Men Are Grass: Bateson, Erickson, Utilization and Metaphor

American Journal of Clinical Hypnosis,  Jan 2008  by Roffman, Andrew E

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Abstract

The relationship between metaphor and the practice of utilization in therapy and hypnosis can be seen as dependent on metaphor's role in structuring experience. The work of Gregory Bateson and others is used to illustrate how metaphor functions. Bateson's comparison of two forms of syllogistic logic provides a background for distinguishing between the experiential effects of metaphor in contrast to the categorical thinking inherent in simile and analogy. Clinical examples are given to demonstrate how utilization is structured by metaphor, particularly as Bateson has described it in his analysis of the Syllogism in Grass.

Keywords: Utilization, metaphor, syllogism, abduction, hypnosis, therapy.

We do not judge that this or that thing is necessarily disturbing. We can only wonder what use can be made of it. Milton H. Erickson (1985, p.257).

Are there necessities of poetry without which prose is pathogenic? Gregory Bateson (Harries-Jones, 1995, p. 51).

Metaphor is ubiquitous. Just as one cannot not communicate (Watzlawick, Bavelas & Jackson, 1967) one cannot not communicate metaphorically. Language and concept formation depend on metaphor (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980,1999; Johnson, 1987; Lakoff, 1987). If one accepts these propositions, then the practice of hypnotherapy, a discipline so inextricably bound up with language and communication, requires an understanding of how metaphor functions. The relationship of hypnotherapy and metaphor has been well-documented (Brown, 1991; Coombs & Freedman, 1990; Lankton & Lankton, 1983), especially among Ericksonians. This paper will look more closely at the connection between metaphor and the practice of utilization, taking for its frame of reference Gregory Bateson's (1972,1979,1987,1992) ideas regarding metaphor in the context of systems theory. Utilization as a foundational principle in Ericksonian hypnotherapy will be defined and illustrated. The following points regarding metaphor will be emphasized:

1. Metaphors establish connections that do not require conscious mediation.

2. The kinds of connections metaphors create result from a mapping of structure onto structure.

3. In contrast with simile and analogy, metaphor generates relations of equivalence not comparison.

4. That two things can be seen as equivalent (via metaphor) is more important than showing they belong to a shared category.

5. Utilization depends in large part on this process of connecting two (or more) aspects of experience by means of metaphoric equivalence.

First, a clinical anecdote:

A nine-year-old boy referred to me because of long standing encopresis revealed in a session that he has an uncle who is a foreman on construction sites. This uncle can operate all the various forms of heavy equipment and has let the boy ride along with him; even handle the controls on such exciting things as bulldozers and excavators. When I learned this I asked him what these machines do with the dirt they pick up.

Boy: They dump it into the dumptrucks.

Andrew: Then what happens?

B: The dumptrucks take it to the place, the dump or whatever, and drop it out.

A: They dump it?

B: Yeah, what else should they do with it?

A: Quite right. But how do they know where to dump it and when?

B: They just know. They're not stupid.

A You mean they know where to dump it. They don't just dump it wherever or whenever? They do it in the right place at the right time?

B: Of course, what do you think?

The dialogue continued in this vein until we had established that I was somewhat dense and he was quite expert on the subject of dumps and dumping. Never was mention made of bowel movements, going to me bathroom or anything of the sort in this or subsequent meetings. Yet from that session on his father informed me that the boy rarely again had an accident.

Utilization and Metaphor

The Ericksonian principle of utilization has been described by Erickson and others (Erickson, 1980a, 1980d; Erickson & Rossi, 1979; Flemons, 2002; Gilligan, 1987; Lankton & Lankton, 1983; O'Hanlon, 1987). In his 1952 paper, "Deep Hypnosis and Its Induction," Erickson asserts, "whatever the behavior offered by the subjects [sic] it should be accepted and utilized to develop further responsive behavior" (195271980a, p. 155). This parsimonious statement suggests that utilization in its basic form is the acceptance of what is for the purposes of what can be. It is a pragmatic willingness to make use of what the client presents symptoms, behaviors, attitudes, beliefs, emotional reactions, and so forth - on behalf of me client's interests. Utilization makes possible significant contextual shifts in relation to problems such that new action and/or meaning can arise, at times startlingly so. Such contextual shifts require bridges from one experiential domain to anomer. These bridges are constructed of metaphor.

Utilization relies profoundly on the ability of metaphor to structure reality and to do so at a preconceptual (Johnson, 1987), preverbal (Bateson, 1991), and unconscious level. In their seminal text, Metaphors We Live By, cognitive linguist George Lakoff and philosopher Mark Johnson define metaphor succinctly: "The essence of metaphor is understanding and experiencing one kind of thing in terms of another" (1980, p. 5).