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Semantic change - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Semantic change - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

David Grove - Emergence

David Grove is from New Zealand and spent many years in the US working with patients suffering from traumatic memories. During this time he pioneered the ground breaking technique of Clean Language. He discovered that patients would often speak in metaphor when describing their experience and that the most effective treatment was to honour their metaphors by asking open questions which reflected the patient’s exact words. Over a period of years, David identified 9 questions that would least influence the patient in their metaphorical journey, and he gave this process the name, “Clean Language”. The technique was observed by therapists Penny Tompkins and James Lawley, who devoted several years to modelling and expanding David’s techniques into a methodology called 'Symbolic Modelling'.

David has since developed his linguistic work into spatial methods, known as Clean Space, and Emergent Knowledge, inspired by the science of Emergence. Clean Language enables clients to access buried knowledge and intuition through metaphor. Clean Space does the same through literally moving people around the room or turning them to face different directions.

Emergence is the science of how things are achieved through connections. It involves the theories of chaos and six degrees of separation and explains how ant colonies are formed or search engines operate, through repetitive connections rather than being controlled by any one leader.

David Grove ran a retreat centre in the US for several years and currently spends his time travelling, leading workshops and is constantly developing his theories. His full itinerary is available on www.cleanlanguage.co.uk.

Unclean Language

Extract from Less is More ... The Art of Clean Language
by Penny Tompkins and James Lawley

• To illustrate how easy it is to unwittingly interfere in a client's process, let's explore an example. A therapist could respond in a number of ways to the following statement:
  
  Client: I'm stuck with no way out.
  
  Therapist 1: Have you got the determination to walk away?
  
  This intervention uses very unclean language as it:
• implies the solution for the client is to be away from their current condition
• imposes determination as the resource required
• assumes the client will 'walk away' (rather than leaping, soaring, melting, evaporating, etc.)

Also the client might well presuppose they have insufficient of the determination required, because if they had enough, they would have already applied it, wouldn't they?!

Therapist 2: What would happen if you could find a way out?

This is cleaner language as it mostly uses the client's words. However, you may have noticed the embedded command, 'find a way out'. The therapist has assumed the solution of 'finding' on behalf of the client. While this may produce a useful outcome, does the therapist recognise they have just imposed their model of the world on the client?

You may also notice in both of the above examples the client's perception has been subtly ignored. The client has said there is no way out of stuck. Our experience indicates it is highly therapeutic to begin by fully validating the client's 'current reality' through the use of Clean Language (See example below).

Perhaps the deepest presupposition in both of the above interventions is that being "away" or "out" is good for the client, and many therapist's outcome would be to facilitate this.

David Grove assumes that if a client is 'stuck,' then there is valuable information in the stuckness. If 'stuck' is not honoured and explored, the client may well need to return to 'stuck' at a future date. This may explain why some apparently successful therapeutic interventions can have a short-lived effect.

Clean Language Questions
The aim of Clean Language early in the process is to allow information to emerge into the client's awareness by exploring their coding of their metaphor.
Let's revisit the above example, this time using Clean Language questions:

Client: I'm stuck with no way out.

CLQ: And what kind of stuck with no way out is that stuck with no way out?

Client A: My whole body feels as if its sinking into the ground.
Client B: I can't see the way forward. It's all foggy.
Client C: Every door that was opened to me is closed.

This gives the client maximum opportunity to describe the experience of 'stuck,' and therefore to gather more information about their representation of the Present State.

In case you don't get to read the whole article, that stuck . A slight emphasis on the word that, and maybe the word stuck subtly conveys your acknowledgement of the client's unique and specific stuck at the moment of saying the word. The client is not necessarily associated with stuck at the moment of utterance! S/he might, for example, be picturing a barrier - who know? Well, with the right / clean questions the client can.

Metaphors in Mind

Metaphors in Mind
Transformation through Symbolic Modelling
by James Lawley and Penny Tompkins

CONTENTS
What do you do as a therapist, teacher, doctor or manager when your client, student, patient or colleague says "It's like I'm hitting my head against a brick wall," "I've got a knot in my stomach" or "I'm looking for the right path to take"?

Metaphors in Mind describes how to give individuals an opportunity to discover how their symbolic perceptions are organised, what needs to happen for these to change, and how they can develop as a result.

Based on David Grove's pioneering therapeutic approach and use of Clean Language, Symbolic Modelling is an emergent, systemic and iterative way of facilitating the psychotherapeutic process.

This comprehensive book covers the theory of metaphor, self-organising systems, symbolic modelling, the practice of Clean Language, the five-stage therapeutic process, and includes three client transcripts.

336 pagesPaperback9 x 6 inches (234 x 152 mm)
Published October 2000ISBN 0-9538751-0-5
£ 17.95 (pounds Sterling)