I can’t put my finger on why it’s happening, but I am ready for the scrapheap! The treatment so far has been bullshit.’ I get pins and needles in the bloody right foot too. It goes around and down the inside of the driver muscle and into my old knee which I stuffed up years ago. Read the quote from a patient below, and see how many metaphors you can pick: There are many different kinds of metaphor and they lurk everywhere. Here are a few thoughts and examples of what we are on about with metaphor in Explain Pain Supercharged.

We both believe that societal and personal transformative language is as important as transformative movements in health indeed both should be used together. A common metaphor, say my back is stuffed, is held as a powerful and influential conceptual neurotag, most likely arising from a primary metaphorical concept held widely in society such as LOW BACKS ARE FRAGILE. Lakoff and Johnson’s seminal text Metaphors We Live By really did start something of a revolution.

It has been quite a trip over the last 5 years – and one area that we have indulged in quite a bit is the relationships between neurotag theory and modern neuroscience concepts of metaphor. Lorimer and I have finally left our new book Explain Pain Supercharged at the typesetters.