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Re:Isomorphism in metaphors
Steve Lankton · 03/30/04 at 3:54 ET
If I understand your question, the answer is that this is very easy to do. If you told a story of, say, another client that was exactly like the listener (same gender, age, situation, etc) this would increase the "fit" for the client...but not be "removed" much from the obvious. As you replace elements in your story (change the gender, change the age, change the issues, etc.) it become more removed but continues to be isomorphic. One must judge the degree of ambiguity that is best for the listener's learning and experiencing. Adjust your degree of metaphor "distance" to maximize the needs of the unique client. This discussion is all so abstract. Do you have a goal with a client with some goals to which this pertains, of is this just a theoretical quandry? If so there are many good books on the topic of therapeutic use of metaphor. Since you are interested in isomorphism, I suggest David Gordon's book. My books, the Answer Within and Tales of Enchantment are good for both isomorphic as well as goal-directed metaphor methods. And, Metaphoria by Rubin Batino is a very comprehensive book just published last year or maybe the year before.
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