Metaphern am Lebensende: Resilienz als Widerstand oder Akzeptanz

The article provides an overview of the research project “Metaphor in end-of-life care”, which was conducted at Lancaster University (UK) between 2011 and 2014. The goals of the project were to show a) how patients, family members and healthcare professionals use metaphors to talk about their experiences with and expectations of end-of-life care, b) what experiences and needs are suggested by the use of metaphors by these groups and c) what contribution the results can make to communication in the healthcare system. A corpus consisting of interviews with the various groups of people and their postings in online fora were subject to both manual and semi-automated analyses. The results show that especially the online communications by patients and family members are characterized by violence and journey metaphors. The use of metaphors by these groups suggests a need for solidarity and community and reflects both positive and negative personal experiences. Resilience can be understood as resistance against illness or as acceptance of it.