What is this project about?
Metaphor can be a powerful tool for helping others understand our experiences, emotions, and identity.
“Feeling suicidal happens daily, sometimes I battle it for hours.”
Think of metaphor as talking about one thing as if it was something else.
This project explored metaphors used by adults living with suicidal thoughts, their language preferences, and those of people close to them, and mental health practitioners.
Through interviews and questionnaires, we found wide and diverse use of metaphors to talk about experiences of daily and/or periodic suicidal thoughts, over the longer term and during more intense, acute periods; metaphors for suicide itself; for relationships with family, partners, friends, and practitioners; for support, and to describe identity.
We have created a short menu of 10 the main metaphors found, each with examples.
Tips for understanding and using the menu
- The menu presents 10 main metaphors found in our data, each with examples produced by our participants.
- What counts as a metaphor? Some words and phrases seem quite literal or conventional; others seem more metaphorical or creative. While researchers enjoy discussing the technicalities of this question(!), think of a metaphor as talking about one thing as if it was something else.
- One size does not fit all! Different metaphors suit particular people, ideas, conversations, and moments. This is the beauty of a menu…if it helps, choose it…if it doesn’t, lose it!
- Metaphors ≠ better than literal language! It really depends.
- Mixing metaphors is common! The examples provide you with a taste of some of the rapid mixing of metaphors and metaphor-to-literal shifts heard in our discussions, as interviewees developed and shaped their ideas.
- Tuning is common! Notice how participants adjusted the force of their ideas using like, as if, and almost as if.
- Use the website to let us know other metaphors that you find helpful!
- Resource developed with and for adults (over 18s). This is NOT a resource for people in crisis.
Project’s origins
The researchers’ personal experience of suicide combined with shared interest in language and metaphor.
Acknowledgements
MOST OF ALL: A huge thank you to all interviewees and questionnaire respondents, without whom this research and resource would not have been possible.
FUNDING: Research that led to A “Metaphor Menu” for People Living with Suicidal Thoughts was funded by the Association for Researching and Applying Metaphor (RaAM) Research Grant (UK charity number: 1119686) and by the University of York, Department of Education.
TRAINING: We are grateful to the Samaritans for providing the research team with training on Managing Suicidal Conversations.
RESOURCE PRODUCTION: A huge thank you to Hijinks Studies for producing the explainer video and menu images.
VIDEO NARRATION: Another huge thank you, to Sarah Wild, for lending her voice to the explainer video.
RESOURCE INSPIRATION: The “Metaphor Menu” resource framework was inspired by A ‘Metaphor Menu’ for people living with cancer, produced as part of the ‘Metaphor, Cancer and the End of Life’ project at Lancaster University.
Project road map
- Institutional ethical approval
- Managing Suicidal Conversations training for researchers
- Interviews with people who live with suicidal thoughts
- Analysis of interview data
- Questionnaires with people living with suicidal thoughts, people close to them, and practitioners.
- Analysis of questionnaire data
- Website and resource development
- Community engagement, dissemination
What next?
The project commenced in September 2024; we have now launched the website and will keep it updated as we publish and present our findings!