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Julia--
I'm smiling broadly @ your metaphor. Consider this (related) alternative, from Jonathan Haidt:

The rider represents the 'controlled' processes of the mind, the planning and reasoning that takes place one step at a time in conscious awareness, while the elephant represents the hundreds of automatic operations we carry out every second outside of conscious awareness.

Closer to your image is this one, from instructions on how to do hypnosis:

Another metaphor is that the conscious mind is a rider, and the unconscious mind (especially the part that handles emotion) is a horse. Now, a man riding a horse may feel like he's in charge, but in truth he's going to be carried anywhere the horse plans to go. (Or he's going to get thrown painfully, so that the horse can get where it's going more quickly.) If you've ever tried to tell yourself to quit feeling an emotion because it didn't make sense, then you know how hard it is to wrestle a horse. In this metaphor, the hypnotist is a bit more like a horse-whisperer.