All clients talk in metaphors, and sometimes the metaphors they use help us understand what they might need – if we are careful enough to notice them.
“Metaphors have a way of holding the most truth in the least space.”
– Orson Scott Card
“The thing is, Mark, he genuinely believes he’s Jesus Christ.”
Like many messianic individuals, Kevin looked unremarkable. He was likeable in a quiet way. His delusion only evident when you questioned him. He never really proclaimed his divinity from the rooftops. And yet…
“You speak to him,” said his mother. “He’ll soon tell you he’s Jesus!” And he did.
Kevin had taken to spending 20 hours a day in his room in the hotel his parents owned. His worried parents had tried to get him help. He’d spent some time in a psychiatric unit but had hated the anti-psychotic drugs.
He’d dropped the delusion for a while – or it had dropped him. But now it was back, like an avenging angel.
Delusions and metaphors
The case of Kevin must have been more than 20 years ago. But recently I saw some interesting research on psychosis and metaphor that brought it back to the forefront of my mind.
Dr Rosa Ritunnano and colleagues found that delusions emerge from the interaction of emotions, bodily sensations, and metaphor-laden language, sometimes reflecting feelings of shame, disconnection, or some other need not met.1
The researchers argue that psychotic delusions are not random cognitive or perceptual errors but meaningful, embodied responses to intense emotional experiences that help individuals restore a sense of balance and understanding.
Rather than attempting to challenge delusional beliefs directly, the study suggests that recovery may be better supported by helping patients explore the emotional and metaphorical meanings behind their experiences and by providing calming, supportive environments that reduce distress.
So where did that leave young Kevin?
From nothing to everything
Kevin wasn’t so psychotic that I couldn’t talk with him. We discussed his life “as Kevin”.
Kevin’s (earthly) father was overbearing and domineering but kindly and wanted the best for him. Yet at the age of 39, Kevin still lived at home, and his only work had been cleaning in his parents’ hotel. He’d never had a girlfriend, never really had friends. Kevin as Kevin felt himself to be nothing.
Then something struck me.
Not a thunderbolt from on high, just a thought: that the delusion of being Christ might well be a compensatory metaphor for feeling like a nobody. What better way to compensate for feeling yourself to be nothing than to come to believe yourself to be everything.
No status to ultimate status in one metaphorical leap.
Unfulfilled needs, when chronic, might just produce a ‘lived metaphor’ (just as we live our metaphors during dream sleep each night). At least in those prone to psychosis.
If I could work with Kevin on helping him meet his emotional needs in balance, perhaps the need for the metaphorical delusion might fade naturally.
I think this is a useful tool (sorry, can’t avoid metaphors!) for understanding delusions as well as all human emotional difficulties. In Kevin’s case we might call his delusion a ‘compensatory metaphor’.
Common compensatory metaphors
Here are five examples of delusions interpreted as metaphors for unmet emotional or psychological needs. These are illustrative rather than clinical diagnoses:
- Believing one has a secret royal or heroic identity – This could metaphorically reflect a deep need for recognition, worth, or validation after long-term feelings of invisibility, neglect, or low self-esteem.
- Thinking others are constantly judging or spying on them – This may represent an embodied expression of chronic shame or fear of rejection, where the internal sense of being scrutinized becomes externalized as surveillance.
- Believing they possess a special mission to save the world – Such a belief might symbolize a strong need for purpose, meaning, or control, especially in someone who has felt powerless or directionless in life.
- Feeling that their body is controlled by outside forces – This could metaphorically express experiences of loss of autonomy or past coercion, where earlier situations of feeling out of control are re-experienced through bodily imagery.
- Believing they are uniquely loved or chosen by a powerful figure – This may reflect an unmet need for attachment, safety, or unconditional love, particularly in individuals with histories of abandonment or emotional deprivation. One patient believed she was in a relationship (through her TV) with a famous chat show host.
So it might be that some delusional experiences can be understood not simply as irrational beliefs, but as symbolic attempts to communicate distress and restore emotional meaning: to meet fundamental needs.
Of course, many of your clients won’t be psychotically delusional! But all clients talk in metaphors, and sometimes the metaphors they use help us understand what they might need – if we are careful enough to notice them.
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The metaphors your clients use
First off, it’s important to understand that clients rarely describe their inner world in neat psychological language.
They talk about carrying weights, being stuck, walking on eggshells, falling apart, hitting a wall, running on empty, or drowning.
These aren’t figures of speech to be brushed past on the way to the ‘real work’. They are the real work. When you hear a metaphor from a client, it’s always something you can use.
For example, one client casually used a metaphor of being a “broken lady.” I immediately adopted her metaphor and suggested, “So we need to mend things.”
Because I was working within her metaphor, my suggestion could be readily accepted.
When we begin to speak the symbolic language of our clients, it increases mutual understanding and rapport. If we can accurately reflect a client’s metaphor, they often feel deeply understood.
Statements like:
- “It sounds exhausting to be carrying that alone.”
- “No wonder you feel trapped if there’s no exit in that image you’ve described.”
- “You’ve been surviving in very harsh conditions.”
These reflections do more than show empathy – they demonstrate attunement: a deep awareness of and resonance with their emotional state and needs that makes them feel understood.
Being ‘seen’ at the level of metaphor often feels safer than being analyzed like some bifurcated insect.
Sometimes we can respond to metaphors immediately, sometimes we can wait a while or reintroduce the metaphor in a later session. But in order to really use a client metaphor, we need to extend it by adding a therapeutic element.
But before we go further, what exactly are metaphors?
Finding words when there are no words
Metaphors are how the mind translates complex emotional experience into something communicable and concise. Metaphors can encapsulate truths that may not be readily communicated otherwise, except perhaps laboriously.
“I’m just a broken lady” summarizes all the problems, physical and emotional.
When therapists learn to listen for metaphors, and work with them skilfully, therapy often deepens, accelerates, and becomes more emotionally appealing to the client.
But if we always miss them, we risk talking past the client without realizing it. We cease to ‘speak the same language’, if you will.
Much of psychojargon is metaphor, such as, for example, the ‘inner child’. If we use such ideological metaphors even when they don’t appeal to or resonate with our clients, we risk damaging rapport. Much better to, at least in part, use their metaphors than try to get them to use ours exclusively.
Why metaphors matter in therapy
Metaphors aren’t just flowery, decorative language. They reflect how the brain organizes experience.
The emotional brain doesn’t think in abstract concepts. It arranges its experiences in images, sensations, movement, and relationships. We all dream in metaphor, for example.
Metaphors are the bridge between emotional experience and conscious language.
This is why:
- Metaphors appear spontaneously under emotional load.
- Clients often repeat the same metaphor across sessions.
- A metaphor can feel ‘truer’ to the client than any explanation.
When a client says, “It’s like I’m constantly bracing myself,” they are giving you direct access to their nervous system state, not just their thoughts.
So we need to be on the lookout.
A common missed opportunity
A therapist I know described a session where a client said, “I feel like I’m holding everything together with Sellotape.”
The practitioner nodded, empathized, and moved on to problem-solving. Later, he realized something important had been missed.
The client wasn’t just overwhelmed. She was communicating fragility, impermanence, and fear of sudden collapse. “Sellotape” wasn’t accidental. It implied temporary, cheap, not meant to last.
That metaphor contained far more information than her symptom list.
To get the most value out of our clients’ use of metaphor, we need to do the following.
One: Slow down when a metaphor appears
One of the most useful skills is simply not rushing past metaphorical language, as I mentioned above. When a client shifts from descriptive to metaphorical speech, it often signals something meaningful is emerging.
Instead of paraphrasing or interpreting too quickly, pause and reflect it back:
- “You said it feels like you’re carrying a heavy load.”
- “That image of being trapped keeps coming up.”
- “You described it as walking on eggshells – can we stay with that for a moment?”
This does two things: It tells the client you are listening in depth; and it invites elaboration without pressure. Often the metaphor expands naturally once it has been acknowledged.
If we work hypnotically with someone, we might even ask them to translate their experience into metaphor.
For example, I might ask someone: “If that little doubting voice in your head were a person, what would they look like? What does their voice sound like?” This can then lead to an exploration of “How can we start turning down the volume on that mean voice?”
In this way we can introduce metaphor and create some distance (to use yet another metaphor!) between the client and the problem state.
But if they’ve introduced a metaphor, we can certainly help them expand upon it.
Two: Ask metaphor-expanding questions
Once a metaphor is present, gentle, curious questions can bring it into sharper focus. Useful prompts include:
- “What is it like inside that image?”
- “How long has it been this way?”
- “Does it ever change?”
- “What would make it lighter / safer / more bearable?”
- “What happens if you stop holding it together?”
These questions work because they stay within the client’s emotional language rather than dragging them back into analysis.
They also bypass defences. It is often easier for a client to talk about ‘the image’ than about themselves directly.
From metaphor to meaning
David, struggling with burnout, said, “I feel like I’m running on empty.” When asked to describe the image, he said, “It’s like a car with the fuel warning light on, but I keep driving anyway.”
This led to some powerful realizations:
- He believed stopping was not an option.
- He equated rest with failure.
- He saw breakdown as inevitable.
No questionnaire would have captured this as clearly as the metaphor did.
We can also be mindful of how frequently a metaphor is used.
Three: Notice repeated metaphors across sessions
Clients often return to the same metaphor unconsciously. Repeated metaphors usually point to:
- Core beliefs
- Long-standing emotional patterns
- Early learning.
Examples include:
- “I’m stuck.”
- “I’m invisible.”
- “I’m drowning.”
- “I’m carrying everyone else.”
- “I’m behind a glass wall.”
These are not casual expressions. They are descriptions of ongoing emotional patterns.
Keeping a mental note of recurring metaphors can help you track what is truly central to the client’s experience even when surface issues change.
Sophie frequently said, “I feel like I’m behind a glass wall – I can see people, but I’m not really part of it.”
This metaphor appeared in discussions about friendships, work, and family.
Eventually, therapy explored early experiences of emotional neglect. Sophie had learned to observe connection rather than participate in it. Always on the outside looking in. The metaphor captured her relational stance perfectly.
Working with that image, rather than just individual social ‘problems’, allowed therapy to progress quickly.
But before we get too metaphor happy we need to consider the following.
Four: Avoid overinterpreting metaphors
A common mistake is assuming we know what a metaphor means. Metaphors are personal, not universal.
For one client, being stuck may feel safe. For another, it may feel suffocating. Carrying a burden may involve pride as well as exhaustion.
Instead of interpreting, ask:
- “What does that image mean to you?”
- “What’s the worst part of that?”
- “Is there anything positive about it?”
Let the client define their own symbolism. When therapists impose meaning, metaphors lose their power.
But as I touched on earlier, we need to do more than just notice our client metaphors.
Five: Use metaphors as gateways to change
Metaphors don’t just describe problems, they can also be used to create movement.
Once an image is clear, subtle shifts can be explored:
- “What would it be like if the load were lighter?”
- “What would help you step out from behind the wall?”
- “If the storm cloud moved, where would it go?”
This works particularly well if we are skilled in clinical hypnosis. Because the emotional brain understands images, change at this level can feel immediate and real.
Maria, a client with chronic anxiety, said, “It’s like I’m constantly waiting for something bad to happen.”
I asked her, “If that feeling had an image, what would it look like?”
Maria replied, “It’s like standing under a dark cloud that follows me everywhere.”
As she explored the image further, it became clear that she rarely experienced a sense of emotional safety, even in neutral moments. The metaphor revealed a pervasive threat state, not just anxious thoughts.
This shifted the focus of therapy from managing worry to building feelings of safety.
Hypnotically I had her experience being able to direct a dispersing force onto that cloud until it disappeared completely. This translated into feeling brighter and more in control in her everyday life.
When we see metaphorical communication as a potential source of power to help mend minds (okay, I may be going a little overboard with metaphor now!) then therapy can become exponentially more powerful.
Metaphorical work powers up therapy
Metaphors are windows into emotional truth as well as how people see their worlds.
They reveal:
- How clients experience themselves
- How they relate to others
- How safe or unsafe their world feels
- What change might look like, or why it feels impossible.
I worked with Kevin to help him become more independent. He eventually did a vocational course. Found part time work away from his parents’ hotel. Started meeting people, got new interests. Finally he told me:
“I can’t believe I used to believe I was Jesus!”
When therapists learn to listen for metaphors, slow down around them, understand what they might be telling us, and work with them respectfully, therapy becomes more precise, more humane, and more effective.
Clients may not remember every technique you use. But they will remember being understood, especially when you respect and use the language their emotional brain is already speaking.
Blend hypnotic work into your practice
If you’re a practitioner who has always wondered about hypnosis, you can learn how to blend it into your work with Mark’s online course, Uncommon Hypnotherapy.
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About Mark Tyrrell
Psychology is my passion. I've been a psychotherapist trainer since 1998, specializing in brief, solution focused approaches. I now teach practitioners all over the world via our online courses.
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