Review of Tay (2022): Navigating the realities of metaphor and psychotherapy research

What is it about?

Among the various collaborative metaphor studies gaining prominence in real-life situations (e.g., language education, advertising), metaphor use in psychotherapy, despite its frequent occurrence due to its ‘talking cure’ nature, still remains a relatively underexplored area. This article provides a brief overview of Dennis Tay’s new book “Navigating the Realities of Metaphor and Psychotherapy Research”, followed by a chapter-by-chapter introduction, and concludes with evaluations of the work. Our review article tries to prove that the book under review stands out as a much-needed contribution to both the CMT and psychotherapy research communities, and to the realm of collaborative research exploration.

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Photo by Brian Jacobs on Unsplash

Photo by Brian Jacobs on Unsplash

Why is it important?

Compared with its companions in the broader series of Elements in Cognitive Linguistics, the book under review stands out as a practical guidebook with great pedagogical significance and potential replicability. It documents the author’s first-hand experience by tracking a long-term collaborative research project between him, a linguistically-trained metaphor researcher, and psychotherapists, and offers transferable insights to collaborative research across diverse domains. Short yet well-structured and easily accessible, this book is a thought-provoking read for many parties, be it theory enthusiasts looking to enhance their empirical basis, practitioners seeking theoretical underpinnings for practical decisions, or even beginning researchers seeking to draft innovative research programs through collaborative efforts with industry partners.

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