A major idea in relationship science is that partners in a close relationship can “sculpt” each other in a manner that helps them align more closely with their ideal, or true, self. This sculpting metaphor is compelling, elegant, and generative, but it also possesses previously unrecognized liabilities, especially in its conceptualization of the ideal self as a sculpture yearning for release from a block of stone that is imprisoning it. Given the powerful role that metaphors play in structuring thought, overreliance on the sculpting metaphor has blinded us to certain questions even as it has sensitized us to others. To develop a comprehensive understanding of the ways in which relationship partners bring out the best or the worst in each other, we must complement the sculpting metaphor with metaphors that direct our attention to questions that it obscures, such as (a) where the ideal self comes from and (b) whether, how much, and how the ideal self changes over time.

中文翻译：

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补充雕刻的隐喻：反思关系伙伴如何相互取长补短。

关系科学的一个主要思想是，亲密关系中的伙伴可以以帮助他们与理想或真实自我更紧密地契合的方式彼此“雕刻”。这种雕刻比喻引人注目，优雅而富有生机，但它也具有以前无法认识的责任，特别是在将理想自我概念化为渴望从被囚禁的一块石头中释放出来的雕塑时。鉴于隐喻在结构化思维中所发挥的强大作用，对雕塑隐喻的过度依赖使我们对某些问题视而不见，即使它使我们对其他问题敏感。为了全面了解关系伙伴之间相互展现最佳或最不利的方式，