Karl Jaspers Forum, Note 32
METAPHORS, UNIVERSAL TRANSFER, AND TRAUMDEUTUNG
by Paul Jones
28 December 1999
I have been a little surprised by that serious reaction
on my brief note intended to merely mark my return to
active life after a period of forced silence. This makes
me hope that the problem of epistemological hierarchy
is of importance for the science of consciousness and its
applications.
I agree with Klaus Krippendorff that we should not
generalize the word 'metaphor' to any act of conceptual
transfer at all. No doubt, etymology may influence one's
understanding of the other's text, but this is in no way
the principal feature of verbal communication, which is
primarily characterized by the portability of meanings
related to the commonality of activities. Let us note
that adopting words from the foreign languages normally
serves to convey something special that cannot be merely
translated. In particular, the word 'metaphor' can
hardly be considered a mere substitute for 'transfer'
in the modern usage, it rather refers to a specific way
of transfer typical of the arts, and poetry first of all.
(I realize that this may not hold for some languages
like German, where the specific meaning of poetical
metaphor has to be conveyed with the contextual means)
On the other hand, I must admit that Zvi Lothane is right
to stress the universal importance of transfer processes
in human behavior and reasoning, including 'internal'
activity. I could even assert that the universality of
binding things together is the determinative feature of
a conscious being, distinguishing it from the animal,
or an inanimate thing. However, this universal transfer
takes specific forms in every particular activity, and
we have to describe these individual forms along with
their subjection to the general scheme.
In my previous comment on metaphors [TA25 C02], I referred to the
levels of art, science and philosophy but this does
not mean that all the human life is either art, or
science, or philosophy, and there is nothing else in it.
There are other levels, both below and above, implying
the appropriate forms of transfer, with the general
ordering from syncretism, through analyticity, to synthesis.
Metaphor in the proper sense (poetical metaphor) is
syncretic: it melds (using Zvi Lothane's word) the three
levels distinct in science: description, explanation,
modeling; on the higher level (in philosophy),
interpretations synthesize all the three in a way quite
different from the syncretic mixture of a metaphor.
However, on a lower level, in our everyday life, we find
various forms of activity transfer which are much more
syncretic as compared to poetical metaphor, since they
do not involve the recognition of the very fact of transfer,
while a poet's metaphor is intentional and conscious,
and its 'domains' (the term suggested by Klaus Krippendorff)
are deliberately linked rather than randomly mixed.
In the same way, using words 'metaphorically' is different
from meaning transfer so frequent in the language: the former
suggests a link between different domains, while the latter
is a manifestation of an activity transfer that has
already occurred.
With all that in the mind, we could treat dreams as one
of the most primitive (that is, the most ancient and
syncretic) forms of activity transfer, common to humans
and higher animals. The primitiveness of a dream makes
it also a good starting point for further creative work,
providing something to analyze.
This is where a psychoanalyst steps in. Normally, people
do not pay much attention to their dreams and this is
quite understandable, since they usually have much more
advanced (and more efficient) means of coping with the
world (including themselves), and there is no need to
watch a clepsydra, with a good wristwatch on the wrist.
However, in certain cases, higher-level mechanisms
may lose their efficiency, which is usually an indicator
of social inappropriateness. Still, the people continue
to manipulate the broken gears unaware of their loose
movement. Psychotherapy is to help people to grasp
something solid instead of emptiness, and reconstruct
the hierarchy of self-control in a way more adequate
in the new circumstances. However, as Freud stressed,
it is the patient who has to do the work, not the analyst;
the role of the latter is to provide a professional
feedback, an active environment enhancing the patient's
own reflective abilities.
In principle, a therapist can work with any pieces of
personal experience, dreams being one possible component.
Good therapists combine various techniques and use
every known theory to achieve optimal treatment in
each case. To select the appropriate means, they
have to interpret the patient's behavior, including
external activity as well as dreams. Still, lack of
professionalism may lead to strained interpretations
and suggestion, negatively influencing the whole
processes of rehabilitation. Quite often the
therapist's errors originate from the same social
imperfections as the patient's troubles, which
results in a complex interference pattern.
It should be stressed that the patient's internal
processes and his/her involvement in therapy are the
different levels of the same hierarchy, and the whole
therapeutic process can be considered as internal
to the collective subject comprising both the patient
and the therapist, in the context of their social
position, that is, their embedding into a higher-level
totality. The interaction between the participants
of psychotherapy may hence be treated as just another
case of transfer, on the group level. This transfer
may be as hierarchical as in the individual case,
involving activity transfer, metaphors, analysis
and synthesis etc. A clear understanding of transfer
processes involved is of ultimate importance for
correct interpretation and efficient feedback
in psychotherapy.
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