Overarching Metaphor Research Articles

Sharing the Same Reality, Healthy Relations Between Colleagues at Work: A Meta-Synthesis.

Good relations are important at work, leading to well-being among coworkers. Since the latest research in nursing is mostly about bullying, and lateral violence, it was important to study what healthy relations mean. The aim was to identify and synthesize qualitative studies that describe healthy relations, creating health and well-being between colleagues at work. A meta-synthesis approach, inspired by Sherwood's steps of analysis, was chosen for this study. Ten articles from three continents, comprising 230 participants, were included. Two themes were identified as follows: (a) creating a mutual bond on a personal level and a permissive atmosphere through the human warmth; and (b) sharing togetherness in a greater whole, offering unconditional help and devoting themselves to taking care of each other. An overarching metaphor implicating the home/homeness was abstracted from the two themes: "Healthy relations between colleagues at work constitute the community as a common world, containing feelings of being at home, implying acting in an expression of the ethos and dignity, a culture created that makes the ideal form of healthy relations visible." Nurses find their meaning when they work in a permissive environment, and when they are allowed to be themselves. Such meaning can be found through their engagement with one another, by offering each other unconditional help. Good relationships lead to a place they call their home, where there is trust and friendship.

Coronavirus, Demons, and War: Visual and Multimodal Metaphor in Chinese Public Service Advertisements

Metaphors in public service advertisements, or PSAs, have played an important role in promoting the knowledge of COVID-19 and China’s anti-epidemic activities. Based primarily on Feng and O’Halloran’s visual representation of multimodal metaphor, this article examines visual and multimodal metaphors created in the online PSAs that were produced in early 2020 to publicize China’s epidemic prevention and control activities. It is found that those metaphors fall into three general groups, namely “coronavirus” metaphor, “anti-epidemic worker” metaphor, and “medical instrument” metaphor. Nearly all of them were created to serve an overarching metaphor, namely ANTI-EPIDEMIC WORK IS WAR, of which coronaviruses were depicted as enemies, anti-epidemic workers as warriors, and medical instruments as weapons. Most of the metaphors were constructed through visual or multimodal anomaly realized through strategies such as participant substitution, verbal/visual superimposition, and verbo-visual integration/fusion in the representational structure, while their metaphorical meanings became supplemented or reinforced by the deployment of compositional and interactive resources such as spatial position, color contrast, gaze, and size. Finally, the causes and implications of the findings are discussed from three aspects: social background, genre, and audience.

“Human Flourishing with Dignity”: A Meta-Ethnography of the Meaning of Gardens for Elderly in Nursing Homes and Residential Care Settings

This study aims to identify and synthesize qualitative research regarding residents’ experiences of gardens while living in nursing homes and residential care facilities. To provide an optimal nursing environment inspired by nature, we need to derive knowledge from the residents’ perspective. An interpretive meta-synthesis approach, a meta-ethnography, was chosen for this study. Altogether, six articles representing three continents and comprising 124 participants were included. The six articles that fulfilled the inclusion criteria were analyzed and synthesized according to Noblit & Hare’s seven phases of meta-ethnography and the recent eMERGe guidelines. Four themes were identified: (1) The garden—a place to feel a connection with life, (2) the garden—a place to sense and find comfort, (3) the garden—a place to feel healthy and alive, and (4) the garden—a place to relate past and present. An overarching metaphor, “human flourishing with dignity,” offers a deeper understanding of the meaning of the garden for older people in nursing homes and residential care. This meta-ethnography provides a reflective, systematic, data-driven synthesis based on literature spanning ten years. Rather than simply relying on retelling, the narration of experiences according to the primary researcher’s descriptions and interpretations results in new knowledge. The significance of gardens for older people’s health and well-being needs to be given greater attention and space in nursing practice, education, and health policies.

Involuntary Pregnancy Loss and Nursing Care: A Meta-Ethnography.

Healthcare professionals find the care of parents following an involuntary pregnancy loss stressful and challenging. They also feel unprepared to support bereaved parents. The challenging nature of this support may have a personal impact on health professionals and the care provided to parents. The aim of this meta-ethnography is to synthesise nurses’ and midwives’ experiences of caring for parents following an involuntary pregnancy loss. A meta-ethnography of ten studies from five countries was carried out. GRADE CERQual was assessed to show the degree of confidence in the review findings. An overarching metaphor, caring in darkness, accompanied by five major themes provided interpretive explanations about the experiences of nurses and midwives in caring for involuntary pregnancy losses: (1) Forces that turn off the light, (2) strength to go into darkness, (3) avoiding stumbling, (4) groping in darkness, and (5) wounded after dealing with darkness. Nursing staff dealt with organizational difficulties, which encouraged task-focused care and avoidance of encounters and emotional connection with parents. However, nurses and midwives might go beyond in their care when they had competencies, support, and a strong value base, despite the personal cost involved.

"Pushing the Boat Out": A Meta-synthesis of How Members, Staff and Family Experience the Clubhouse Model.

To explore how member, staff, and family experience the contributions of the clubhouse model to outcomes for adults with severe mental illness. Given the significant role social and vocational arenas play in promoting wellbeing, irrespective of health status, explorations of the role such arenas can play in helping individuals accomplish their life and vocational goals may be useful in guiding policy and practice. A metaethnography was conducted using 11 qualitative studies published between 2000 and 2015. Four themes and an overarching metaphor were identified: (1) Stepping out of limiting realities; (2) anchoring; (3) creating ways of flourishing; and (4) prospects of a life outside the clubhouse. "Pushing out the boat" as a metaphor holds promise in facilitating discussions about the subjective outcomes of the clubhouse model and for expanding knowledge about clubhouses as multi-dimensional programs that provide social, educational, and vocational opportunities for adults recovering from mental health problems. Our findings show that clubhouses are valuable communities for meaningful doings for individuals to build self-confidence, relations, and perspective-all crucial for processes of recovery. Clubhouses provide people a place to establish an anchor in a supportive environment where they can try things out and regain their self-confidence. From there, they may choose to push their boat out. However, many members might need to choose not to-the seas may be too rough or their boat may not yet be strong enough for the journey. Further research is needed to examine members' experiences with integration into mainstream social networks and employment. It will also be important to examine how practitioners can intentionally interact with Clubhouse members and their families to promote the individuals' processes of social integration outside the clubhouse.

A Qualitative Metasynthesis From Nurses’ Perspective When Dealing With Ethical Dilemmas and Ethical Problems in End-of-Life Care

This metasynthesis aimed to translate, interpret, and present a synthesis of qualitative studies from nurses’ perspectives dealing with ethical dilemmas and ethical problems in end-of-life care and to gain a deeper understanding of the phenomena. Nurses and other care professionals need to gain a deeper understanding and alleviate the suffering of patients through evidence-based practice end-of-life care. The metasynthesis, inspired by Noblit and Hare, generated an overarching metaphor, The Loving Eye. The Loving Eye illustrates how nurses are deeply involved with patients as human beings and connotes an inner responsibility to struggle for patients’ best interests and wishes at the end of life. With The Loving Eye, nurses can see and feel patients’ need to be confirmed, comforted, and healed approaching the end of life.

A Qualitative Metasynthesis From Nurses' Perspective When Dealing With Ethical Dilemmas and Ethical Problems in End-of-Life Care

This metasynthesis aimed to translate, interpret, and present a synthesis of qualitative studies from nurses' perspectives dealing with ethical dilemmas and ethical problems in end-of-life care and to gain a deeper understanding of the phenomena. Nurses and other care professionals need to gain a deeper understanding and alleviate the suffering of patients through evidence-based practice end-of-life care. The metasynthesis, inspired by Noblit and Hare, generated an overarching metaphor, The Loving Eye. The Loving Eye illustrates how nurses are deeply involved with patients as human beings and connotes an inner responsibility to struggle for patients' best interests and wishes at the end of life. With The Loving Eye, nurses can see and feel patients' need to be confirmed, comforted, and healed approaching the end of life.

Shadows and Sunshine: What Metaphors Reveal about Aging with HIV.

Using narrative inquiry, the researchers interviewed 5 older adults on 5 occasions over a period of 3.5 years about their experiences of aging with HIV. The participants' stories were analyzed for metaphors. Individual metaphors reveal a complex, unique struggle: living between tensions of uncertainty and hope, facing death and living in the moment, and suffering hurt amidst the joys of evolving identity. The tensions are fluid, although time and life experience facilitate a shift towards reconciliation. An overarching metaphor across this group of survivors is shadows and sunshine: to survive and live in a fragile state, balancing multiple shadows such as stigma and side effects with joyful experiences of support and belonging. The findings suggest that when nurses invite stories of life experience and listen for language used, they build compassion and gain understanding of what support is most needed to honour the personhood of older adults who are HIV-positive.

“Balancing on Skates on the Icy Surface of Work”: A Metasynthesis of Work Participation for Persons with Psychiatric Disabilities

To explore how persons with psychiatric disabilities experience facilitators of and barriers to participation in paid work in transitional, supported, and open employment settings, in order to provide guidance for efforts to attract and retain these persons in gainful employment as a key dimension of recovery and community life. A metasynthesis was conducted using 16 qualitative studies published between 1990 and 2011. Ten themes, two phases, and an overarching metaphor were identified. The first five themes describe facilitators of and impediments to getting a job (getting off the bench): (1) fighting inertia; (2) taking control; (3) encouraging peers; (4) disruptions related to the illness; (5) lack of opportunities and supports. The next five themes represent facilitators of and impediments to working (skating on the ice); (6) going mainstream; (7) social cohesion; (8) clarity in role and responsibilities; (9) environmental factors; (10) managing self-disclosure. We chose as our overarching metaphor "Balancing on Skates on the Icy Surface of Work," as we view both iceskaters and workers with psychiatric disabilities as needing to achieve and maintain their balance while being "on the edge" between various extremities. We have shown that, for persons with psychiatric disabilities to "get off the bench" and "onto the ice" of employment, they may need to be supported in finding and maintaining their balance in new situations through a combination of learning new skills and competencies (learning how to skate) while receiving in vivo assistance from empathic and knowledgeable supporters (being coached while on the ice).

Aquinas' Integrated View of Emotions, Morality and the Person

In this article the author argues that there are five components in Aquinas' integrated account of emotions, morality and the person. Firstly, it is the rationally “fitting” or “consonant” with human nature that mediates the affective virtues as they structure the objects of emotions as specific emotional responses. Secondly, Aquinas outlines principles to ascertain a) how emotions are moral and voluntary and b) the need for certain right and good emotional responses. Thirdly, he highlights the psychological and physiological resonance of emotions in moral living. Fourthly, by an over-arching metaphor (the polis), Aquinas encapsulates the mutual tutoring and interdependence of intellect, will and emotions in practical reasoning. Finally, Aquinas' insistence on the location and immanence of the affective virtues grounds his view of the body/spirit relationship.

The Juice of Three Oranges: An Exploration in Nabokov's Language and World

This study presents a reconstruction of the workings of Vladimir Nabokov's language. Nabokov should be read not only on the level of narrative, but perhaps most plausibly on the level of recurrent motifs, contiguous allusions, and favorite verbal games. Reading on the micro-level and across his texts allows us to detect key motifs and to recognize the contours of different and more profound stories told within the surface stories. The context in which the orange motif acquires its Nabokovian meaning can be briefly defined as the fairground booth, the balagan , an overarching metaphor for the world within which all of Nabokov's stories take place. The balagan implies a false, unnatural and imposed life in which one is forced to play a prescribed role; only an artist, a creator, may stage his own spectacle, performing dazzling acrobatics, disavowing the heaviness of matter, and reaching celestial heights. The tension between these two aspects as expressed through the grotesque is the principal creative force in the world of the balagan . All Nabokov's novels and many short stories and plays make use of the orange motif dating back to Meyerhold's staging of Blok's Balaganchik in the Tenishev school in 1914 and Carlo Gozzi's The Love for Three Oranges , as well as to the magazine of the same title (1914-16). Concepts of Russian avant-garde theater, especially those of Blok, Meyerhold and Evreinov, are at the core of Nabokov's conception of the balagan , which seems to constitute the encompassing inner horizon of his world.

Nietzsche and Nihilism

Alexander Nehamas’s 1985 book Nietzsche: Life as a Literature offers an elegant synthesis of themes from other (then au courant) readings of Nietzsche by Jacques Derrida, Sarah Kofman, Paul DeMan, and Richard Rorty. He effected this synthesis primarily introduction of a novel interpretive rubric: what Nehamas calls According to aestheticism, Nietzsche... looks at [the world] as if it were a literary text. And he arrives at many of his views of human beings by generalizing to them ideas and principles that apply almost intuitively to literary situation, to creation and interpretation of literary texts and characters. For Nehamas, then, literary text is Nietzsche's overarching metaphor (164), model he always depended on (194) in pursuing his philosophical inquiries, the single thread running through his work. I show that aestheticism is, in fact, not Nietzsche’s view, and that Nehamas fails to adduce a single passage from Nietzsche in which he actually embraces aestheticism. I also show how aestheticism leads Nehamas to an idiosyncratic reading of Nietzsche’s positive ethical views. I conclude that this intelligent but sometimes idiosyncratic book is not really about Nietzsche.