1. Start tour here

Hi, I'm Penny Tompkins and I'd like to welcome you to a guided tour of The Clean Collection. First I'll give you an overview of The Gallery and then we'll begin the tour. As we go around I'll introduce the theme of each room and point you toward some items where you might wish to begin your viewing.

2. Clean Language Room

As we enter this room you may be wondering, 'Exactly what is Clean Language?'.

Clean Language is a set of questions developed by therapist David Grove in the 1980s. Clean Language is ‘clean’ because it keeps the facilitator from unwittingly introducing their metaphors, assumptions or suggestions into a conversation (no matter how well meaning these may be). Clean questions encourage metaphors, ideas, self-reflections and ah-ha’s into being. When personal change is the goal, Clean Language invites a client's perceptions to evolve and change organically — one question at a time.

James Lawley and I first formalised our model of the questions in 1996 in Less is More: the Art of Clean Language. As befits a dynamic process, our model is still developing and for our latest thinking see: Clean Language Revisited: The Evolution of a Model.

Let me be clear, ‘clean’ does not mean ‘no influence’.  All language influences and Clean Language wouldn’t be much use if it didn’t have an effect. Because of its ability to respectfully invite clients to attend to particular aspects of their inner world, Clean Language influences the direction of a client’s mind-body-spirit process (without contaminating the content of their experience). Other processes may do this too, but none do it so cleanly or in quite the way that Clean Language does, and none are so tailored to work with metaphor.

If you are new to Clean Language, and would like a one-page example of how it is used with metaphor, see Conversing with Metaphor; for a more extensive description, see Using Metaphors with Coaching.

Although Clean Language was originally designed to work therapeutically with clients’ metaphors and symbols, these days it is used more conversationally in hundreds of ways — by researchers, teachers, the police, managers, consultants, health practitioners and many others. You'll have time to view some of these exciting developments when we get to the Applications Room.

Language is so much more than words, and so there is Clean Language Without Words which asks clean questions of movements of the body, sounds and other nonverbal behaviour.  There can be a lot of information stored in a gesture, a glance, or even a sigh. Clean Language is great for encouraging what’s behind those expressions to reveal itself.

When you’ve finished in the Clean Language room we'll proceed to the Metaphor Room after a quick detour via the Events Room.

3. Events Room

The Events Room is well worth a visit to find out what's happening in the Symbolic Modelling and clean community, and where you can experience this work for yourself.

In this room the Calendar of Events has an extensive listing of trainings, seminars and personal development workshops. We've colour coded some entries to make it easy to see who is providing what. Each colour represents a training organisation or trainer. While James and my colour is yellow, you will also find us training with other providers under their respective colours.

Because there are now numerous events in French you'll also find a dedicated French Calendar of Events sponsored by Innovative Pathways.  Mais oui!

And if you organise an event based on this work, please contact us so that you can have it listed in the Calendar.

Once you have had at least two days training in Clean Language you will be eligible to attend a Practice Group. These groups aim to complement and extend the learning gained on formal trainings (they are not a substitute for training). They offer a place where you can sharpen your skills and meet others involved in this work.

Now, please follow me into the Metaphor Room.

4. Metaphor Room

Entering the Metaphor Room in the Clean Collection is like entering another universe. Metaphor comes in many forms. The kind of metaphor you'll find exhibited in this room is called ‘autogenic’ — which simply means ‘self-generated’ — the naturally occurring metaphors people use all the time.  Behind those seemingly throw-away phrases lies a rich symbolic world vital to our health and well-being.

Sometimes language is explicitly metaphorical: “I don’t know which path to take in my life,” or “Something’s blocking my development,” or “My heart’s beating like a drum.”  Most of the time, however, our use of metaphor is more subtle and unconsciously embedded in our everyday language: “What’s come between us?” or “Business is on the up” or “I feel upset.”

When James and I discovered Metaphors we Live By, the book that ignited the cognitive linguistics revolution in 1980, it changed our thinking forever. The authors, George Lakoff and Mark Johnson say "The essence of metaphor is understanding and experiencing one kind of thing in terms of another." Metaphors are not just linguistic turns of phrase, they are embodied in our neurology.  They are not arbitrary — they contain a consistency that both parallels and constrains what they represent.  This means that as our metaphors change and evolve, our perceptions of what they represent in our life change and evolve as well.

Recent research showed that in a classroom one word in 40 was a metaphor, one word in 20 in a doctor-patient consultation, and one word in 10 in an emotion-laden conversation.  This means we utter between 2 and 10 metaphors per minute!

David Grove pioneered the use of client-generated metaphor in therapy in the 1980s and has been innovating ever since.  The significnce of David's contribution is only just being recognised, and it may be several decades before his clinical research and theories about how people change are fully acknowledged.

As important as metaphors are for psychotherapy, counselling and coaching, they are more than a medium for change.  If you want to see some of the creative ways people have made use of this type of metaphor in education, business, health, etc. visit the Applications Room.  Just think, we have used a gallery metaphor to create the kind of experience we want visitors to this web site to have.

You might like to pause in this room and read Coaching with Metaphor — an introductory article which contains a lot of information in a small package (to use a couple of metaphors!) — or get a sense of how a metaphor changes and evolves in Mind, Metaphor and Health.

And when you're ready, please follow me into the Symbolic Modelling Room.

5. Symbolic Modelling Room

Welcome to the Symbolic Modelling Room in the Clean Collection.

Symbolic Modelling began when James Lawley and I undertook an extensive modelling project of the work of psychotherapist David Grove in the mid 1990s. We added to our clinical practice of David's work by devouring books on cognitive linguistics — the academic basis for the significance of metaphor in thought, word and deed. A real breakthrough came when we recognised how the principles of self-organising systems theory and evolutionary dynamics could apply to the way Metaphor Landscapes change and evolve. Our first article on Symbolic Modelling appeared in 1997, and in 2000 a comprehensive guide to the theory and practice was published in our book, Metaphors in Mind. A demonstration DVD, A Strange and Strong Sensation followed in 2003.

Originally, Symbolic Modelling was made up of three components. In a nutshell, it is a method which uses Clean Language to facilitate individuals to learn to self-model through becoming aware of the organisation of their metaphors and symbols. By using their exact metaphors as the raw material for the modelling process, a living, breathing, four-dimensional world within and around them emerges — a Metaphor Landscape. During Symbolic Modelling their metaphors begin to evolve. As this happens their everyday thinking, feeling and behaviour correspondingly change as well.

Once a person has had a chance to discover themselves in a 'clean environment' they come to value their own experience in a new way, and probably for the first time they come face-to-face with the self they have created — 'uncontaminated' by the other person in the room. It can be a unique and sacred experience.

Naturally, I recommend you spend some time in this room and a good place to start is with the introductory article, Metaphors in Mind: A Case Study.

Over the years, we have found that Symbolic Modelling is especially suited to working with ‘big issues’ and 'higher levels' of experience as well as complex and seemingly intractable binds and double binds not amenable to traditional techniques.  Although Symbolic Modelling is a stand-alone process it can easily integrate with other therapeutic models, as described in Tangled Spaghetti in my Head.

While Symbolic Modelling originated as a change process, it is now being used to facilitate individuals and groups to create new metaphors, and in other Application areas. If you would like a sneak preview of working drafts James and I are currently developing then have a look at our work-in-progress.

After you've had your fill in here, please follow me into the latest addition to the collection, the Clean Space and Emergence Room.

6. Clean Space
& Emergence Room

Here we are, in the Clean Space and Emergence room, where you can wander around to get different perspectives on the canvas on which our thoughts are painted — perceptual space.

This room is dedicated to the ideas that David Grove and others have developed since the publication of our book Metaphors in Mind in 2000. Soon after the turn of the millenium David Grove began exploring the effects on a client’s internal perceptual space as they physically moved around their external space.  He developed a process to facilitate this called Clean Space.  As well as creating some new clean questions, for the first time Clean Space involved using a set of clean directives. More recently we revisited the model and produced a Clean Space Lite version listing dozens of facilitator add-ons.

Based on David’s interest in ‘small world’ network theory and the concept of Six Degrees of Separation, Clean Space quickly evolved into Clean Worlds and from there into Emergent Knowledge. The latter facilitates the emergence of new information by iterating through a series of precise routines and six repetitions of particular questions.

Also in this room are articles on the closely related notions of proximity — the significance of adjacency in perception — and a more advanced piece on psychoactive space which surveys a variety of change processes involving inner and outer spatial perceptions.

Learning to use Symbolic Modelling requires you to become a master of space (and time) — whether a client is sitting in one place and you are asking Clean Language questions of their Metaphor Landscape, or they are moving around in a Clean Space/Emergent Knowledge process.

Next, the tour will take us deeper inside the gallery, into the Modelling Room. But first we'll take a brief detour via the News Room.

7. News Room

This is the News Room. It contains snippets of current information, ideas, thoughts, quotes, reports, etc. that we come across, or people send to us via our contact form.  [I might even put in one of my favourite recipes!]

The first news to report is that this web site was launched in 1997, so this year is its 10th Anniversary! The old-style site had served us well but the long lists of articles became daunting and the look of the site was ancient in internet terms, so it was time to modernise, categorise and simplify. Phil Swallow, our web site designer, did a beautiful Clean Language facilitation with James and me to help us find a metaphor that would act as an organising principle for the new site — now how congruent is that?  The Clean Collection based in a metaphorical gallery is what emerged. We liked the metaphor because it met our desire to have our website be both historical and current, to be a showcase for the field, to be a contribution, and to be our ‘face to the world’.  We welcome your feedback!

After this brief diversion to catch up on the latest news, let’s step into the Modelling Room and continue the tour.

8. Modelling Room

Ah, modelling — that process that's so tricky to describe and so yet vital to becoming adept at working with people in a clean way.  Put most simply, a model is a representation of a thing or process that can be used to help people do things, have certain experiences or make decisions.  There are mathematical models; model cars for testing aerodynamics; architects' plans of the buildings they envisage; the Underground map of London; computer-generated models of all sorts — the list is endless.

The kind of modelling we are interested in was first formalised by John Grinder and Richard Bandler in the 1970s. It involves producing models of human behaviour — both external behaviour that can be observed, and internal behaviour that can only be described by the person having the experience.

In modelling, you are the creator of a model — the model maker.  In Symbolic Modelling, you model human perception and experience mainly by listening for the metaphors people use and nonverbally express which tell you how they organise their perceptual time and space.

By asking someone Clean Language questions you enable them to discover for themselves their model of their experience — what James and I call 'facilitating a person to self-model'.  As they answer a clean question you can create your model of their model-of-self. This informs your next question, and so it goes on, round and round, wheels within wheels  We call this modelling-in-the-moment. Put simply, you're modelling them modelling themselves.

Modelling-in-the moment is at the core of Therapeutic Modelling. Another way to use Symbolic Modelling is in a more formal modelling project which has as its end point a 'product' — a model which others can acquire. These projects can last a few hours and result in a simple diagram or, like our modelling of David Grove, last many years and result in a whole book. If you are involved in a modelling project I think you'll find How to do a Modelling Project an invaluable reference guide.

Once you learn how, you can create models of just about anything. But don't get me started on modelling or we'll be here for a week. Instead let's go to the next room, Models & Theory.

9. Models and Theory Room

Welcome to the Models and Theory Room. If you love theory and concepts you'll be right at home here.  If you have a more experiential nature or are new to these ideas, you may wish to skip this room or plan to take your time.

Gregory Bateson was fond of saying that we make sense of the world by “punctuating” our experience.  This room displays a number of models where authors describe common metaphors that people use in the punctuating process. These models do two things, they describe:
(a) how we create perceptions — in other words, the way we organise experience; and
(b) how people change their mind-body perceptions.

In this room, for example, you can learn about the function of Scale and Adjacency in perception, as well as learn about the "thinker of the thoughts," the Perceiver.  There is also an impressive five-part paper on the role of the Brain in emotion and cognition.

If you are interested in the change process or your own personal development, you might like to spend some time viewing models James and I have developed on Self-Deception, Delusion, Denial and Double Binds.

Next we move upstairs, to three rooms that will shift our attention outward and into the world. We'll start with a room full of the results of people applying the clean approach — the Applications Room.

10. Applications Room

We are now in the Applications Room on the upper floor of The Gallery. James and I always ask people to let us know how they apply and develop this work. In this way the clean community can share its wealth of knowledge and learn from each other.

It is heart warming to see the list grow and grow, and extend into undreamed of areas. In this room you will see that people have written about applying clean methods and principles to: Psychotherapy & Counselling, Coaching, Business & Organisations, Education, Health,  Sport, Reseach & Interviewing and Self-Development.

While it is difficult to pick out a couple of articles from the dozens available, to get an idea of the range of applications I suggest:

•  Like a Kid in a Sweet Shop, an example of creative metaphor work with Heston Blumenthal, whose restaurant, The Fat Duck, was named the best in the world.

• Learning Metaphors, a guide for teachers and trainers.

• Clean Language in Sport, based on work with the GB Open Dragon Boat Team.

• Metaphors of Organisations - Part 2, a review of work being done with individuals, teams and companies.

There are numerous other interesting applications that have not yet been written up.  Some are: teaching Clean Language to the Police for interviewing vulnerable witnesses; using Clean Language for research and interviewing in a renewable energy project; preparing long-term unemployed for work; consulting to a Yale University team designing questionnaires for schoolchildren; training opera students to reach high notes; journalists teaching interviewing skills to other journalists; analysis of Food and Drugs Administration meetings; teaching systems theory in a university; accessing enhanced meditative and spiritual states; teaching the principles of Clean Language and some of the questions to thousands of Weight Watchers group leaders across the world — I could go on and on.

If you would like to let the world know about what you are doing and how you are applying this work in your particular area of interest, contact us to find out how to have your work published in this room of The Gallery.

Even if your only language is English, I think you will find it interesting to see what is going on outside the English-speaking world, so let’s go next door and find out about Symbolic Modelling and Clean Language Worldwide.

11. Worldwide Room

The Worldwide Room in the Clean Collection is where our colleagues in other countries have translated the Clean Language questions and articles from our web site, as well as having contributed their own articles.

Currently the Clean Language questions have been translated into Dutch, French, German, Italian, Portuguese and Spanish.

James and I have been involved in some of the translating of the Clean Language questions and were amazed how exacting this could be.  In France they spent a long time trying to find the most appropriate translation for the “And is there anything else about ...?” clean question, while in Italy it was the “And that’s like what?” question which had translators scratching their heads. The process each group went through to find the words to convey the function of each question would be worthy of displaying in the Applications Room — if only someone had written it down!

While Metaphors in Mind has been published in both French and Italian, many of the translations of the questions are still work-in-progress, so if you have a suggestion or comment please send it to the Worldwide Curator for these pages, Phil Swallow using the contact form.

We welcome relevant articles in other languages, or offers to translate existing articles.

Adios, arrivederci, au revoir to this room, and on to the last room which features Classic NLP.

12. Classic NLP Room

The last room in the tour is where it all began for us — with Classic NLP.

NLP stands for Neuro-Linguistic Programming and encompasses three of the most influential components involved in producing human experience: Neurology, Language and Patterning. NLP grew out of the collaboration of John Grinder and Richard Bandler in the early 1970s.

What most attracted me to NLP was the saying: “Experience has a structure.”  In 1991 I began training to find out more and became so enthralled that I dedicated much of the next five years to becoming adept at applying NLP processes.  I met James on that first level training, so I have a lot to be grateful for to NLP!

What interests us most about NLP is the way it works directly with people’s internal perceptions; how it give us a language to describe that strange non-physical world called ‘consciousness’; and the dramatic effects it can have on improving people’s lives.

The first articles James Lawley and I ever wrote (in 1993) are in this room, and you will find several introductory articles (written in the rah-rah style of every convert) here. There are also lots of more advanced articles for those of you who already have a grasp of the basics. One notable article is an  introduction to ‘New Code NLP’ by one of the originators, Judith DeLozier, entitled Mastery, New Coding and Systemic NLP.

NLP fundamentally influenced our way of thinking and working by introducing us to Modelling — how to study, code and replicate excellent behaviour.  The myriad of techniques NLP is famous for were interesting and wonderfully useful in our personal development, but the process of modelling was where we concentrated our attention.  And thank goodness we did, because it gave us the skills to begin our five-year modelling project of David Grove, which culminated in the publication of Metaphors in Mind.

These days James and I consider ourselves professional modellers because modelling is the bedrock of all we do, whether with individuals, groups or consulting to organisations. Perhaps our most important contribution to the field of NLP is our enhancement of the 'how to' of modelling and in particular our explication of a new way of modelling — Symbolic Modelling.

For a more in-depth yet brief description of how NLP and Symbolic Modelling fit together, visit Less Frequently Asked Questions.

We will now return to the entrance hall downstairs where I have some last points to make before we end the tour.

13. End of Tour

Welcome back to where we started — the entrance of the Gallery.

If you would like to begin viewing exhibits in the Clean Collection in more detail there are lots of ways to get to a relevant article via the:

• Article Categories in the left-hand panel.
• Advanced Search facility.
• Site Map which gives a complete list of all articles by category.
• List of Authors.

To sit down, have a rest and refresh, you might like to go outside to the Clean Forum Cafe.  Here you can participate in discussions, ask questions, or just read what others are thinking and doing.

A great way to be up-to-date with what’s going on in the clean community is to sign up for the monthly Newsletter produced jointly with the Clean Change Company.  This contains tips, success stories, applications, networking and training opportunities. And rest assured, your name and email details are used for Clean News only.

And there are a number of resources not covered in the tour. They can be accessed via the drop-down menu bar at the top of the page:

• A list of services and events that James Lawley and I offer can be found here. If you are interested in psychotherapy or coaching with us; or would like to participate in a small group Self-Modelling weekend dedicated to your own personal development; or spend a blissful time in France on a three or six-day retreat, you will find what you need here.

• A list of products. Apart from our book and DVD, you can buy a set of Clean Cards and you can earn CEUs from reading Metaphors in Mind.
  

• We have provided additional resources such as answers to Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) and Less Frequently Asked Questions; a selection of our favourite quotes about metaphor; a list of Clean Practise Groups; and how to join the Clean Language e-discussion group.

• We also have many links to other sites that feature Clean Language and Symbolic Modelling in some way, and you can set up RSS feeds to keep track of regularly changing content on this site.

If you would like to find out more about our services and products, or give us feedback about the site, or exchange links with us, please let Zannie Barrett know via the Contact Form.

It's been a pleasure having you on this short tour. I do hope you will have many enjoyable and fruitful hours browsing the Clean Collection and come back to visit us over and over as we are always adding new items. If you would like to take the Gallery Tour again, a new group will depart in a few minutes.