APA Invited Address by Laurence J. Kirmayer, PhD
In this year's Society for Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology Invited Address, transcultural psychiatrist Laurence J. Kirmayer, PhD will draw upon his research in culturally responsive mental health services, the mental health of indigenous peoples, and the anthropology of psychiatry to explore metaphor as a bridge between psychology and the humanities. Following his presentation, three distinguished panelists, David Goodman, PhD, Joseph Gone, PhD and Pratyusha Tummala-Narra, PhD, will respond to the talk and probe the theoretical and clinical implications.
Full Abstract: This talk will draw from ethnographic and qualitative health research to explore the place of metaphor in illness experience and healing practices. The theory of metaphor bridges the fundamental concern of the humanities with meaning and the efforts of psychology to reveal the mechanisms of human adaptation. Decades of work has shown how conceptual metaphor is central to cognition. 4E cognitive science suggests that metaphors involve processes of embodiment and enactment that link bodily physiology, intersubjective experience, and discursive practices. These processes are embedded in local worlds that provide cultural affordances. Metaphor plays a key role in self-regulation, the narrative construction of the self, and social personhood. Evocative metaphors provided by psychiatry and psychology like "broken brains", "chemical imbalances," "trauma" and "resilience" can reshape our sense of agency and subjectivity. Diagnostic and therapeutic metaphors deployed in clinical settings can be mutative, transformative, and sometimes corrosive to the experience of self and other. In addition to uniting meaning-centered and mechanistic approaches, viewing illness and healing through the lens of metaphor can contribute to cultural critique. The metaphors we find ready-to-hand reflect political choices: they are promoted or constrained by economic and other interests that aim to capture, exploit or limit our imaginations. Poetic attentiveness and invention can challenge the deadening languages of conformity and convention, acknowledging disavowed aspects of the self, opening up new possibilities of being, and creating opportunities for presence and connection. To realize this liberatory potential, however, we must consider the cultural contexts and politics of poiesis.