Presentation Companion Library

Read before the meeting. Return with new questions.
A companion to the Metaphor Society programme, connecting each session with the wiki's reference material.

The Presentation Companion Library brings together background reading and questions for comparing images, language and stories. The notes below are editorial reading suggestions. Presenter material and any available recordings remain with the Metaphor Society.

Programme: October 2026 to July 2027

The programme was checked on 22 September 2026. Sessions are online for Society members. Times are UK local time (Europe/London): 2:00–3:00 pm, except 4 March, 2:00–4:00 pm. Andrew T. Austin presents unless another presenter is named below. Check the live programme for changes, calendar links and joining information.

Date	Session and reading notes	Reading focus
1 October 2026	General discussion and Q&A	Wording, images and useful distinctions
5 November 2026	Metaphors Across Psychotherapy Roni Matar	Compare terminology and attribution
3 December 2026	The Long Dark Night of The Christmas Soul	Darkness, seasons, waiting and light
7 January 2027	The Living Death Metaphor	Activity, animation and participation
4 February 2027	Tidal Waves and Floods	Currents, boundaries and inundation
4 March 2027	The Hermit and The Hurts	Light, position and distance
18 March 2027	“Stuck”: Processing collective trauma with ghost stories Adam Sargant (Story Teller)	Haunting, place and repeated stories
1 April 2027	What Holds Us Up? Support, Decay and the Ground Beneath Us	Foundations, loads and changing support
15 April 2027	Faust: Selling Your Soul To The Devil Ray Wilkins	Bargains, terms and consequences
6 May 2027	The Shape of Time: Portals, Pressure and the Divided Self	Intervals, thresholds and constraints
3 June 2027	When Metaphors Raise Alarm: Boundaries, Risk and Practitioner Discernment	Context, attribution and limits of inference
1 July 2027	Into the Void: Deletion, Suppression and the Return of the Missing	Absence, emptiness and return

Choose a visual reading route

• 

  Time and seasons
  December and May reading.

• 

  Water and boundaries
  February reading.

• 

  Light and position
  March reading.

• 

  Ground and support
  April reading.

The illustrations are original AI-generated editorial images from the Metaphor Atlas. They are reading links, rather than images supplied by the presenters.

Reading notes

October discussion

Start with: Idiomatic, Literal and Figurative Communication and Metaphor Categories. Then explore the Metaphor Atlas.

Choose one expression or passage and identify what makes it interesting: an unusual position, an obstacle, a relationship or a change. Keep the original wording beside any paraphrase. For discussion, distinguish a question about what the words mean conventionally from a question about the scene they describe. Metaphor Across Languages and Cultures adds examples of why translation can change the image.

November psychotherapy

Start with: About Metaphors of Movement, Beyond Simple Metaphor and Metaphors of Emotion.

When comparing approaches, record which author or presenter uses each term and what they mean by it. The same word may describe a figure of speech, an explanatory model or an element of practice. Useful questions include who introduces an image, how its wording is retained, and what evidence is offered for any claimed effect. Keep descriptions of different approaches attributable to their sources.

December winter

Start with: Clocks, Seasons and Waiting Rooms, Ice, Snow and Frozen Landscapes and Shadows. Continue to The Hermit, Lanterns and Solitude.

Compare darkness as a condition of visibility with winter as a phase in a cycle. A waiting room, a frozen landscape and an unlit path organise time and movement differently. In a particular story, what changes when light appears: visibility, direction, warmth or access? Record the distinction rather than assigning one meaning to every dark scene.

January living death

Start with: The Living Death Metaphor, Ghosts, Frankenstein and The Sleeping Beauty.

Compare the actual events in each telling: a body may move, sleep, be assembled, return or remain absent. Those events create different relationships between bodily activity, agency and participation. Keep a story's events separate from a metaphorical phrase such as “going through the motions”. When returning to the session, note which features the presenter actually connects.

February floods

Start with: Floods, Dams and Breaking Banks, Currents, Tides and Undertows, Oceans and Bridges.

Compare a current that carries something along, water that crosses a bank, and a structure that permits passage over water. What moves, what remains fixed, and where does the boundary lie? A rising level, a sudden wave and a receding flood describe different changes over time. Keep these physical arrangements distinct when reading the figurative language.

March hermit

Start with: The Hermit, Lanterns and Solitude, Elevation and Hills and Mountains. Read Hurts for the wiki's existing practitioner commentary.

Compare the bearer's position, the placement of the lantern and the route available to anyone else in the scene. Being visible and being reachable are different. Identify the particular card, text or telling under discussion. Keep references to the Metaphors of Movement hurts bias attributed to the model's published material or the presenter.

March ghost stories

Start with: Ghosts, Houses, Rooms and Hidden Spaces, Graveyards and Echoes, Silence and Unheard Voices.

For a named story, distinguish what returns, where it returns, who notices it and how it is retold. A figure inhabiting a house differs from a voice heard at a distance or a memory recounted by a narrator. These are literary comparison questions; claims about collective trauma should be traced to the session's sources rather than inferred from the presence of a ghost.

April support

Start with: Foundations and Ground, Gravity, Balance and Support, Trees and Burdens.

Compare support as contact, load-bearing structure, balance or rootedness. What depends on what? What changes when a supporting structure weakens, moves or is replaced? A floor, a root system and a counterweight provide different arrangements. Use the source material to distinguish literal descriptions of decay from the broader meanings proposed for it.

April Faust

Start with: Faust and The Deal with The Devil, Money, Ties and Binds and Locks and Keys.

Identify the version of the Faust story being discussed. Record the bargain's parties, terms, promised gain, cost and means of enforcement. Compare choosing a bargain with discovering that one is already bound. An exchange, a debt and a restriction are related images, but they organise obligation differently.

May time

Start with: Clocks, Seasons and Waiting Rooms, Doors, Gates and Thresholds, Pressure, Compression and Explosion and Metaphor Across Languages and Cultures.

Compare a measured interval, a passage between places and a constraint on available space. Locate the reference point in expressions about time: is an event ahead of a person, or earlier than another event? Keep any neuroscience claims in the presentation attached to the evidence cited for them; spatial imagery alone does not establish how the brain is organised.

June boundaries

Start with: Fences, Boundaries and Borders, Idiomatic, Literal and Figurative Communication and Situational Relational Positioning.

In reading notes, separate exact wording, context, interpretation and any action proposed by the presenter. Notice when a source discusses a literal situation and when it discusses figurative language. The relevant question for comparison is what supports a conclusion and what remains uncertain. This reading route supplies background vocabulary; practitioner decisions belong with appropriate training and professional guidance.

July absence

Start with: Vacuums, Pits, Holes and Trenches, Houses, Rooms and Hidden Spaces and Ghosts.

Compare a space that is empty, a missing object, a concealed room and something that returns. “Nothing is here” and “something has gone” imply different descriptions of the scene. Record whether a prior presence is stated by the source or supplied by the reader. That distinction is useful before drawing connections between absence, loss and recovery.

Keep useful notes after a session

Record	Include
Source	Session date, presenter, and recording timestamp or page reference where available.
Wording	A short accurately marked quotation or a clearly labelled paraphrase.
Connection	The wiki article, story or image that clarifies the point.
Evidence	The source offered for a factual or model-specific claim.
Open question	What remains unclear or needs checking before it is repeated as a claim.

Use the programme page to find the Society's member-access and recording routes. This library can be used for preparation and revisited as sessions take place.

Browse the library

Metaphor Atlas | Subject index | Concepts and language | Stories and literature | Main Page