Metaphorically Speaking in Physiotherapy
Metaphor is really taking off! And there you go, I’ve started with one, my metaphor revving it’s turbines on life’s long and bumpy runway, suddenly gaining enough lift to elevate towards its first few thousand feet in the air.
In fact, metaphor isn’t really that new. I suspect it goes back far further than we will ever be able to prove and embodies that little moment in human language, or even thought development, when our predecessors finally found a new way to describe, and also explain something, all at the same time. On reflection, my metaphor for metaphor would possibly be better placed in a feather, or a leaf or even perhaps a prehistoric, tiny, molecular piece of dust.
So where is this all heading? Well, before 2006, birds tweeted: humans didn’t. But now, as I observe people on Twitter, a murmuration of thousands of human beings resting in one place for a few seconds before moving on, I see that the world of physiotherapy is further exploring metaphor’s library, and quite rightly so. To take just a pinch, see this in depth and insightful review of metaphor in pain reconceptualisation (Stewart, n.d.) and this reflection on metaphors in learning and education (Nicholls, 2015).
This got me thinking. I was recently coerced, through a higher education assignment, to explore qualitative methodologies for research, and specifically to physiotherapy. In the resultant critical essay, I was not only reminded of this lady below, Mary Ann Evans (you might know her as George Eliot), but also one specific passage with which I spent many hours during my A-level English lessons. Imagine yourself living just before Queen Victoria came to the throne. Middlemarch was not only a profound reflection on life in a fictional and provincial town at this time. Nor was it just a portrayal of the early days of medicine. Middlemarch was, and still is, a metaphorical masterpiece.
In fact, Middlemarch has stimulated much interest in the medical professions, its writings being used more contemporaneously to remind us not only of the importance of social factors in medicine, but also to emphasise that we recognise the importance of both the humanistic and scientific elements of our roles, and how they affect our relationships with patients (Rosin, 2009).
In the context of my interest in reflexion (see here for why reflection with an ‘x’), I will share that metaphorical passage with which I spent so much of my A-level study, in an attempt to highlight how it helped me consider the many agendas and viewpoints that impact on our clinical relationships and social interactions.
“Your pier-glass or extensive surface of polished steel made to be rubbed by a housemaid, will be minutely and multitudinously scratched in all directions; but place now against it a lighted candle as a centre of illumination, and lo! the scratches will seem to arrange themselves in a fine series of concentric circles round that little sun. It is demonstrable that the scratches are going everywhere impartially and it is only your candle which produces the flattering illusion of a concentric arrangement, its light falling with an exclusive optical selection. These things are a parable. The scratches are events, and the candle is the egoism of any person now absent.“ (Eliot. G, 1871, p264).
References:
Eliot, G. (1871) Middlemarch. (1994 Penguin Classics Ed.). Penguin: London
Nicholls, D. (2015) Metaphors of rhizomatic thinking. Critical Physiotherapy. Available at: http://criticalphysio.me/2015/01/22/metaphors-of-rhizomatic-thinking/ (Accessed: 22 January 2015).
Rosin, A. (2009). George eliot’s middlemarch: A contribution to medical professionalism. Medical Humanities, 35(1), 43–46. doi:10.1136/jmh.2008.001321
Stewart, M. (no date) The Road to Pain Reconceptualisation: Do Metaphors Help or Hinder the Journey? Available at: http://knowpain.co.uk/the-road-to-pain-reconceptualisation-do-metaphors-help-or-hinder-the-journey/ (Accessed: 22 January 2015).
Martin Sands is an experienced Chartered Physiotherapist working in the Musculoskeletal and rehabilitation field. He is interested in how learning and education can develop the profession further.
