Metaphors as evidence of depression. Investigating the mental representation of depressive disorders

This study aims at investigating the metaphorical expressions stemming from the experience of depression to deepen our comprehension of this mental disorder and its consequences. To this end, four online fora dealing with mental illness were selected to gather data concerning the metaphorical description of depression as offered by online users who suffer from it. The personal accounts of 71 users were chosen to qualitatively analyse the most recurrent metaphorical patterns employed to conceptualise depression. The results were interpreted by means of the Conceptual Metaphor Theory (CMT) and the Embodied Cognition Theory (ECT). According to the CMT, linguistic metaphors are a reflection of our innate capacity to think metaphorically in order to create mental models of reality based on analogical and associative mode of thinking, two powerful mental forces of the human cognitive system. This is the reason why metaphors, due to their cognitive power, are able to shape our mental comprehension of the world by organising and constructing a cognitive representation of reality. Moreover, as claimed by the ECT, metaphors stem from our daily interactions with the world which are unconsciously internasalised and later used as a conceptual basis to structure abstract, subjective and intangible domains of experience. By combining these two frameworks of reference, the study re-constructs a view of the conceptual world of depression. Not only does this analysis offer an insight into the depressive disorder, but it also contributes to show that the conceptual world of depression is not only thought and conceptualised, but it is also intensely experienced and lived, in line with the hypothesis that conceptualisation entails simulation.