This study addresses the key effects and meanings of metaphors in narrative studies and narrative psychology. Metaphors have importance in the development of hermeneutics, and Ricoeur studied it in the book La métaphore vive. The development of hermeneutics has two major turns. The first major turn is Wilhelm Dilthey's contributions, who made important contributions to a methodology of the humanities and other human sciences. The second major turn is that Martin Heidegger's contributions, shifted from Wilhelm Dilthey's theories. Martin Heidegger is counted among the main exponents of existentialism. Heidegger's groundbreaking work is in ontology (the philosophical study of being or existence) and metaphysics. And since then, hermeneutics has advocated detours to understand human beings that requires language or narrative text. The role of metaphors in the narrative is what this study aims to explore. The literature as well as practical counseling experiences have found different schools of counseling seem to believe that metaphors help the process of counseling. The purpose of this study is to explore how metaphors help.Also, the main approach of this study is to explore the links and important discourses between narratives and metaphors in greater depth through the review of critical literatures. The study explores how metaphors help step by step from how metaphors are applied, and from the methodology aspect, the epistemology aspect and the ontology aspect.
　　When it comes to how metaphors are applied, metaphors stimulate transformation in reference frames, viewpoints of world, and the naming of the externalized problems, etc. In this study, metaphors stimulate the study participants to reflect on stories holistically and improve the consistency of interpretation. The role of metaphors comes from what Ricoeur called a rhetorical property. At the methodology level, metaphors have what Ricoeur called poetics, including mimesis and pictorial-semantic fusion. Therefore, metaphors stimulate the transformation process of pre-figuration, configuration, and re-figuration of Ricoeur's "threefold mimesis", which are the core frame of narrative, in the text. Also, the pictorial nature of metaphors assist in the construction and interpretation of the story. At the epistemological level, metaphors themselves contain a dialectical epistemology of "to be" and "not to be", and this dialectic helps to promote the hermeneutic circle among understanding, interpretation, and construction. It is an open circle and a creative mimesis. Finally, at the ontology level, metaphors reveal the ontological characteristics of the human beings' world – the "as if" world. This world can only be drawn up by metaphors or narrative texts. However, the difference (écart) of the texts is not regarded as an error but rather regarded as a type of creativity and liveliness of the text. Moreover, the secondary reference of metaphors and narratives, the hermeneutical detour nature of narratives, helps people move from a limited situation of unformed meaning towards a state of existence and authentic self. In other words, the ontology or existence of man reflected in metaphors or narratives is essentially the ontology of meaning construction. The so-called authentic self (Eigentlichkeit) or transcendent state is not the appearance of the real self or the given ultimate goal or answer but rather a possibility of development and a process of continuous meaning construction and becoming. In the history the earliest narrative works of human beings are cave paintings of primitive humans and related witchcraft rituals or dances. The initial imitations of these life experiences have brought about reflection and consciousness, which allows human beings to go into the world of meaning construction from the unconscious and organic world. This also allows for the birth of art and culture. Therefore, human beings are in this metaphorical and narrative-like world and can constantly construct or reconstruct meanings of life.

Keywords
Metaphor, mimesis, narrative, poem, the truth of metaphor

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