We are Penny Tompkins and James Lawley ...
Our relationship with David Grove and his work
Have you ever noticed how the major turning points in life are seldom planned?
And so it was for us in 1995, when Penny’s intuition led her to seek out a therapist called David Grove — the originator of Clean Language and pioneer in the therapeutic use of client-generated metaphor. We made a decision to ‘model’ David’s approach during in a five-year research project, culminating in the publication of the first comprehensive guide to our approach: Metaphors in Mind: Transformation through Symbolic Modelling.
David became a dear friend and the loss due to his early death in 2008 remains with us to this day.
Making the work available
In 1997 we created cleanlanguage.co.uk about David’s and our work. Over the years this grew to around 400 articles, blogs, foreign language translations, etc. In 2023 we updated and re-designed it and it’s the vibrant and growing site you are using today.
One of our major contributions to the field has been through the 100 workshops we created and delivered to The Developing Group – a gathering of experienced Clean facilitators – between 2001 and 2022. Many of the ideas in the the articles on this site were first tested on the Developing Group.
In 2017 James teamed up with Marian Way to publish the first book dedicated to the development of David Grove’s Clean Space: Insights in Space: How to use Clean Space to solve problems, generate ideas and spark creativity.
We’ve also created several online resources including :
An extensive online training: Introduction to Clean Language and Symbolic Modelling.
And now in its fifth year, InsideClean is a series of workshops which explore what happens below the surface, behind the scenes and inside the mind-body of some of the most experienced clean facilitators on the planet.
We are now at an age where we could retire, but why retire from something that you love, that still stimulates your creativity and innovation, and that you can share with a community of like-minded souls?
The next question for us could be: “And what happens next!”
Recent Articles
Competence criteria level-1 assessors
The Long Close Farm workshop April 2002
Articoli e libri di Clean Language in italiano
Kolb, Bateson and learning cleanly
I go to bed, I just don’t sleep
Resources, embodied metaphor and Clean Language
Latest blog posts
Pulling time back cleanly
Stick or Twist
The secret ingredients of AWWYLTHH?
Do we want agency over our inner signals?
When to model a problem
InsideClean
Penny Tompkins & James Lawley
A complete Symbolic Modelling / Clean Language session – EXPLAINED
“No, not this again!”
8 lessons
2 hours of video
26 - 28 September
De Lunterse Boer, Netherlands
Three events – Three days
Masterclass – Caitlin Walker, James Lawley, Penny Tompkins
Clean Conference – Patterns
Open Space – All things Clean
Metaphorum - 7 Dec 2024
THE global online festival celebrating Clean Language and its ever-increasing variety of applications. It features deep dives into personal and professional development, light-touch ways to use Clean in everyday contexts, and all points in-between.
InsideClean Series 1 to 5
Penny Tompkins
James Lawley
Marian Way
Four recorded workshops in each series
+ extra resources
+ bonus material
First book on Clean Language Interviewing
Available NOW from Emerald Publishing
EDITORS:
Heather
Cairns-Lee,
James Lawley,
Paul Tosey