Up: [[Metaphor]] Created: 2025-01-27 Updated: 2025-02-04 Clean language was developed by David Grove, a New Zealand psychotherapist who died in 2008. Grove worked with people suffering from PTSD. He found that when clients described their most traumatic memories and most difficult emotions, they always did so through metaphor. Metaphors carry information that can only come from the metaphor itself. Labelling an experience with an emotion doesn’t do it. Saying you are angry, for example, doesn’t begin to convey the various [[Anger Qualities Evident through Metaphor]]. A metaphor is a map of our assumptions and perceptions. Clean questions are a way of helping to explore and extend the metaphor without imposing other maps, such as that of a therapist’s. A simple example: If someone says their day is full of sunshine, you don’t jump to the assumption that the weather is beautiful or that they are happy. You ask what kind of sunshine, and is there anything else about the sunshine. #### Some Clean Language Essentials (for therapists and anyone else who is helping someone uncover their map) Every sentence starts with ‘And’ then repeats the client’s words. The intention is to signal that this isn’t a discussion. It’s a continuation of what has just been said. There’s also the implicit suggestion with ‘And’ that the metaphor, when followed, is going to lead somewhere. Exact words are repeated so that there’s no imposition of other ideas. In the question frames below, X and Y are direct quotations of what the person has previously said. #### The Clean Language Questions If the person uses sensory or conceptual language, you want it converted to a metaphor by asking for what is similar. - And that X is like what? To start the ball rolling and find out more - And is there anything else about X? - And what kind of X is that X? To find out where an experience is in the person’s body. For example if X is ‘an erupting volcano’, - And where/whereabouts is X? To identify the relationships between two symbols - And what is the relationship between X and Y? - And is X the same or different as/to Y? - And when event X, what happens to Y? - And what’s between X and Y? Time related questions that provide context for the metaphor. - And then what happens?/ And what happens next? - And what happens just before X? - And where could/does X come from? And intention questions to connect the metaphor to changes you want to see in your life. Part in brackets are exact words previously used. - And what would you/X like to have happen? - And what needs to happen for X to (achieve what X would like to have happen)? - And can X (achieve what X would like to have happen)? The question to be used at any time and especially great if you forget all of the others - And is there anything else? > [!User] James Lawley & Penny Tompkins, *Metaphors in Mind: Transformation through symbolic modelling*