Men are grass: Bateson, Erickson, utilization and metaphor.

The relationship between metaphor and the practice of utilization in therapy and hypnosis can be seen as dependent on metaphor's role in structuring experience. The work of Gregory Bateson and others is used to illustrate how metaphor functions. Bateson's comparison of two forms of syllogistic logic provides a background for distinguishing between the experiential effects of metaphor in contrast to the categorical thinking inherent in simile and analogy. Clinical examples are given to demonstrate how utilization is structured by metaphor, particularly as Bateson has described it in his analysis of the Syllogism in Grass.