Metafora i trauma
Metaphor and trauma

Summary/Abstract: This article presents the concept of psychological trauma and its effects on the individual’s ability to form a coherent narrative that would incorporate the traumatic experience into one’s life story. One could expect that the unspeakable nature of trauma would make the narrator reach for metaphors but this is not the case due to the effect of trauma on symbolic thinking. We focus our attention on the initial absence of metaphorical language in the early narrative stage of discourse on trauma and the subsequent emergence of specific types of conceptual metaphors, such as BODY is A CONTAINER or LIFE is A JOURNEY. We suggest that the study of the figurative language used—or not used—by trauma survivors could serve as a window into their processes of coping with and healing from trauma

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