seeing them in what we might call a “divorce therapy”.

Therapist: Right, I am here to give you and the doctor a few more ideas. I wanted to ask you two or three small things that help me to get my bearings: Guillermo, how old are you?

Guillermo: 40 years old.

T: And you, Jorgelina?

Jorgelina: I am forty now.

T: Very good. I know you have two daughters, the doctor told me, and I also know what the theme is that brought you to consult. I would like you to give me one more small piece of information: what you usually do in life. Jorgelina, do you work outside the home or at home?

J: I work in a bank, as a corporate adviser.

G: I work in the same bank, only in other places.

T: Good. I know you had agreed with the doctor to do this consultation, and I would like to ask you – since I have only just met you –, I would like to ask you directly what, today, right now, worries each of you most. Possibly what you were working on with the doctor, but I would like you to update it, because I have only just met you; does that make sense? Who wants to start? Choose for yourselves. What is worrying you right now?

G: Well, that she has taken the decision to separate; this problem has been going on for several months. I have insisted and insisted and pleaded a great deal up to now, but I have got nowhere: her decision is made.

Guillermo presents himself as the “victim” of his wife’s decision. If this description is confirmed, the interventions will have to tend towards redefining these positions of victim and executioner.

T: Ah… and what do you want to obtain, Guillermo? Not to separate?

G: I am very attached to her, because I love her and I love her a great deal, and I do not want to lose her.

T: That is what worries you most right now, good. And you, Jorgelina?

J: For me, more or less the same, inasmuch as I see that we are not a couple, that we are not a marriage; that is why I want the separation. Apart from the girls and a lot of things, I believe the best thing, from what we have talked about, is for us to separate.

T: Let us see whether I understand correctly: you have two different positions. You, Guillermo, do not want to separate and you have done everything you could to try to convince her to change that decision. And you, Jorgelina, want to separate. One wants one thing and the other wants another, is that right?

I metacommunicate about the disagreement in the couple, in order to make it explicit and to see what the path to follow might be.

J and G: Yes.

T: Guillermo… with this work you are doing with the doctor, would you like it to end with your not separating? Would you like things to improve in the couple and for you not to separate? Would you like it to end there?

G: I would, yes; I have the good will to try to improve things. I want to have a chance. I have the good will to be evaluated; I could just rest on my laurels and nothing more.

T: And you, Jorgelina, would you like it to end in separation? Is that right?

J: In this treatment I have learnt a lot of things…

T: Excuse me: those things you have learnt, have they changed that idea, that decision to separate?

J: They have not changed it for me… or they have led me to think. I feel that I love him a lot, but there are things I cannot erase, that I cannot do; I would like to change…

T: You would like to change your thinking, your feeling?

J: Yes, sometimes, thinking about the girls, because it is hard for them to change home; but I cannot, I cannot do it…

Jorgelina struggles between the desire to separate from her husband and the suffering this would entail for her daughters. She then puts forward the work done so far in the therapy, which reinforces her decision and eases her guilt by redefining as mistaken the idea of staying married.

T: Let us see: so what you have learnt, what you have thought about as you say… it has not changed your decision to separate in any case?

J: No, but it has given me a lot of things, it has made me see my mistakes…

T: It has made you see mistakes… but it has not changed your decision?

J: It has made me see that, in the marriage, I too made a lot of mistakes; but since the change did not occur, because unfortunately, if I do not love a person, I cannot be in a relationship, if I cannot love him I cannot bear what comes next, because marriage is above all sharing…

T: In other words, even if you have discovered things, even if you have learnt things and reflected on your own mistakes, you maintain that decision to separate, because you are telling Guillermo “I do not love you”; is that right?

J: All the more reason: it is precisely because I have learnt that I have taken the decision, all the more so.

T: Which things, among those you have learnt in these interviews, have helped you to take that decision with even more reason?

J: I was not very sure; I wanted to separate but I was not very sure, because of the girls, the talking, the criticisms, the fact of becoming single again. I learnt with the doctor that since our marriage each of us has gone our own way; at first we loved each other, things did not work out, and now that I do not love him it is harder for me to adapt to his way and him to mine. That gave me the certainty that carrying on would be the greatest mistake we could make: carrying on would mean being all right for a month or two and then going back to the same thing.

Jorgelina appears more decided and firmer in this situation; Guillermo shows himself to be very dependent and very helpless in the face of her. These accounts confirm me in the idea of being able to build with them a different idea, in which separation might also be a valid alternative for him.

T: Tell me, Jorgelina, how long have you had this idea?

J: For a very long time, two or three years; we were trying to sort things out, we would be all right for a while and we would go back to the same thing.

T: Tell me: has Guillermo known for two or three years that you have this idea?

J: I told him on several occasions; that is why we were talking and trying to sort things out…

G: It is practically two or three months since she spoke to me about it.

T: In other words, Jorgelina, you took your time to think about it, from three years ago until two months ago, in a way?

J: Yes.

With these ideas, I explore whether the decision is an impulse of Jorgelina’s in reaction to Guillermo, or a long-matured decision. And it is the second that appears. I then begin to question the interaction that has been generated between them in the face of this decision.

T: Guillermo, I see you are worried about this situation, since you are the one who does not want this separation… I would like to ask you something: what have you done since you learnt that Jorgelina was determined to separate?

G: I talked with her, telling her: let us start again, let us try again… It is because of that that we came to consult and that we are here; we came to talk to the psychologist because I want someone to help me.

T: And Jorgelina agreed, that is why you are here. Right: what else have you done, for your part?

G: I tried to talk and talk and talk, but I always came up against the same thing.

T: Let us see whether I understand correctly: the more you tried to talk, the stronger the decision was…

G: Yes.

T: Allow me to ask you something: how do you think Jorgelina sees you when you ask her, when you plead with her?

G: I imagine she sees me as something very contemptible; there is no love, there is nothing, so with so much insisting… I think I end up making things worse.

T: The more you insist, the more Jorgelina may see you as contemptible?

G: Yes, the more things get worse, as if she were saying to herself: “where is his manhood? where is his pride, that man who insists and insists…?”

T: And do you want to get Jorgelina to see you as contemptible?

G: No, I do not want that; it has helped me to draw closer to God…

Guillermo describes his attempt to cling to Jorgelina, which places him in a position that is contemptible for her and fruitless for him. This situation brings me the metaphor of quicksand, where, under the effect of the desperation of dying, people make movements that condemn them to the very end they dread. I believe that this idea of fear of death, which I perceived in Guillermo in the face of separation, also gave rise in me to the metaphor of the ventilator that I use further on.

Quicksand

T: It is better to ask God to help you than to ask Jorgelina to change her decision; from what you say, the more you ask her, the more Jorgelina sees you as contemptible… Do you know what that makes me think of, Guillermo? Of what happens to people when they fall into quicksand…

G: The sand has already swallowed me up.

T: Of course, because you have seen that the more people move, the deeper they sink. Could you put the brakes on this insisting?

G: Yes, it is already eight days since I said anything to her.

T: And how are you doing?

G: Calmer, and I think she is too.

T: Good, very good.

G: Because the more I insisted, the more I hurt myself.

T: That sometimes happens in life: you think that is the way, and you go on, and you go on, and you go on, but you do not realise that it is getting worse each time, because you think that is the way… Jorgelina, what do you think will happen if you separate from Guillermo? What do you imagine afterwards?

I think that the time Jorgelina has given herself to decide on her separation is linked, among other motives, to the perception of a very dependent Guillermo who could not survive without her. I therefore begin to explore the fantasies they share about the “day after” the separation.

J: I know it is not going to be easy for anyone, not for me, not for Guillermo, not for the girls; I know that, about many things, I am going to feel alone, that I am going to wish I had not separated.

T: Yes, you are surely going to feel alone at certain moments, and you are even going to miss him.

J: Surely. It has been a lot of years now, and I am aware of that.

T: What do you think will happen to Guillermo?

J: I think that at the beginning it will be difficult, for everyone it will be very difficult; that perhaps he will become more alone, more silent, more independent, he keeps himself very much apart, and it does something to me to leave him alone.

T: There is something I do not understand: if Guillermo is very independent, why are you afraid of leaving him alone?

J: Because he is a very solitary person; so I think that if things are going to be difficult for me, for him they are going to be even more difficult.

T: Let us see: if Guillermo is as solitary as you say, were you the one in charge of public relations, were you the one in charge of connecting him to the rest of the world?

J: Yes.

T: Really? What a job! Was it like that, Guillermo?

G: It is true.

T: And if Jorgelina were not there to connect you to the rest of the world… what would happen to you?

G: I would have to make my own way.

T: In other words, you would have the opportunity to make your own way by yourself.

Once they have described the functions of each of them within the couple and the strong complementarity generated on that basis, I begin to redefine the separation as a moment of opportunity for Guillermo, and no longer merely as a misfortune he has to endure in his life.

“Jorgelina has been your ventilator”

G: Or I would sink into the sand.

T: You sink into the sand when you ask Jorgelina not to separate. Do you know what it seems like to me, Guillermo? That Jorgelina has been for you like those ventilators people are put on when they have had an accident, when they are in a stage III or IV coma and they remain connected to life by the ventilator. Jorgelina is like your ventilator.

G: Yes, it is something very vital for me.

T: But… your lungs, how are they, all right? Can you breathe on your own?

G: I am trying.

T: It is not going to be easy… because, when you are used to using the ventilator, you believe you cannot breathe by yourself. But perhaps you can, and you have not realised it yet. You said that it has been eight days since you said anything to Jorgelina, and that you are doing better.

In this last intervention, I work with the idea of beliefs taken for truths: “you believe you are not going to be able to”. This narration has as its object the gradual shift from the certainty “I cannot” to that of “I believe I cannot”.

G: Better, in inverted commas.

T: Well… yes, of course!

G: Resigned.

T: Surely, resigned. But when he is resigned, instead of going on paddling in the quicksand, he stays still. And when he stays still, instead of going down, he goes up… Jorgelina… I think you have been quite prudent these two or three years; you have spent a good deal of time thinking about and pondering this idea. You have not been impulsive at all, and it seems to me that this prudence is a way of taking care of your daughters, and also a way of taking care of yourself, because when one takes impulsive decisions, one gets hurt, one gets knocked about. And it is also a way of taking care of Guillermo. How did you manage, during these years of marriage, to turn yourself into a ventilator, into an oxygen tube for Guillermo?

J: I think it is because I adapt a great deal to life, to things, I try to take them as they come… And I very much like helping people.

T: And you help him and you have helped Guillermo.

J: I thought I was helping him, but no, I saw that I was not, neither him nor me.

T: In other words, you too entered quicksand: for many years you believed you were helping him, and then you realised that you were not.

J: Yes, I was always pushing, and there came a moment when I got tired, when I saw that all that is not justified for… for nothing, in the end.

Accommodating, to the point of losing oneself

T: Well… and you, did you feel very much helped all these years by Jorgelina, Guillermo?

G: Perhaps, so as not to lose her, I accommodated myself to things, trying to… to do the things she more or less wanted. When she treated me badly, I did not even talk with her, I treated her badly; I went along like a metro rail, I did not move from there; when I got tired, I protested and I smashed everything. For lack of having any authority, so as not to be a male chauvinist, when she told me she wanted to separate, I did not react like a husband, like a man, for lack of having any authority. It is sad to admit it, but that is how it is.

T: It is very courageous of you to admit it. Well… let us see… there is then something I do not understand well… I think someone in your position might be saying what Jorgelina is saying: “I want to separate”, “I want to be me”, “I want to be me again”, “why must I go along like a rail, straight ahead, straight ahead, and if I stray from it a little, I get hit”.

In this last intervention, I underline the possibility that Guillermo too might need the separation, inasmuch as being with Jorgelina could make him lose even his identity. The highly dependent relationship built by the two of them, on the basis of what looks like a mutual sacrifice, creates a story remote from that possibility.

G: No, because I love her a lot and I love the girls a lot. Despite the problems we have had, I never told her “I do not love you”.

T: And if this situation were not like that – getting angry but then coming back onto the rail and saying yes to everything –, if it were different, would you not love Jorgelina?

G: Of course I would, I would love her and she would love me.

T: Would you love her more if she were like that?

G: And she would love me more.

T: And she would love you more. Now… it cannot be easy to say no to Jorgelina or to contest something with her; I imagine Jorgelina must be quite… sure when she says something… “that is how it is and I am not moving from there”… Is that right, Guillermo?

G: Yes… and I accommodate myself to everything… but it is not easy having to be pushed; it tires her too.

T: Yes, yes… Well… It is not easy to be alongside a woman who has a lot of energy. Perhaps you ought to recover a little of that energy, and Jorgelina to ease off a little.

G: Before, when I tried to assert myself, I would smash things. And I had to accommodate myself again straight away.

T: Tell me, Guillermo… with this business of accommodating and accommodating yourself, you must have lost a lot of things.

G: I was losing her, who is the most important thing.

T: But apart from losing her… You did it thinking that in this way you were not going to lose her, but you must have lost other things while you were doing it.

G: Perhaps oneself. I do not know what would have happened during these 13 years if things had been different…

T: What other idea, what other initiative comes to mind, that you might have had?

G: A home with the authority of a husband, the authority of a father… the man of the house, as they say. But the way I behaved, I was neither a good man, nor a good husband, nor good at anything. I was like a puppet, there…

T: Were you happy when Jorgelina moved you about in all directions?

G: Unhappy. I had periods when I wanted to kill myself. When I did not protest, we had good spells.

T: But when you did not protest, were you happy?

G: Yes, in order to get on well with her; but I did not see the mistake I was making, that I was accommodating myself in everything.

T: And when did you realise that it was of no use? When Jorgelina told you “I want to separate”?

G: No, it had already been a year of one argument after another, and even accommodating myself was no longer worth anything.

T: Do you know that I have the impression, Guillermo, that you would have lived in fear. Am I wrong, or was it like that, Guillermo?

G: Yes, I was very afraid of losing her.

T: Of course: if you believe you cannot breathe, you are afraid of losing the ventilator.

G: The first years, the marriage worked well; but then, with the first daughter, she devoted herself to her continuously. I have been sleeping alone for years now.

T: Before the arrival of the first daughter… were you Jorgelina’s child?

G: We were more of a couple, because we shared more; afterwards I felt displaced, I felt that she no longer loved me.

In this sequence I begin to question, provocatively, Guillermo’s filial role, which leads him to dread the loss of the couple as that of a vital relationship.

T: If you were a couple, when a child arrived, you would have drawn closer to one another to look after the child. If you felt displaced, I believe you were Jorgelina’s child.

G: Yes, I felt bad. She devoted herself a great deal to the girls, and I was left aside, aside.

T: Ah… Jorgelina said: “now I am only a mother, nothing more, I am no longer a couple… I am a mother”. So you said to yourself: “damn, in order to be able to be with Jorgelina, I have to be a son too”. And you got onto the rail, as if you were a little brother or the first son. Do you have brothers and sisters, Guillermo?

G: Two.

T: Older?

G: Younger.

T: Then you know from your own experience that, when a little brother is born, you get jealous. And you, Jorgelina, do you have brothers and sisters?

J: Eleven.

T: Eleven brothers and sisters! And out of the eleven, which number are you?

J: In the middle.

T: Then you know what happens upwards and what happens downwards. And did you have to look after your younger brothers and sisters a great deal?

J: No.

The opportunity to stop being a child

T: Guillermo, I think this is a good opportunity for you to stop being a child. What do you think?

I again redefine the separation as an opportunity for Guillermo: in this instance, that of recovering his adult status.

G: Yes, sir.

T: No, do not say “yes, sir” to me, because you are very obedient.

G: (Angry.) Well then yes, what am I going to do, I am not going to kill myself.

T: No, of course. You killed yourself when you turned yourself into a child so that Jorgelina would guide you and take you here and there, tell you what is right and what is wrong. And that child killed the man. Now you have the opportunity to bring the man back to life. May Jorgelina too have, after the separation, the opportunity to save the woman, and not only the mother. I believe that is the great opportunity you have, Guillermo: that of saving the man.

J: I understand Guillermo’s position, and in talking with him I told him to try to have an amicable separation, for the girls. Let us try to remain like two friends; I know it is very difficult, but let us try.

T: It seems to me that what you are saying is very protective of the girls; but I fear that Guillermo, who is so obedient, will say yes to you and go through an amicable separation too. Which is good for the children, but one also needs a place to let out a cry, to release one’s anger, and not only to be kind. Now… when a couple wants to unite, it needs the agreement and the desire of both; but when a couple wants to separate, the desire of one alone is enough.

G: If there is no love…

T: Of course; if there is no love, taking up the position of saying “I do not want to separate, and I am going to make it difficult for you” is sometimes the capricious position of a little boy; of a 5-year-old child who says “I do not want to, I do not want to, I do not want to”.

T: I believe, Guillermo, that you have, in this situation which is particularly painful for you, a great opportunity to stop being a little boy; that is the role you have had to hold for many years because you believed that was how you could stay with her. I believe that you, Jorgelina, have the opportunity to soften, to become gentler, not to have to be so tense, to relax little by little. And you, Guillermo, have the opportunity not to have to give in so much and to recover your self-esteem. Because if all you do is protest and give in, and give in and protest, self-esteem goes down. I very often see couples who only manage it at the moment when they are faced with separation; before that, they cannot do it. You, Guillermo, tried to get out of that place and you could not, just as Jorgelina could not either. I very often see couples who have to reach this situation, who have to reach the point of crying, of quarrelling, and of accepting it afterwards. Sometimes, in separating, couples can see each other in a different way, only at that moment, only at that moment. Sometimes people separate and separate; but sometimes they take some distance and can begin to see each other in a different way.

T: During these thirteen years, you have helped each other to stay very rigid, each in their place. I believe, Guillermo, that in one way or another Jorgelina is giving you the opportunity to find your way back to the best of yourself. Perhaps then Jorgelina will be able to begin seeing you differently.

(Guillermo starts to cry.)

T: (Standing up, putting a hand on his shoulder and patting his back.) Very good, cry, cry calmly. It is better to cry than to start stamping your feet like a 5-year-old child.

G: I feel guilty.

T: For crying, you have no reason to feel guilty; you may feel guilty for having made Guillermo into a 5-year-old little boy.

G: I want to withdraw now.

T: Yes, yes… we have finished. I only want to tell you, Guillermo, that this is also an opportunity so that, when you find your way back to the best of yourself, you will no longer need Jorgelina so much and will be able to breathe with your own lungs. I would leave the interview there; the doctor will accompany you.

J: Thank you very much.

T: Thank you. (He shakes hands with them both and they withdraw.)

Commentary

The purpose of the consultation is to bring, both to the clients – in this instance the couple – and to the therapist, a view somewhat different from the one that has been built up until then; a minimum of additional input, so that this therapeutic system may then carry on with its work. And, for that purpose, it represents many challenges for the consultant. One has to connect quickly with the couple, get to know its idiosyncrasy, respect the work carried out until then, and respond to the need the therapist may have had, she being the one who proposes and requests the work with the consultant.

In this case, the professional’s concern was to help both members of the couple in this process of separation: that was the agreement made with the couple, and it represented a clear objective.

Metaphor, through its mechanism of condensation, represents a useful resource in the face of a situation such as the one posed in this work: it ordinarily has a strong impact in a short time. The appearance of the images I used in this work was not fixed in advance, before receiving the couple, since I could not know how the interview was going to unfold: I knew only the theme. I consider that being predisposed to the construction of a metaphor – right-brain work –, joined to the rational and emotional connection with the members of the couple, gradually supplies the elements which, according to my own stock of ideas, end up crystallising in those images and not in others. The resignification of the separation, in this case, was based essentially on the use of these two metaphors.

The effects of this whole intervention can only be thought about long afterwards, according to the course of the treatment, always bearing in mind that it was no more than a contribution to it; metaphorically speaking: a small grain of sand.