Risch Andreas.pdf - Osteopathic Research

metaphors for sensory experience due to a high frequency of expressions related to
this field. Four concepts in the physical body category group based on the personality
model of F. Riemann were introduced as a structural guidance. The thematic
experience group was divided into three concepts.
Quantitative research was conducted by documenting frequencies of metaphors
being used in different categories and concepts within the different groups of
experience regarding the concepts of health in osteopathic thought, speech and
practice as well as social/psychological/ethical implications and sensing/feeling
health. Afterwards, a qualitative research was carried out in order to evaluate the
resulting metaphoric concepts and analyze them trying to come to conclusions of the
mental models used by osteopaths for the conceptualization of health. Efforts of
triangulation were introduced and applied in the evaluation of data with different
methods, i.e. quantitative and qualitative, in order to provide a wider spectrum of
findings and better validation of the results.
8. Results
8.1 Quantitative analysis
According to the prior defined description a total of 1,422 metaphors with an average
of 142 metaphors per interview (117 - 188) were identified during the analysis of the
10 interviews with a total amount of 36,634 words and an average amount of 3,663
words per interview respectively. This shows an above average grade of
metaphorization of 3.9 percent*. (Male osteopaths are slightly using more words
(3,816 words per interview, 3.7% metaphorization) while female osteopaths are using
more metaphors (145 metaphors per interview, 4.1% metaphorization).
(*Moser (2000) could show grades of metaphorization between 1.9% and 3.1% and
Heitmann (2006) between 1,8 and 3,3%).
The total amounts of metaphors in the sensory experience categories were 358
(25%), in the physical body experience categories with 566 (40%) and the thematic