A metáfora do caminho: uma investigação fenomenológica existencial na clínica

Abstract

This work aims to understand in clinic the metaphorical process present in the patient‟s discourse. To do so, we researched the metaphor of the path: a phenomenological existential investigation in the clinic. In this work we adopted a qualitative method: phenomenological and hermeneutical. The goal of this research is to assess the affected feeling, in the patient‟s very body (Leib), by means of the metaphorical statements that convey meaning and show the intentionality of the I, so they can be interpreted and unveiled, making them conscious in relation to direction and orientation to which the self-moving and the moving of the patient tend. We also aim to gather the researched metaphorical statements so as to confirm that the metaphor of the path is a root, dominant metaphor, for being able to generate and organize a network of other metaphorical statements. We order the metaphorical statements in such a way to formalize them (in the very statements) into structural, ontological, and orientational. We structured two concepts: „Life is effort‟ and „Life is path‟. The metaphorical ontological statements are the ones that allow giving meaning to the phenomenon so we can deal with our experiences. In the orientational metaphorical statements, we identified the moving in directions and the orientation between the coming and going; ascending and descending, and showing and hiding. From the metaphorical statements of the phenomenon of anguish we considered both the ones that tend to moving to a melancholic, depressive state and the ones that tend to a state of anxious depression. We present a case study of patient N., as instrument of a course, in the context of the clinic, for appreciation of the metaphor of the path. We conclude that the metaphorical statements, as language phenomena, uttered by the patients in the clinic, transport the affected feeling of the very body (Leib), valuated by voice tone and intensity, by gestures, by the expression of physiognomy. And that by means of interpretation one can unveil what the I intends to show, vivified by the force of the statement, so the direction and orientation to which the patient‟s self-moving and moving tend become conscious.