Quotes and Metaphors: In Therapy and in the Wild
“A fine quotation is a diamond in the hand of a man of wit and a pebble in the hand of a fool.” - Joseph Roux
When I was a teenager, I loved famous quotes. I had notebooks filled with quips, handwritten with multicolored gel pens (of course), from Michelangelo to Mae West, Bertrand Russell to Bob Dylan. I even painted some of my favorites in gold on my bedroom window shade. I was the queen of the passive aggressive AIM and ICQ away message, finding the perfectly cryptic song lyric about my latest crush or ex - simultaneously hoping they knew it was about them and relieved that I was protected by plausible deniability.1 People probably found this quality at the time both endearing and exasperating, like Kirsten Dunst’s character in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind who carried around a copy of Bartlett’s wherever she went.2
I’m still that person in many ways. I might not plaster my walls with famous quotes, but I still relish a good turn of phrase. There’s something uniquely satisfying about boiling down a complex, abstract idea into its essence, or figuring out how to describe a feeling you’ve long found ineffable because someone else found the words first. It’s why poetry, song lyrics, and advertising slogans remain so powerful.
I’m not going to pretend that I’m any poet, but my love of a good quote or metaphor comes up a lot in my therapy practice. For example, it’s a lot easier to ask my client whether they are wearing their “gray-colored glasses” or not than asking them if they are engaging in negative cognitive biases.
There are a lot of metaphors from Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) I find incredibly helpful, from “dropping the rope” (i.e., find ways to stop struggling against your negative thoughts and feelings and try something different) to viewing your brain as simply a “noisy refrigerator” (i.e., you can treat your thoughts as “noise” that your brain makes rather than assign special meaning to them).
I especially love when clients and I develop a unique shared language to talk about their concerns. Sometimes we make up names for the negative voices in their head (“There’s Belinda again telling you that you’re not good enough!”) My humor tends towards the irreverent, dark, and a little crude, so that shows up in my practice as well. I’ve told clients that they can’t expect to be “emotional vibrators” to people in their life (i.e., to turn on and off simply to satisfy the needs of someone else). I’ve also (lightly, lovingly) made fun of clients who cling to their self-critical thoughts because they believe it’s part of their identity and what has made them successful. “Oh, so you’re not just a piece of garbage, but you’re a special piece of garbage,” I’ll tease.
Sometimes we realize we’re both fans of the same movie or TV show and we use that to our advantage. I once had a client who liked the show Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, so we talked about how she related to the song, “You Stupid Bitch” (maybe the only time I could call a client a stupid bitch and it was not only appropriate, but therapeutic?!) And yes, I have quoted Bluey to some (parent) clients to underline a point.
As a therapist who has seen therapists, I’ve also had the pleasure of borrowing (stealing?) metaphors from previous therapists that I found impactful. For example, I have a tendency to go into “news reporter mode,” where I talk about emotionally difficult things in a cold, matter-of-fact way. A therapist once pointed out that I do this as a way to avoid difficult feelings and to perform vulnerability. In fact, when I go into this mode, it actually prevents others from understanding how I genuinely feel and doesn’t allow them the opportunity to support me in the way I actually want to be supported. Since then, I’ve caught multiple clients doing the same thing in our sessions.
Something that comes up again and again in my work is finding ways for clients to connect to the idea that avoiding difficult thoughts and feelings is more harmful than helpful. As humans, we all work pretty hard at avoiding things that make us feel uncomfortable or unsafe, but it can come with consequences. Sure, washing your hands for five minutes might reduce your anxiety about your health in the short-term, but in the long-term you’re training yourself to believe that you have to wash your hands for that long to feel okay, that in order to be okay you have to chase this feeling of transient comfort. Just like I deny others the opportunity to help me when I go into “news reporter mode,” you are denying yourself the opportunity to realize that your anxiety is not that scary after all and that you don’t have to listen to it in order to feel okay. Also, your hands are going to get chapped!
Avoidance of, or running away from, painful thoughts and feelings can be tricky to diagnose, and it’s only an issue if the consequences outweigh the benefits. If you’re afraid of flying, maybe it’s no big deal if you never get on a plane. However, if part of your job is to fly internationally multiple times a year, it becomes a problem.
In ACT we talk a lot about willingness: What are you willing to experience in order to live a life that matters to you? Are you willing to risk having a panic attack in order to keep your job? Are you willing to tolerate the uncertainty of whether you can keep your child safe in order to allow them to develop into resilient, independent people? Are you willing to allow yourself to be disappointed in others in order to get help and connect more deeply with the people in your life?
I like the idea of willingness, but sometimes it doesn’t quite carry the punch I want it to. I also talk to clients about “avoiding avoidance,” but that’s not very poetic. “Facing your fears” is such a cliche.
My family recently went on vacation to Europe. For a few days we rented a flat in East London, a place I have extremely fond memories of because I was lucky enough to live there when I studied abroad in college. In between visits to the Transit Museum and getting a beigel on Brick Lane, we would walk past the same brown building, nondescript save for some bright red doors. It took passing it a few times to realize that it was a fire station.
Above the doors where fire engines drive in and out, in bold yellow lettering, was a sign:
LOVE IS THE RUNNING TOWARDS
There it is, I thought. A lovely encapsulation of what I try to impart to clients (and myself) on a daily basis.
What can I run towards today?
We don’t have to save people from burning buildings in order to show others or ourselves love. Rather than running away from the parts of ourselves we find messy, inconvenient, or ugly, we can run towards them. Embrace them. Let them see the sun.
Imagine what we could achieve if we spent less time running away from things and more time running towards them.
Love is the running towards. I can’t express how moved I was by this sentiment, showing up at a time in my life where I kind of needed it the most.
The teenage part of myself was absolutely giddy. I decided to indulge her, and now a photo of this sign3 sits framed in my home office.
Does anything capture the melodrama of being a 2000s teenager better than getting into a fight with someone about whether a song lyric in your AIM away message is about them or not?
A movie titled by a quote! And one that meant a lot to me when it came out.
I later learned that this sign was part of an art exhibit from 2022 on various interpretations of this phrase to celebrate the London Fire Brigade’s new typeface design. You can see more art and read about the exhibit here. I love the detail that because fire stations never close, Shoreditch fire fighters were on call during the exhibit!