The article works out the idea that metaphors in discussions about clients in a psychiatric institute are used in the first place to make sense of experiences and emotions of the therapists instead of only giving information about treatment and healing of clients. Metaphoric language use makes clear to reader or hearer how therapeutic actions and the relation with clients are understood and in daily intercourse experienced, namely as a war and doing business. On the one hand metaphors give therapists the opportunity to speak about emotional matters in a seemingly `rational' way and to transfer these to others, so that `the culture' of the team is restructured and reinforced; on the other hand they suggest only a meaning and they could be differently understood in accordance with the individual therapist. This is the reason why metaphore do not characterize objectively a problem situation in the institute. They show us a subjective formation of the daily clinical reality.