Metaphor comprehension in the treatment of people with schizophrenia

People with schizophrenia demonstrate significant abstraction deficits, typically measured via metaphor interpretation tasks. Despite these deficits, people with schizophrenia have benefitted from psychological therapies laced with metaphorical language. This research examined one possible explanation for this contradiction by examining whether metaphors presented in the context of therapy have more salient meaning for the reader than metaphors that were developed for the purposes of a neuropsychological assessment. It was proposed that therapeutically oriented metaphors would facilitate better access to autobiographical memories and subsequently result in more accurate metaphor interpretation.