Clean Language
And that's clean language like what?
You can thank the late David Grove for the subject matter behind this post. He invented a technique called clean language which is finding use in therapy.
According to The Use of Clean Language and Metaphor In Helping Clients Overcoming Procrastination (Rees, Manea, Journal of Experiential Psychotherapy, vol. 19, no 3 (75) September 2016):-
Clean Language is a precision technique for discovering, exploring and working with people's own personal metaphors. When someone thinks or expresses something in terms of another concept, we consider it to be a metaphor. For example, expressions such as “under the weather”, “over the moon” and “in a spin” count as metaphors. The person is not located literally speaking at a place higher than the moon - the metaphor is often the most natural and easy way to convey a meaning.
People think, and process the world, through metaphors, and clean language uses the client’s personal metaphors to bring about understanding, in the course of therapy.
According to the above article:-
Clean Language uses the casual metaphors that occur naturally in speech to reveal the hidden depths of the thought processes, bringing thoughts and feelings that clients have not been conscious of into their awareness, where these can be shared and understood.
Clean Language comprises twelve core questions, which are as follows:-
(And) what kind of X* (is that X)?
(And) is there anything else about X?
(And) where is X? or (And) whereabouts is X?
(And) that's X like what?
(And) is there a relationship between X and Y**?
(And) when X, what happens to Y?
(And) then what happens? or (And) what happens next?
(And) what happens just before X?
(And) where could X come from?
(And) what would X like to have happened?
(And) what needs to happen for X?
(And) can X (happen)?
* The client’s own word or words used to describe his metaphor.
** The client’s own word or words, used to describe another metaphor to make a description of the initial metaphor
Using Clean Language
The fundamental principles of Clean Language are quite simple:
Listen attentively.
Keep your opinions and advice to yourself as far as possible.
Ask Clean Language questions to explore a person's metaphors (or everyday statements).
Listen to the answers and then ask more Clean Language questions about what the other person has said.
Examples of clean language
Patient: “I feel like I’m not working at my best.”
Therapist: “And what kind of not working at my best is not working at my best?”
Patient: “I feel like I’m being left behind.”
Therapist: “And that’s being left behind like … what?”
Patient: “I dunno … like I’m being held back like a millstone.”
Therapist: “And where could being held back like a millstone come from?”
Patient: “I think … it’s because I was ill.”
Therapist: “And what would I was ill like to have happened?”
Patient: “I would have liked to have … dunno, been kept in the loop by work.”
Therapist: “And when kept in the loop by work, what happens to I was ill?”
… and so on.
Transformative
Since its invention, clean language has become such a useful tool in the context of therapy. Personally, I see myself using clean language in a lot more conversations in the future.