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9. Use of the Butterfly Woman as a metaphor
9. Use of the Butterfly Woman as a metaphor
Aim. To understand how the Butterfly Woman metaphor can create insights and help the healing process.
In the last section, we explained how we can use metaphor to help deal with trauma. In this section we explain how the Butterfly Woman metaphor came into being and how we will use the story in our work.
PART I: POINTS OF DEPARTURE
The Butterfly that could not fly. Note from a therapist.
“ A traumatised woman entered my office for therapy. She talked in a low voice.‘ When I look back I see only the terrible things that happened to me, day and night it visits me. When I look into the future I only see worries and problems. I see no hope. My life has become a dark place. My body is numb, I am alone and I find no rest. Am I going insane?’
After she left, I wondered:‘ How can I, as a helper, explain healing of trauma to this woman? How can I show her that her reactions are normal responses to an abnormal experience? That she is a survivor. How can I bring hope and dignity into her darkened life?’
I drew what she had told me on a sheet of paper in front of me. The trauma-memories were on one side and she was squeezed between The Past and the huge problems of The Future. I had drawn a butterfly! There she was, the butterfly woman that couldn’ t fly! I used this metaphor to explain the woman’ s healing process.
This metaphor gave the woman the distance she needed to talk about her symptoms without wakening the trauma. The Butterfly Woman made it possible to talk about the impossible. We could share her experiences, and I could show her a way forward.
We talked and practiced how to restore wings, strengthen and ground the body, her thoughts, feelings and heart. We found resources that made life worth living again. And that journey is what this manual is all about.
Butterflies are meant to fly, freely and in their own way. Just as women should be free to live their own meaning in peace and dignity.”
Based on this incident, we developed the Butterfly Woman metaphor as a tool for working with individuals traumatised by severe violence. The metaphor allows us to talk about very difficult themes in a different way; it creates room for thoughts and new reflections and may sometimes symbolise hope. When we draw the butterfly, her wings symbolise the past and the future. Between the‘ wings’ is a narrow space that represents the‘ here and now’. Through the help she is given, the Butterfly Woman gradually feels that she can be more‘ here and now’ and more able to control her life. She may also gradually be able to reconnect with her resources, symbolised by her‘ antennae’, which she stretches out to reach good memories from her past and her hopes for the future. Step by step she can restore her wings and create conditions in which eventually she can fly again.