Metaphors of Psychological Deterioration: the Case of Depression

The present article aims at identifying and analysing the linguistic metaphorical behaviours of people living with depressive disorders. To this end, four online fora dealing with mental illnesses were selected in order to gather data on how individuals metaphorically describe their depressive states. The data were interpreted by means of Conceptual Metaphor Theory and Self-determination Theory. Combining a linguistic theory with a psychological one allows to deepen our comprehension of depression and helps diagnose it: linguistic behaviour paves the way for accessing the psychological dimension of individuals while revealing a potential tendency towards harmonic or problematic mental states.