Metaphors of mental illness: a corpus-based approach analysing first-person accounts of patients and mental health professionals (original) (raw)
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CONCEPTUAL METAPHORS OF MENTAL DISORDER ISSUES (A COGNITIVE LINGUISTIC STUDY
ICHSS UNS, 2023
Human uses metaphorical expressions to describe what is on their minds which depends on their life experiences. This study aims to (1) describe the meaning of metaphorical expressions related to mental disorder issues (MDI) found in social media, (2) classify the types of MDI and create the concept of metaphors from each type, and (3) identify the figures' role in expressing of thoughts regarding MDI. The method of this study is descriptive qualitative, which focuses on a cognitive linguistic approach. The research data in the form of written texts (quotes) comes from social media such as Instagram and blogs, while the instrument used is textual analysis. The results show that there are five types of MDI that could be identified, namely Depression, Anxiety Disorder, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Bipolar Disorder, and Schizophrenia. Each of these types can create metaphorical concepts, including: [DEPRESSION IS A DARKNESS]; [DEPRESSION IS A JOURNEY]; [ANXIETY IS SWARM OF THOUGHTS]; [TRAUMATIC IS INDISCERNIBLE WOUNDS]; [BIPOLAR IS A ROLLER COASTER]; and [SCHIZOPHRENIA IS WHISPERS MONSTER DIMENSION]. It can be concluded that metaphors of MDI represent embodied experiences that can be symptoms of the types of mental disorders.
Metaphors of Depression. Studying First Person Accounts of Life with Depression Published in Blogs
Metaphor and Symbol
This work analyzes the conceptual metaphors of depression in a corpus of 23 blogs written in Catalan by people suffering major depressive disorder. Its main aim was comparative, in order to check whether metaphors detected in previous studies were also used in a new genre and a new language. Their use was confirmed, thus reinforcing the metaphors' relevance and their conceptual (i.e. non language-dependent) nature. Furthermore, the study broadens the scope of the conceptualization of life with depression with a set of metaphors not attested before, mostly related to social, communicative and medical factors. The results suggest that the containment and constraint that characterize a crucial part of the metaphorical discourse of depression are not only imposed by the disorder itself, but also by contextual factors (such as stigma, lack of communication, or the medical practice perceived as a repressive power) that can have a significant impact on the lives people with depression lead. They also suggest that the very nature of blogging as a genre allows these people to provide more accurate depictions of their condition, thus providing a more comprehensive account of metaphors of life with depression and potentially empowering them.
SKY Journal of Linguistics, 2020
We describe a new methodology for conceptual metaphor detection and formulation in corpora, developed within the framework of the MOMENT project for analysing mental health metaphors. We critically review state-of-the-art methods for metaphor identification in texts, highlighting their main drawbacks for metaphor analysis in large corpora, mainly practical applicability and analytical subjectivity. Our method aims at mitigating existing drawbacks on the basis of applying the following principles: (i) working hypothesis formulation and verification at the metaphorical expression detection stage; (ii) partial use of standard methods for metaphorical focus identification; (iii) use of external expert knowledge in the form of more extensive use of dictionaries and the additional use of metaphor compendia; and (iv) the implementation of strategies for conceptual metaphor formulation, including domain formulation at two levels of generalization. Satisfactory reliability test results were ...
Metaphors of depressive emotions in psychopathological discourse: A cognitive linguistic analysis
Cognition, communication, discourse, 2017
This paper addresses metaphor and focuses on the role of metaphor in conceptualization of emotion experience of depression. The objective of this paper is two-fold. It aims (1) to appease the criticism of negligence with respect to big data and real discourses that conceptual metaphor theory is presently facing and (2) to expose and analyse with a cognitive linguistic methodology metaphorizations of depressive emotions in psychopathological discourse. In accordance with this objective, the investigation behind this paper is fuelled by big metaphorical data recruited from pieces of modern English psychopathological discourse on major and manic depression recorded in the form of two single- author depression memoirs. Metaphors of depressive emotions and their entailments organize within these pieces ramified metaphorical systems that reflect subcategorization of emotion experience by the depressive mind. Metaphors in these systems are of various types; they are based on bodily and cultural experiences, have different cognitive functions and may be archetypal in nature. Their targets are distinct emotion concepts. Their sources belong to diverse domains of human experience. Metaphorical meanings for the depressive emotions expose qualitative aspects of emotion experience of depression in its variation and subtlety. Metaphors of depressive emotions in the data encompass creative and conventional conceptualizations. The data allow an assumption that whereas conventional metaphors perform the function of understanding an emotion experience and naming it, creative metaphors expose in this experience its most elusive aspects and their cognitive function is augmented by the aesthetic one. Apart from implications for cognitive linguistics, the findings summarized in this paper are suggestive for research in phenomenology of depression, in clinical psychology and psychopathology and in cognitive poetics and literary theory and criticism. In prospect, this paper will grow into a larger-scale research on the issue of metaphorical creativity.
Metaphor, Meaning and Psychiatry
Australasian Psychiatry, 2008
Objective: The aim of this paper is to examine the scientific and cognitive role of metaphor and the use of metaphor in the conceptualization of depression as an example of mental illness. Conclusions: Metaphors from the creative arts have been used to support existing psychiatric diagnostic concepts. The existing concepts are themselves built on embedded metaphors now treated as literal facts. The choice of metaphor dictates not only the description of the condition but also its treatment and research. The use of unacknowledged and unchanging metaphors in current diagnostic practice affects progress in knowledge and practice. Some alternative borrowings of basic metaphors are provided.
Mental Illness Is No Metaphor: Five Uneasy Pieces
2012
Is the expression “mental illness” merely a metaphor? If so, does that tell us something about the persons we identify as having a mental illness? To clinicians who deal with devastating psychiatric disorders every day—and to those afflicted with these conditions—these questions may seem like a lot of semantic nonsense.
Signs and Symptoms in the Psychiatric Domain: A Corpus Analysis
Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences, 2015
In the medical domain, great effort is taken to normalize terminology at an international level. However, corpus analysis indicates that there is still much work to be done. For example, the basic conceptual distinction between SIGN (an objective change in a patient's condition) and SYMPTOM (subjective evidence of disease or condition as perceived by the patient) is something any medical expert is aware of. In texts of the subdomain of Psychiatry, however, the terms sign and symptom seem to be used indistinctly. Their use was analyzed from a multidimensional perspective in an English language medical corpus on the subdomain of Psychiatry. Collocational information was extracted and then classified according to the data obtained. Finally a comparison was made with an English language corpus on Oncology to see if the conclusions drawn can be applied to other medical subdomains or if the boundaries between the terms are even fuzzier in the Psychiatric domain.
Exploring Language Markers of Mental Health in Psychiatric Stories
Applied Sciences
Diagnosing mental disorders is complex due to the genetic, environmental and psychological contributors and the individual risk factors. Language markers for mental disorders can help to diagnose a person. Research thus far on language markers and the associated mental disorders has been done mainly with the Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC) program. In order to improve on this research, we employed a range of Natural Language Processing (NLP) techniques using LIWC, spaCy, fastText and RobBERT to analyse Dutch psychiatric interview transcriptions with both rule-based and vector-based approaches. Our primary objective was to predict whether a patient had been diagnosed with a mental disorder, and if so, the specific mental disorder type. Furthermore, the second goal of this research was to find out which words are language markers for which mental disorder. LIWC in combination with the random forest classification algorithm performed best in predicting whether a person had a m...
Cultural competence and metaphor in mental healthcare interactions: A linguistic perspective
Patient Education and Counseling, 2019
The aim of this study is to understand how Spanish-speaking patients conceptualize mental health issues. This study uses a linguistic perspective to focus on how 23 Mexican-origin patients and their doctor talk about mental health during psychiatric interviews conducted in Spanish and how they negotiate cultural barriers. Methods: This work analyzes when the doctor and his patients reference metaphors (e.g. feeling "empty," feeling "low"). Metaphors are pervasive in all cultures and languages and reveal important information about people's attitudes and feelings about a range of conditions and circumstances. Results: This work demonstrates the role of metaphor and linguistic analysis in uncovering culturally based constructions of mental health. The results reveal that the doctor and patients reference different sets of metaphors, which, at times, causes miscommunication. Conclusions: Practitioner awareness of how patients use metaphorical expressions in health is crucial for promoting advanced cultural and linguistic competence and ultimately, patientcentered care. Practice implications: The main findings have implications for health communication with minority groups such as Spanish-speaking Latinos/as in the United States. Practitioners working with Spanish-speaking patients should be familiar with how Latinos/as conceptualize health and how to avoid or repair confusion caused by cultural barriers.