NARRATIVE MENTAL SPACES CONFIGURATION IN PSYCHOTHERAPEUTIC DISCOURSE BY IRVIN YALOM
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.32782/folium/2025.7.14Keywords:
blending, cognitive structure, conceptual integration, narrative, narrative mental space, narrative framescenario, narrator, narratee, psychotherapeutic discourse.Abstract
The article, written in the framework of cognitive linguistics and cognitive narratology, deals with the study of the psychotherapeutic discourse by the contemporary psychotherapist and writer Irvin Yalom. The discourse under study combines the features of professional (scientific, institutional) discourse of psychotherapy, the discourse of psychotherapeutic practice, and literary (narrative) discourse, since the process of psychotherapy, its practice and theory, is mediated by the author through literary narration. Yalom’s psychotherapeutic discourse is characterized by such features as: fictionality, narrativity, metaphoricity, existentiality, authenticity and professionalism as well as by a dual perspective on psychotherapy, and an educational goal. The purpose of the investigation is to clarify the specifics of the narrative mental spaces configuration and to model the network of their conceptual integration in the studied discourse. The methodological framework of the study is provided by frame theory, conceptual integration theory, and the theory of narrative spaces. The cognitive model of objectifying the psychotherapy process in the studied discourse is a network of conceptual integration of narrative mental spaces, which organize the narrative from the points of view of two narrative perspectives: the narrator-psychotherapist and the narrator-patient. Narrative mental spaces are structured by narrative frame-scenarios of psychotherapy. A narrative frame-scenario is a complex cognitive structure that combines the features of both a frame and a scenario, that is, it represents both the structure of an event (with the corresponding slots and terminals, filled in accordance with the discursive context), the dynamic unfolding of the event with its spatial, causal, and temporal relations. The narrative frame-scenario of psychotherapy with a narratorpsychotherapist unfolds in 12 cognitive scenes, further specified in 44 event contexts. The narrative frame-scenario of psychotherapy with a narratorpatient unfolds in 11 cognitive scenes, which are structured by 48 event contexts. The blend of narrative perspectives of psychotherapist and patient enables the reader to reconstruct a complete psychotherapy scenario.
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