Adventures in Clean
Join us for a multi-level clean experience, with six of the world’s leading clean practitioners. Whether you choose to work on your own personal development, or focus on learning more about clean modelling, this will be a fantastic Clean Learning opportunity.
The event will centre around personal therapeutic development sessions. Everyone who attends will be facilitated by one or two of us for at least one session on a topic of their choice. If personal development is your main purpose for attending, you’ll be able to gain from several sessions over the course of the weekend. We’ll be using Clean Language, Symbolic Modelling, Clean Space, Emergent Knowledge and the Whirly Gig to facilitate your personal journey of insight, clarity and change.
Between your own development sessions, you can reflect, write, draw, walk, talk with other participants, observe others’ sessions, ask questions or coach someone else and be supervised by one of us. There will be several things going at once. We will often work in pairs, observing and asking each other modelling questions to learn more about how we each work. You’ll be able to observe all of this and to ask us your own modelling questions during the debrief sessions. This includes modelling what was happening in the facilitator’s mind as they were working with the client as well as modelling the unfolding structure of the session and the client’s journey.
Please note that this is a group event and all sessions will open for everyone to observe and participate. Everyone who attends the event will be expected to take part in at least one personal development session.
Frequently asked questions
What is Clean Language?
Clean Language is a simple set of questions developed by counselling psychologist David Grove. These questions are used with a person’s own words to direct their attention to some aspect of their own experience. Asking these questions in the right context often results in an interesting new insight or the recognition of some new possibility. And if that new possibility is then questioned using Clean Language, the result can be quite profound. Clean questions invite people to consider their experience from different perspectives and they are often surprised by their own capacity to generate new, powerful and useful ideas about their own experience.
What is Clean Space?
Clean Space is a facilitation process that emerged out of David Grove's continued search for a way to facilitate clients effectively and efficiently to do the personal work they need to do with the least possible interference from a facilitator.
In a Clean Space session, the facilitator invites the client to find different physical spaces (usually in a room, although it can be anywhere) to represent different aspects of their thinking. The client moves from space to space, pausing in each one to consider what they know there. In this way, they build up a network of connections between the many thoughts, feelings and ideas in their mind and body.
What is Symbolic Modelling?
Symbolic Modelling was created by Penny Tompkins and James Lawley when they worked with and observed David Grove over several years, to discover what he was doing to achieve his phenomenal results. They combined David’s ideas with ideas from the fields of cognitive linguistics, systems thinking and NLP to produce a model which could be taught to others to enable them to achieve the same kinds of results as David.
What is the Whirly Gig?
The Whirly Gig is actually a gyroscope with a seat that can be moved through 360°. It was devised by David Grove as a way to enable people to orient themselves at any position within 3D space and find out what they know there. David postulated that experiences and traumas are laid down in the body, and that therapies which involve sitting and talking do not allow the body access to those memories, because the body is not in the right position.
Testimonials
What a mind-blowing, life-changing experience! I knew the Adventures in Clean would change me in some way; I know how powerful the process is. Getting through and beyond a bind that has bothered me for some time has been a profound experience for me. Being able to find my voice and feel comfortable in voicing my opinion is also a great experience. Being able to model top Clean Language facilitators was also a rich experience as I witnessed many other peers who seem to have similar experiences to mine (judging by their smiling faces on the last day!) I'd like to thank the entire team, Marian, Caitlin, Shaun, Penny & James for their professionalism in organising this event and pulling off in a very well-orchestrated manner! As well as Marcus' awesome bodywork! Really helped my back condition many thanks! Shaun's fabulous meals – kept us feeling nourished from within as well. Enjoying the experience with the other attendees, my peers, also made the experience an even richer journey. The whole homely yet professional supportive Clean Learning environment was a most welcome experience. If you have taken Clean Language training and would not only like to see Clean Language in action by experienced professionals and/or have discovered areas in your personal life that you would like to be addressed, i.e. any blocks (my metaphor!) then Adventures in Clean is a must-have event to attend!
Lorraine Biggs
I had a full weekend of experiencing how it feels to be in charge of my change and how valuable that is. I am still discovering what has come up in my sessions and how it affects my life. I liked the set-up of having the 6 top Clean Language facilitators not only sharing their expertise but also learning openly from each other. It was a warm and fuzzy atmosphere for everyone to let go of their facades and be truly themselves.
Gudrun Stolzenburg, Coach
If there were a Glastonbury festival for the mind, this would be a pass to the backstage party.
David Brown
Upcoming events
Adventures in Clean 2025
- Places available
- Sunday 14 September (2:30pm BST) to Wednesday 17 September (2pm BST), 2025
- The Practice, West Kirby, Wirral, United Kingdom
- With Caitlin Walker PhD , Marian Way , James Lawley , Penny Tompkins , Shaun Hotchkiss , Phil Swallow
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