Understanding Clinical Metaphors from an RFT Perspective

This short workshop focuses on a Relational Frame Theory (RFT) conceptualisation of metaphor as derived relational responding. This analysis illustrates a key way in which the theory integrates with, and may directly influence, concepts and techniques from Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT). The first part of the workshop summarises the basic account and supporting evidence, but the majority of the workshop is clinically focused. Attendees will be shown how to: deconstruct existing ACT metaphors, to understand client-generated metaphors and to construct metaphors that can be individualised for clinical purposes. Critically, attendees will learn how to do functional analyses that will inform them of good and bad features of clinical metaphors.