We can use metaphor scholarship to help mediators and others apply metaphor more effectively in practical situations. The scholarly results can be translated into practical tools. Of particular use are the following:

- Distinctions between the Target and Source Domains.
- Metaphors as conceptual systems in common usage (Primary Conceptual Metaphors).
- The relationship between metaphor structure and the structure of behavior (the embodiment hypotheses).

But mediators, clinicians, teachers and others have been using metaphors in various forms for a long time. It is worthwhile first to review what they have been doing before the scholarly results of the past 20 years became widely available.

The metaphoric aspects of stories, tales, and allegories have been used for millenia. This is very worthwhile practice. However, we will not deal with it here.

Metaphor in everyday language and thought is widely recognized. When a word or phrase usefully alludes to well-known patterns or structures, people will easily identify this as metaphor -- as, for example, when someone battles with an illness, cultivates a relationship, or gets lost in a cloud of vague ideas.

The usefulness of such metaphors comes largely from how they compress known experiences into very few words and apply the meaning to the subject under discussion. For example, when somone "battles" with a problem, all of what is entailed in the meaning of "battle" can be evoked. The efficiency of packaging meaning in this way is undeniable, as we are reminded by reviewing the entailments of certain popular metaphors. Mediators have made excellent use of metaphors in this form to direct disputants in more constructive directions (such as, for example, when clients use war-like language and the mediator reframes in terms of a game played on a level playing field, or a common journey with important steps along the way). This application of metaphor makes wonderful use of the cryptic packaging of metaphoric entailments into key words.

However, when important outcomes depend upon a more precise understanding of what is meant, metaphor in this form may let us down. The web of entailments for common metaphoric terms such as "battle", "sacrifice", or "playing by the rules" will be different for people with different life experience. One set of entailments may be invoked by one person, and others invoked by another person.

I want to suggest that besides the distributive role of getting disputants to accept differing orientations towards a dispute, encouraging them to consider new proposals or directing them towards constructive outcomes, the facilitative role of mediators involves additional important functions, such as listening, enhancing communications, and expanding options. The compressed packaging of meaning in many popular metaphors may not so easily assist these functions. The compressed packaging may actually interfere with these functions due to differing life experiences that determine the interpretation of such metaphors among disputants.

Metaphors can also be used in mediation to unpack meaning. When we decompress metaphoric content we can explore the actual meaning intended by particular people in specific circumstances. This can directly support functions such as listening, enhancing communications and expanding options in a number of ways. For example, if a client or disputant speaks of fighting for her rights, the mediator, knowing the essential structure of such metaphoric use of language, can immediately begin to do things such as following:

- Knowing the difference between Target and Source Domains of a metaphor, can shift focus easily between the problem as concretely experienced and the metaphoric reference which brings in additional meaning.

- Familiar with the conceptual systems underlying such common words,... extending...

- Knowing the basic elements of metaphor, whether explicitly stated or not, can find out which ones the speaker is conscious of, and which may play a role outside of conscious awareness.

- Aware that the structure of events in a metaphor will map to a similar structure in guiding bodily movement, can look for a predictable sequence within the metaphor and help complete it in a variety of ways.

In this way a mediator fully familiar with metaphor and metaphoric thinking helps clients recover the full meaning of their own words, position statements, or proposals, extending them as appropriate with all the inherent flexibility in one's own conceptualization, and puts their own thinking to more effective use to guide action.

To use metaphor effectively, it helps greatly to begin to bring the metaphoric nature of thinking into conscious awareness.