Clean Language: Core Skills

Join us for 12 online Zoom classes where you’ll start from scratch and learn how to uncover the metaphors and patterns that are beneath the surface. Find out how to develop a person’s metaphor landscape and to encourage the conditions needed for deep and lasting change.

A key principle of Clean Language is that you do less, and your client achieves more. Its basic structure is a set of clean questions, and you will begin by learning these questions and how to ask them. You will find out how to unlock the power of metaphor and you’ll learn firsthand why it’s been described as a doorway to the unconscious mind. You will soon be able to guide others to access and delight in their own inner wisdom. And you will experience the intense satisfaction of being on the receiving end of such guidance.

As we go along, you will build on these basic skills by learning how to use Clean Language to work with clients’ desired outcomes. You will learn how to: steer their attention towards what they want; help them navigate their ‘metaphor landscape’; recognise changes that will happen before your eyes; and move your client towards his or her desired conclusion. And you will experience the power of this clean approach for yourself as your fellow participants work with you towards your own desired outcomes.

We take a step-by-step approach to teaching Clean Language and Symbolic Modelling, with lots of practice, experiences and demonstrations for you to learn from. There will be plenty of time for your questions and you'll also have access to an online manual and a community space just for your group. Plus you’ll meet other interesting, inspiring people doing great work in different fields - members of the global Clean Language community. You’ll also have multiple opportunities between modules to practise your skills with your fellow participants.

Clean Language is a simple methodology for understanding the complexity of human beings. Every client is unique so you will always be learning. And that can be infinitely worthwhile and rewarding.

Who is it for?

Coaches, counsellors, psychotherapists and psychologists
Therapists and health workers
Managers and directors from all sectors - private, public and third
HR professionals, team leaders and mentors
NLP Practitioners
Salespeople. mediators and negotiators
Students of modalities such as Motivational Interviewing, Appreciative Inquiry, Servant Leadership, Solution-Focus Coaching/Therapy or Non-Violent Communication
Teachers, parents, social workers, youth workers, family therapists and others who work with children
Interviewers and researchers - or anyone who uses questioning techniques in their work
Visual recorders / facilitators
Independent thinkers
Anyone who wants to improve their ability to communicate well
Anyone whose role involves helping other people to think
Leaders who prefer to empower people rather than telling them what to do
People who are future-oriented, outcome focussed and fascinated by what makes themselves and others tick
People who enjoy learning new tools and different ways of thinking

What will I gain?

The Clean Language questions and how to ask them for maximum impact
A way to help people feel understood and to gain new perspectives
Awareness of the assumptions you’re making a split second after someone speaks - and how to keep them to yourself so you can work with clients’ actual experiences
The principles of Clean Language and how to apply them in many different contexts
How to help someone to uncover the structure of their own thinking by developing the metaphors they use to express themselves
How to identify and work with a client’s desired outcomes and encourage the conditions for change to emerge naturally within their ‘metaphor landscape’.
Strategies for where to direct your client’s attention at different stages of the facilitation process
A greater understanding of the role that language, especially metaphor, plays in our lives, and how you can utilise that to create deep sustainable change

You will also gain masses of personal development as you learn more about your own patterns, mental models and desired outcomes.

Frequently asked questions

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.

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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.

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Testimonials

Learning about clean and how to apply the techniques to every aspect of my life has been enlightening and I cannot say thank you enough!
Amber Proctor

The training was such a great course! Fun and at the same time practical. Inspiring, meaningful and useful in so many areas. A simplicity, cleanness and playfulness in the philosophy of Clean Language, while at the same time so profound, serious and demanding. Training brings skills. I'm so glad I joined! Develops me in all my roles, as a manager, management consultant, coach, educator, mom, wife, fellow human and human being. I highly recommend it!
Margareta Carlsson, ICF Coach

One of the best training courses I have attended in over 30 years. The trainer introduced a wide mix of activities to embed our learning. Simply inspirational!
Gill Rudge, HR Consultant