In the field of clinical psychology and psychotherapeutic techniques, patient and therapist utterances frequently include linguistic metaphorsof the body.A metaphor is not only a stylistic device but also a tool for conceptualizing one’s experience. In Freud’s view, for example,the notion of the body as a “container” or “source” is one of the basic concepts of his psychodynamic theory: “According to a childhood belief,babies come from men urinating into a woman’s body” or “It is undeniable that the libido has somatic sources”. More specifically, thefollowing can be observed in psychotherapy: a) Variable-induction relaxation is based on therapeutic suggestions concerning sensations andimages. Patients are often surprised by these words and images because they had not succeeded in giving voice to their suffering and, as aresult, were confronted with an excess of sensations and feelings: “I feel sick at heart and full of bitterness”, “I feel like my head’s in a vise”,“my body had disappeared”; b) La Décentration is based on figurative utterances about the body. During initial instructions the therapist willsay, “Imagine that, starting at your toes, imagine that you are a small bubble and that you’re going to slowly move up inside your body; whenyou arrive at the tips of your fingers, stay there, waiting; you’re going to feel little hearts that beat at the tips of your fingers; you’re waiting,open to everything happening in your body”; c) Ericksonian hypnosis, developed by Milton Erickson, is characterized in part by the use ofindirect suggestions based on linguistic metaphors of the body: “You can wake up as a person... but you don’t have to wake up as a body”;“You can wake up when your body wakes up, but you won’t recognize your body”. Also: “Now, of course, the first step toward dissolving yourlegs... and... dissolving your hands”. The importance of linguistic metaphors of the body in clinical psychopathology led us to view suchmetaphors as “indicators of conceptual metaphors of the body”. That is why the fields of psychiatry, psychoanalysis and psychotherapy werea necessary point of departure for our research. In addition, we wanted to extend our investigation to poetic literature because of its largenumber of highly creative figurative expressions. Firstly, the objective of our study was to identify different types of body conceptualizationsexpressed in psychoanalytic and psychiatric practise and in poetic works selected for their focus on this theme.Secondly, our objective was to organize these conceptualizations into categories of conceptual metaphors based on a model inspired by theresearch of Lakoff and Johnson. The analysis of psychiatric and psychoanalytic manuals and works of poetic literature showed differences inthe use of conceptual metaphors in these respective discourses. In psychiatric manuals, the conceptualization of the body centers on the ideaof the BODYAS CONTAINER, with no stereotyped mental images or specific mental images about body organs. In psychoanalysis, linguisticmetaphors of the body focus on the following terms: “genital organs”, “mouth”, “uterus”, “penis”, “phallus”, “anus”, “vagina”, and “bodyorifice”. Linguistic metaphors of the body in the selected works of poetic literature tended to conceptualize the body as an integrated systemof experiences. These metaphors focussed on various organs and bodily substances, such as “heart”, “blood”, “chest”, “arm(s)”, “eye(s)”,“breast(s)”, “face”, “head”, “flesh”, “skin”, “hand(s)” and “tongue”. Poetry offers us the opportunity to create, deepen and reconstruct emotionalexperiences through the richness of metaphorical thought. With the growth of the neurosciences, poetic thought could serve as animportant resource for the conceptualization of the body. Concerning methodology: • we searched for 178 words and their occurrence inmanuals and poetic works regarding the concept of corporality and the symbolic parts of the body; • the research corpus for poetry includednine poets (each poet representing a century); overall, we searched for nine works of Italian poetry (579, 469 words) from the 12th to the 20thcentury using LIZ 3.0 software with textual analysis capabilities; • the research corpus for psychoanalysis included sections entitled “anorexianervosa”, or “eating disorders” in the most recent manual of Italian psychoanalysis schools (8, 640 words); a traditional French psychoanalyticglossary (195, 320 words); and a single French thematic index (760, 480 words) of Freud’sWorks; • the research corpus for psychiatryincluded a well-known Italian manual of psychiatry and psychotherapy; sections entitled “anorexia nervosa” or “eating disorders” in fivepsychiatric manuals (60, 779 words); and the entire corpus (563, 953 words) of DSM-IV. Our categorization provided an alternative to theanatomical description of the body; we called this alternative a perceptive-literary construction of the body. It is characterized by a bodilynarrative based on figurative utterances concerning anatomical and physiological features and conceptual metaphors of reference.
Dans le domaine de la psychopathologie clinique et des techniques de psychothérapie, les énoncés des patients et des thérapeutes compor-tent fréquemment des métaphores linguistiques du corps. En effet, une métaphore n'est pas seulement une figure de style, mais également le support d'une conceptualisation de l'expérience. Dans un premier temps, notre étude a pour objectif de repérer les différents types de concep-tualisation du corps qui s'expriment dans la pratique psychanalytique, la pratique psychiatrique, et dans des ouvrages poétiques sélectionnés pour leur centration sur ce thème. Dans un second temps, notre objectif consiste à organiser ces conceptualisations en catégories de métapho-res conceptuelles selon un modèle inspiré des recherches de Lakoff et Johnson. L'analyse des traités de psychiatrie, des traités de psychana-lyse et des ouvrages poétiques montre que l'usage des métaphores conceptuelles dans ces discours respectifs est différent. Dans les traités de psychiatrie, la conceptualisation du corps est centrée sur l'idée d'un CORPS-CONTENANT, sans images mentales stéréotypées ni images mentales spécifiques sur des organes corporels. Dans la psychanalyse, les métaphores linguistiques du corps sont centrées sur les termes suivants : « organes génitaux », « bouche », « utérus », « pénis », « phallus », « anus », « vagin », « orifice corporel ». Les métaphores linguistiques du corps dans les ouvrages poétiques sélectionnés s'appliquent davantage à conceptualiser le corps comme un système intégré d'expériences. Ces métaphores portent sur différents organes et substances corporels : « coeur », « sang », « poitrine », « le/les bras », « oeil/yeux », « sein/s », « visage », « tête », « chair », « peau », « main/s », « langue ». On constate ainsi que ces catégorisations psycholo-giques et littéraires évitent toute description anatomique du corps pour centrer leur discours sur un domaine particulier que nous allons appeler « Construction perceptive-littéraire du corps ».
