Report to DMU:
International Clean Conference, University of London Union
22nd – 24th October 2010
This was the third annual conference organised by the Clean Change Company, drawing together Clean experts, leading researchers in the field of metaphor and practitioners from a range of backgrounds.
The term ‘Clean’ is used to refer to the methods and methodology arising from the body of work instigated by New Zealand psychotherapist David Grove from the 1980’s until his death in 2008. The work has a therapeutic background and utilises the understanding that human thought processes are constructed in metaphor. We make sense of the world from the time we are born, constructing our understanding of ‘reality’ through association of the unfamiliar in terms of the already familiar. Clean Language is a questioning technique refined to minimise the affect of any pre-conceptions or interpretations that the questioner may have. Characteristically the technique produces a state of ‘exquisite listening’ in which the conversation is focused to an unusually high degree on the experience and world-view of the client or interviewee, developing their awareness and understanding of their own ‘metaphor landscape’ which in turn facilitates new levels of creative problem-solving, clarity of communication and sense of Self, with both agency and ownership resting almost entirely with the client/interviewee.
‘Clean’ is also used as a tool for spatialising attributes of a desired outcome, problem or issue, through a process known as ‘Clean Space’, often resulting in ‘emergent knowledge’. Neuro Linguistic Programming practitioners and registered psychotherapists Penny Tompkins and James Lawley extensively modelled the work of David Grove during his life-time, articulating the processes they observed as ‘Symbolic Modelling’. They, along with a core group of Clean experts, continue to develop ‘Clean’ practice and explore new applications, whilst maintaining an integral awareness of the models of Grove’s unique and profoundly successful methodology.
As an adaptive and transdisciplinary tool, Clean seems to successfully draw people from varied backgrounds, without compromising principle or pulling people out of their respective disciplines. It was fascinating to meet people working in accountancy, coaching, primary education, midwifery, visual arts, complementary medicine, psychology, cognitive science, movement, management, marketing and probably quite a few other fields beyond. What I quickly discovered was a common quality of attention, a respectful curiosity that people had for one another, and what seemed a genuine interest in uncovering what the other person had come here for, and what they hoped to get from the experience of the conference.
The pre-conference workshop on Friday 19th October offered experiential and contextual workshops exploring the current frontiers of research, development and application of ‘Clean’ practice. In a mature, supported framework and high-level working atmosphere, the short workshops rapidly provided profound experiential insights into the applications discussed.
Rupert Meese opened the workshop with a presentation ‘Reasoning with Metaphor Systems’ which considered the need to respect individual metaphor systems alongside the metaphor of a group or organisation, and how these can be related using a Clean approach in order to inform a mutually successful outcome. Examining Clean epistemology, Rupert presented a mental model of an information network and assessed methods to establish the degree of reliability of information, providing a model for inference and certainty. Rupert combines a scientific sense of order with an aesthetic of appreciation of diverse voices and the value they contribute to the whole. The method for determining reliability at first struck me as falling short of an iteration re-consulting the individuals concerned. However, when we experienced a short practical exercise designed to highlight the process, I was surprised to find that my experience demonstrated a smooth and comfortable integration of the individual with the group.
Over the three days we experienced many facets of the use of client-generated metaphor.
A personal highlight was the session with primary school teacher Julie McCracken, ‘Cleaning up the Curriculum’ in which Julie outlined her introduction of Clean into the classroom, and the subsequent changes that are steadily rippling into the rest of the school.
A slideshow of images showed young children’s responses to focusing on listening at their best. The individual creativity and expression was inspiring and moving, in particular as Julie recounted how the children had been able to discuss personality and behavioural clashes in terms of the metaphors evolved. For example, a child who learns at their best when bouncing like a grasshopper will need space to move in, but equally, needs to learn to bounce quietly so they do not disturb another child who needs silence to learn. Night-time and daytime children may work better when apart, and a flower needs sunshine to grow, so is better placed close to the sun.
Julie demonstrated a giant magnifying glass with which the children ask each other Clean questions (about whatever topic they are studying) before showing us some intriguing video clips of the children (a class of around 30 mixed year 5 and 6 children) self-organising as they almost wordlessly plan and collectively improvise a complex multi-faceted play for part of the school Christmas celebrations.
Equally inspiring was the session on polarities run by Clean Change Company directors Wendy Sullivan and Margaret Meyer. Representing polarity through their dress, positioning in the room, and gradual integration and reversal, the facilitators invited us to work in pairs to explore polarity in our own life. I chose a strong issue to work with that I expected to be quite problematic and disparate. The initial task was to choose two images from tables of miscellaneous postcards (or draw our own), to represent the polarities we wished to explore. Then we simply placed the postcards wherever we wanted to in the room. A great way to get people moving and engaging with the space as some climbed over others, putting postcards on opposite walls, on the floor, tables, under, over. Next we were to place ourselves in relation to our cards. Surprise: I found my cards overlapping, and myself standing over them as if circling with them beneath and within my ‘space’. And now the questioning starts. ‘And that ‘x’ is like what?’ ‘And is there anything else about ‘x’?’ ‘And what is the relationship between ‘x’ and ‘y’?’
A light bulb moment, when I looked at one of my postcards – a brightly coloured umbrella in a stunning black and white natural environment – and discovered there was no rain! The impact of that observation made me realise that there is no ‘rain’ in the situation it represents, that things were not as I had imagined, that in fact it is an easier and more effortless experience to be there. Externalising through a symbol seems to elicit the possibility of learning from that symbol and I am now able to be a lot more relaxed that answers are around whenever I need to them. It is less a case of looking for, and more a case of co-existing and recognition.
Several keynotes were of particular research interest to me in terms of a critical academic approach:
The work-life balance study, and hot-off-the-press publication, is the first funded academic research project using Clean Language in a partnership between Dr Paul Tosey, Assistant Director of the Centre for Management Learning at the University of Surrey and the Clean Change Company.
Dr. Daniel Casasanto, Senior Scientist at the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics and pioneer in his field, presented iterations of rigorous experiments demonstrating
the validity of cognitive linguistic understanding that people not only use metaphors to describe abstract concepts, but also think in terms of metaphor, and actually take metaphor literally. Casasanto went on to outline experiments concerning metaphors that arise from nonlinguistic cultural practices, and metaphors that are rooted in the ways we use our bodies to interact with the physical world. To quote from the abstract of his comprehensive keynote:
“Understanding the origins of our mental metaphors is the key to harnessing their power to shape our thoughts, feeling, and judgments. Beyond metaphors in language, recently discovered ‘culture-specific’ and ‘body-specific’ mental metaphors stretch before us as a new frontier whose therapeutic possibilities await exploration.”
Robert Bottini, Psychologist and PhD student in Anthropology and Epistemology of Complexity at the University of Bergamo, and a student of Casasanto, presented thought-provoking research on the metaphorical construction of temporal thinking.
Charles Faulkner, Director of Programs for NLP Comprehensive, gave what he described as a ‘top-down’ understanding of metaphor in his inspiring keynote focused on pattern, sacred geometry, number and relationship. Faulkner had constructed a stunningly beautiful collection of imagery, a welcome visual use of powerpoint and escape from text, that oozed meta-communication in it’s cycles of repetition.
Complementing the keynotes, the conference offered plenty of time for practical workshops, networking and sharing experiences.
With the open support of delegates far more experienced than myself, it was a real privilege to ‘jump in the deep end’ and get a first-hand taste of the techniques on offer, innovative applications in the field and to discuss potential application in my own research with highly experienced professionals from a range of fields including the arts, education, health, business, marketing, coaching and organisational change consultancies.
I am in ongoing dialogue with several delegates and speakers from the conference, and am drawing up a project proposal that will involve some clean facilitation alongside more familiar interview techniques, to generate content for a locative media walk.
It will be exciting to see whether, and in what ways, the Clean methods and use of metaphor may contribute to my research interviews with other artists and creatives, or to my current exploratory practice with creative transdisciplinary methods for subjective expression/ data gathering and holistic user experience of the ambulant landscape.
I am most grateful for Art and Design research funding to attend this conference. It has been a highly valuable opportunity to survey the field of metaphor in research and practice, and to make fruitful connections with people from varied disciplines and with some exceptional levels of expertise.
I also wish to acknowledge the contribution made by the Clean Change Company, who awarded me a subsidised conference fee for my written submission to their open competition, and who have generously provided training, supervision and access to materials that was essential for my participation in the pre-conference workshop and that has allowed me to be able to engage at a meaningful level with the presenters and their subject matter, and to explore potential collaborations. Thankyou.
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