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Masterclass: Less is More: A Clean Approach to Mind, Metaphor and Modelling

Penny Tompkins & James Lawley

2024 Conference

“The relationship which we have with our unconscious is easily the most important factor in our success in life – it is that of metaphor.”  John Grinder


Our major modelling project of renowned therapist David Grove led to the creation of Symbolic Modelling, a new modelling methodology based on Grove’s Clean Language, his unique approach to working with client-generated metaphors, and his ‘clean’ relationship with clients’ inner worlds (subjective experience).


We identified the essence of Grove’s approach and then generalised it outside of psychotherapy to coaching and applications in education, organisations and research.  We have continued to develop and extend Symbolic Modelling since Grove’s death in 2008, and his Clean Language questions have been translated into over 20 languages.


The Masterclass includes:

•     Why Clean Language is even more useful than you may have thought

•     How working with metaphor is fundamental to the structure of subjective experience

•     A new way to model the embodied mind

•     Why self-modelling is key to a ‘clean’ change process

•     How to work with the unpredictable, emergent nature of organic change

•     What goes on in a symbolic modeller’s mind


A clean approach is not a technique, it is a relationship with another person’s inner world. It requires, among other things, a significant shift in your relationship with your own ‘map of the world’, paying attention to what your client is paying attention to, and calibrating the psychoactivity of the client’s mind-body space.


In this masterclass you’ll see us demonstrate our approach and describe how our modelling of the structure and process of the client’s inner metaphor landscape informs our choices. And you will have the chance to acquire a new way of facilitating that is particularly suited to working with complex problems, the big issues of life and the spiritual domain of experience.

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