Korean emotional metaphors in psychological counseling and casual conversation: focusing on anger and sadness

This study examines the metaphorical expressions of anger and sadness in Korean psychological counseling and casual conversation. In counseling contexts, patients frequently use metaphors to articulate abstract emotions or concepts, as metaphors play a pivotal role in shaping cognitive processes that map concrete experiences onto abstract domains. By comparing datasets from psychological counseling sessions and casual conversations provided by South Korea’s AI-HUB, the study found that anger was expressed through a broader range of metaphors in counseling discourse, while casual conversation exhibited comparatively fewer metaphorical expressions of anger . Although similar metaphorical patterns were used to convey sadness in both contexts, counseling discourse demonstrated a more balanced distribution, whereas casual conversation predominantly conceptualized sadness as a form of illness . Furthermore, the analysis of source domains revealed a wider range of conceptualizations in counseling, including liquid in a bowl, insanity, object, plant, enemy, fire, and natural force . In contrast, casual conversation primarily relied on the domains of liquid in a bowl and object . This study contributes to the integration of metaphor research and psychological counseling, offering insights that may inform future investigations into metaphor use in health discourse.