Teacher perceptions of student responsiveness to therapeutic metaphor

Abstract

This paper explored how metaphor works as a therapeutic and educational tool and sought to determine if the usage of therapeutic metaphor would be an effective means of enhancing student responsiveness in Jewish day schools. The use of therapeutic metaphor in psychotherapy and education as a mechanism for change or influence was popularized by the hypnotherapist Milton H. Erickson M.D. and by Neuro Linguistic Programing.;This thesis proposed to study the Jewish school instructors' perceptions of student responsiveness in their classrooms and determine whether the use of story or therapeutic metaphor altered that perception. The specific behaviors that should be considered in the definition of student responsiveness were elicited through a survey of fifty teachers in Jewish day schools. Teachers completed a Likert scale each day of the study.;This study tested the hypotheses that there would be a significant difference in student responsiveness between the use of therapeutic metaphor and a control group; that there would be a significant difference in student responsiveness between the use of a story and a control group, and whether therapeutic metaphor would be more effective in enhancing student responsiveness than an ordinary story read to the class. An analysis of variance confirmed all hypotheses and indicated that therapeutic metaphor had a greater effect on student responsiveness than a story. The results of this study support the use of therapeutic metaphor as a method of producing behavioral change in students. Suggestions for future research as well as the implementation of the results of this study in the day school were included.