Clean Language
Clean Language is a method of working with people that is often used to help them develop metaphors for their experiences. This can be useful for people during coaching or therapy sessions as the metaphors tend to suggest new ideas or ways forward. It can also be used (with or without a focus on metaphor) in interviewing, sales, teaching, group work and other contexts.
The term ‘Clean Language’ refers to two important aspects of this way of working; it’s ‘clean’ because the practitioner does not introduce their own ideas into the conversation and ‘language’ because instead they ask questions about the specific words and phrases used by the client / interviewee.
The method was developed by clinical psychologist, David Grove, who also invented processes called Clean Space and Emergent Knowledge.
I have been practising Clean Language since 2000 and in recent years have been experimenting with how to utilise the ideas within an art context, including:
Making work based on my own metaphors that emerged from a personal Clean Language session. See Making Sense.
Conducting Clean Interviews and then utlising (with permission) interviewees’ metaphors in my artwork. See Pockets of Shame and 1000 Children.
Developing workshops that utilise Clean Language to assist others with their artmaking.
For more information about Clean Language, please visit Clean Learning.