Metaphors are extensively used in psychotherapy, featuring high creativity, strong memory retention, and increased cognitive involvement. They possess cognitive processing superiority in fundamental theories of linguistics and psychology. At the same time, psychotherapy perspectives suggest the unique role of metaphors in enhancing therapeutic information transmission due to unconscious meaning exchanges, schema restructuring, and intuition experiences. Based on these theories, existing empirical studies reveal that the therapies using metaphors have greater intervention effects compared with those that do not. The neuropsychological mechanisms primarily stem from metaphor-triggered creative insight, long-term memory, and cognitive involvement. Future research should examine the advantages of metaphor use by setting more rigorous control groups, using metaphor-related measurements and exploring mechanisms further. Finally, practical applications on cost-efficient public mental health service programs with therapeutic metaphors are suggested.

隐喻在心理治疗中的应用非常普遍,语言学和心理学中的基本隐喻理论强调隐喻具有高创造性、记忆保持和增强卷入等认知加工优势,几种心理治疗理论也认为治疗性隐喻的无意识意义交换、图式重构、直觉经验等加工特征可能在治疗信息传递上具有独特的增强作用。在此基础上,现有的实证研究证据大多支持治疗性隐喻的心理干预效果优于非隐喻干预,其治疗优势的心理神经机制主要来源于隐喻诱发的创造性顿悟、更佳的长时记忆和更强的认知卷入。未来研究需从对照组设置、效果指标、机制探索方面来进一步观察治疗性隐喻的独特优势,并为研发嵌入隐喻的低成本高效益的社会心理健康服务方案提供了建议。

国家自然科学基金项目(31371131);; 北京市科委重点项目(D151100002315003);; 中国科学院心理研究所自主部署项目(E0CX151008,E0CX371008)资助