This study investigated the effects of a process of metaphor creation on the
meaningful understanding of a significant past experience - that of owning and living in a
condominium that had been damaged because of excessive rain and poor building
practises and/or materials. This natural disaster has affected the Lower Mainland of
British Columbia predominantly, and the media have called it "The Leaky Condo Crisis."
Theory states that metaphors can be helpful in changing how people feel toward,
think about, and deal with their experiences. In this way metaphors can help people
toward a more meaningful understanding of those experiences. In order to explore these
ideas, a structured intervention was developed and called the MetaForm. It involves the
creation of metaphors for an experience in order to explore the similarities and
differences between the metaphor and the experience to derive meaning from or add
meaning to the experience.
To this end, each of four co-researchers was interviewed twice. The Intervention
Interview introduced the MetaForm. The participants related their condominium stories,
then they created metaphors for various parts of those stories. These parts were named
after the elements of drama: setting, mood, props, cast, plot and theme. When a coresearcher
suggested a metaphor, it was elaborated into a full story or drama by that coresearcher
and myself. The Inquiry Interview explored the MetaForm for evidence of
meaningful understanding.
Participants reported that the MetaForm intervention helped them, to varying
degrees and in different ways, to develop a more meaningful understanding of their
experiences of owning and living in water-damaged condominiums.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:BVAU.2429/10643 |
| Date | 11 1900 |
| Creators | Hayter, Martin Robert |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Relation | UBC Retrospective Theses Digitization Project [http://www.library.ubc.ca/archives/retro_theses/] |
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