Chapter 6: Metaphors In Psychological Conceptualization and Explanation

Sigmund Freud (1925/1971) had a gift for creating metaphors to express his psychoanalytic views. One of them is that the mechanism of repression can be seen as the mechanism behind the mystic writing-pad (Wunderblock). A mystic writing-pad is a child’s toy on which one can write or draw; these writings and drawings are made with a plastic pen, and can be erased from the paper. But traces of the words and pictures remain in the underground below the paper, just like in repression—or so Freud argued.

Evidently there is no mystic writing-pad in our heads, so the metaphor seems to be misplaced, for if there is such a thing as repression, then it surely is no Wunderblock. Should we then not be wary of using metaphors in psychology, and science in general? This paper has the general aim to make the reader aware of the abundance of metaphors that are used in psychological conceptualization and explanation. The importance of metaphors in science is that metaphors are untrue, which conflicts with the search for true scientific theories. We should therefore be aware of the fact that metaphors are being used, and that as such they do not generate any explanation whatsoever. We argue that even though they are false we should not discard them right away, for they do generate interesting hypotheses. The benefits to psychology are twofold. First of all, raising awareness with respect to metaphorical thinking helps psychologists discover possible falsehoods. Second, being aware that metaphors are important heuristic devices, they should be incorporated explicitly as such in the psychological methodology to generate testable hypotheses.