The following annotated transcript is our thirteenth published demonstration of Clean Language and Symbolic Modelling with a client from a group Ukrainian psychologists and psychotherapists. The group want to use Clean approaches to support themselves and their clients during the ongoing trauma of war. The sessions have evolved over the past three years into a mixture of training, supervision of client cases and live facilitation of participants.
The aim of this session was two-fold: (1) to demonstrate how Symbolic Modelling facilitates a client to develop a metaphor landscape, (2) using a context that is highly relevant to this group: dealing with uncertainty.
A short introduction about metaphor landscapes is followed by the annotated demonstration and a short debrief afterwards. The annotation gives some idea of what we took into account in deciding which Clean Language question to ask and when. As a bonus we’ve added a symbol inventory.
This session illustrates a number of features:
- Once the metaphor landscape develops and the client begins to live within it, the landscape interacts with the client – it becomes psychoactive.
- The methodical way the appearance of each symbol is noted and attended to (with one, two or three Clean Language questions) until it establishes a place in the client’s metaphor landscape.
How much facilitation can be achieved with just 8 basic Clean Language questions (over 80% of our questions came from this set).
Transcripts of other demonstrations with this group are available at:
List of transcripts with Ukrainian therapists
Introduction to metaphor landscapes
James: Welcome everybody. Thank you for coming along again. There’s a lot of uncertainty in the world at the moment and it seems to be growing. In discussion with Anna Stativka, we thought it would be valuable for each of us to figure out how we deal with, handle, behave towards or cope with uncertainty.
Today we’re going to do two things.
– The content we’re going to be looking at is about how we each like to deal with uncertainty.
– At the same time, we are going to focus on a key piece of our work called the client developing a metaphor landscape.
The idea that we each inhabit a metaphor landscape was one of David Grove’s great contributions. Most of the time we get on with everyday life and we’re not aware of how our metaphors are affecting us. In Symbolic Modelling we use Clean Language to facilitate a client to become aware of their metaphor landscape. This is a unique feature of this work.
Penny: A metaphor landscape can exist inside and outside of the body; and the body itself, or part of the body can be an element in the landscape as well.
It is possible to use Symbolic Modelling in a number of ways:
– You can ask Clean Language questions without facilitating the client to explore their metaphors and the client can still have a useful session.
– You can ask Clean Language questions about their metaphors, and the client will likely get more out of the session.
– And when you facilitate a client to live in their metaphor landscape, then it becomes a very special session.
Two important things happen when a client starts to live inside their metaphor landscape.
– One is that their metaphors start to operate semi-independently. They do things on their own. It’s called psychoactivity. When the landscape becomes psychoactive things start to happen of their own accord, without the client’s conscious intention, and the metaphors can start to change spontaneously.
– And secondly, once the landscape is psychoactive, the facilitator doesn’t need to do much. Because, as David Grove pointed out, the psychoactive space becomes your co-facilitator. It’s easy to be a facilitator when the client is living in their metaphor landscape. You can sit back and let the client’s metaphor landscape do most of the facilitation!
So what is a metaphor landscape? And how would we know when a client is living in their metaphor landscape – what are the indicators?
Participant 1: It’s when a person’s body begin to react. Their body begins to react to their metaphors.
Participant 2: Our metaphorical landscape is a reflection of outer reality in the inner world of the person. My indicators are when a person describes his or her inner landscape in images, metaphors, and these metaphors, they consist of thoughts, emotions and body feelings.
Participant 3: I also want to add that it is about the connections between metaphors, between the items in the landscape, in this metaphorical picture, so to say.
Participant 4: One more indicator is that when landscapes begin to change, other emotions and body reactions and attitudes of client begin to change together with this landscape. And another indicator is that landscape continues to change after the session.
Participant 5: It’s when a person describes her metaphorical landscape and it feels as if it is reality, as if it is real.
Participant 6: And one more indicator is the gestures. A person can show by gestures that some element of this landscape is here [gesturing], this is here [gesturing], this is here [gesturing].
Participant 7: I would like to add that when a person lives in his or her landscape there appears the idea of space.
Participant 8: How I know, is because the client can describe whereabout are the different elements. What size do they have? Whether they situated with his body. All these elements have special places and sizes and distance, stuff like that.
James: Yes, these are all very good indicators. And as you say, they key one is space, the client’s symbols and metaphors have a place in space, they have a location.
As a client becomes aware that symbols and metaphors exist within their mind-body’s perceptual space, a landscape begins to form. And then they realise the symbols do not exist in isolation, they are in relationship with each other. Eventually, the whole landscape fits together – there is a logic to how it works.
This is not something that happens in everyday conversation. For most clients, a landscape will not develop unless you facilitate it. In the early stages of a session we facilitate clients to identify where each symbol is within their inner world. Usually we start facilitating a client to construct a desired Outcome landscape. Sometimes the client is not ready for that and, until they are, we facilitate them to develop a current Problem landscape.
Let’s demonstrate how we use Clean Language to facilitate a client to develop a metaphor landscape.
Do we have a volunteer? … Thank you. For the first time in this group the volunteer will do the demonstration in English. Anna Stativka will translate our questions and the client’s replies into Ukrainian.
Notes
C = Client, F = Penny or James.
All the words that we introduced are highlighted in bold to make it easier to see the format of the Clean Language questions we asked.
When Problem, Remedy and desired Outcome are capitalised they refer to definitions in our PRO model:
Coaching for P.R.O.’s
Row | Transcript | Annotation |
1F | So when there is so much uncertainty in the world, what would you like to have happen when there is uncertainty? | Invites client to identify a desired Outcome, given there is uncertainty. |
2C | I would like to have more certainty and to feel a kind of ground. | The client states a desired Outcome, in two forms: conceptual “more certainty” and metaphor “ground”. |
3F | And you’d like to have more certainty and feel a kind of ground. What kind of ground is that ground? | We start with the metaphor, knowing we will come back to “more certainty” later in the session (see 13F) |
4C | I imagine something a little bit bigger than my feet, maybe three or five meters in diameter. | “Ground” now has a location and a size and a shape. The landscape now also includes “my feet”. |
5F | Three to five meters in diameter, a bit bigger than your feet. Anything else about that three-to-five-meter-diameter ground? | |
6C | [Looking down and gesturing around] It looks like a real piece of ground with grass and soil under it . | Client’s nonverbals indicate she is beginning to live in her metaphor landscape, which now includes “grass” and “soil”. |
7F | And what kind of feet are feet that are on that grass ground? | |
8C | I imagine it looks like bare feet. | |
9F | Anything else about those bare feet? | |
10C | Now I feel warmth in my feet and they look like, how to say, catching the grass with my toes. | The client’s “feet” are now interacting with the landscape indicated by “warmth”, “catching”. |
11F | And you feel your feet, and your toes, bare toes on the ground, with that grass, catching the ground, and that three to five meter diameter soil below your feet, the soil below the grass. Anything else about the soil below the grass, under your feet? | Recaps all the symbols currently in the landscape and continues inviting the client to attend to them. [Note: It would have been cleaner to have used the client’s “under” rather than my “below”. However, at least the spatial relationships were preserved.] |
12C | It is rather tall. A construction, like somebody has got soil from somewhere. | |
13F | So that soil is tall, like a construction, under the grass, under your feet, and you’d like to feel more certainty. And so when those feet are on that grass, those bare feet are on that grass, where do you feel more certainty? | The beginnings of a landscape is now established. Where does the client’s desired Outcome fit in? [Note: The client actually said they “would like to have more certainty”, not feel more certainty, as I said.] |
.14C | It feels like in a place inside my hips, like a moving element, because I feel myself on this soil as a surfer. | The client’s first shift of attention is to “inside” her body. The second to her whole being as a “a surfer”. |
15F | And when you feel yourself on that soil, is there anything else inside that place, inside your hips, like a moving element? | This is the first time the client’s has mentioned “inside” her body, so our question invites her to continue to attend to that “place” – knowing we can return to “surfer” later (see 23F). |
16C | It looks like a kind of, like a metal ball. | |
17F | Anything else about that metal ball? | |
18C | No. [Pause] I can move around this ball. Move my body around this ball. | Although the client said “No” her nonverbals indicated she was still contemplating the question, so we waited. |
19F | And as you move your body around that metal ball, inside your hips, where does that movement come from? | The active part of the metaphor and the new information is “move around”. Usually, this would have prompted an introductory ‘What kind of move?’ question. In this case, our question invites the client to attend directly to the source of the movement. |
20C | It looks like it is coming from the spine. | |
21F | Whereabouts from the spine? | |
22C | Maybe from the middle of the spine. | |
23F | So the movement comes from the middle of the spine, and that means you can move around that metal ball inside your hips like a surfer. Anything else about being a surfer? | The client has identified the source of “move” so it’s time to invite “surfer” back into awareness. |
24C | I feel an emotion [chuckles] but maybe it’s not, it’s not part of the landscape to your question. | The client ‘pops out’ of her landscape to meta-comment on her experience. |
25F | What kind of emotion? | The client may think this “emotion” is “not part of the landscape”, but the landscape prompted this response, and so our question honours the response. |
26C | A kind of joy, interest, curiosity. | |
27F | So whereabouts do you feel that emotion, that joy, interest, curiosity? Whereabouts do you feel that? | |
28C | In my chest and in my back. | Two places, both need to be attended to. |
29F | So what’s happening in your chest when you feel that emotion? | |
30C | Some lightness appears, some feeling like the space inside my chest increases. | |
| 31F | That’s a lightness, and it’s increasing space inside your chest. And so when that space is increasing inside your chest with that lightness, it has a lightness like what? | Inviting the client to give “lightness” a symbolic form. |
| 32C | Like air. | |
| 33F | Like air. And when there’s that air that’s increasing in your chest and there’s also emotion in your back, whereabouts in your back? | Inviting the client to attend to the second “emotion” location. |
| 34C | It is in the middle of my back, and it looks like, and if I remember the words in English, the thing that shows the wind. It shows the direction of the wind and it is circling like a toy. | |
| 35F | In which direction is it circling? | A contextually clean question that invites the client to notice a feature of the newly-appeared symbol (using the inherent logic of “circling”). |
| 36C | Clockwise. | |
| 37F | Clockwise. So that curiosity and joy and interest, in your back is like circling clockwise of a wind direction. Anything else about that wind direction that’s circling? | |
| 38C | What direction are you asking about James? | Feedback that the question is ambiguous. |
| 39F | So from which direction is the wind? | Immediately ask a simpler question. |
| 40C | The wind comes from the right [point] and this thing is making circles accordingly. | First symbol that is away from the body. |
| 41F | So when that wind comes from the right, what’s happening on the right [point to client’s right] where the wind comes from? | The question invites the client to attend to the new location. [Note: The question is not entirely clean since it presupposes there is something happening at the source of the wind. Given that winds tend to be caused by something, the question is only a little presumptuous.] |
| 42C | [Pause] I don’t see it clearly, but it looks like some big vehicle, a kind of washing machine, maybe, I don’t know, with a lot of stuff inside. [Pause] It looks like a lot of garbage in there. | |
| 43F | Garbage in a machine on your right, a big machine on your right. And the wind comes from your right, and the wind direction thing goes in a circular direction in the middle of your back. And in your chest, there’s the lightness of that air that’s increasing, and that’s the feeling of joy, of curiosity and interest, that emotion that comes. And so when all of that’s happening, what’s happening to feeling more certain inside your hips? | Recap the symbols that have recently appeared in the landscape (since 24C), before inviting the client to notice how this relates to “more certain”, her desired Outcome at 2C. |
| 44C | This metal ball remains to be a kind of supporting element which also provides flexibility to my body. | |
| 45F | That metal ball supports, provides flexibility, and then what’s happening to those bare feet on that grass ground? | Returning to “feet” to keep the whole landscape in the client’s awareness. |
| 46C | [Pause] I don’t see a lot of changes now, but I think I felt something, like the smell of flowers. | |
| 47F | Smell of flowers. Okay, and are you okay if we stop here? | The client’s metaphor landscape is now well-formed. The client is living in it and responding to it – i.e. she has a relationship with the landscape and it has a relationship with her. We could have easily continued to invite the client to discover more about her metaphor landscape but we stopped since there was limited time and we had demonstrated how to facilitate a client to develop and live in a metaphor landscape. |
| 48C | Yes. |
The demonstration, including the translation, took 20 minutes.
A symbol inventory is provided below.
Group discussion
James: Thank you very much for volunteering. We’re going to talk to the whole group now.
So what you saw there was a landscape, a metaphor landscape slowly emerging. In this case, from the ground up, taking in more and more of the client’s body and then including symbols outside and away from their body.
You could see how much time and dedication we put into supporting the client to find where all those symbols were.
If this were a therapeutic session we would have continued to facilitate the client to identify and embody whatever she needed to access and maintain “more certainty” more often or more easily. Should any ‘inhibitors’ arise which the client might see as a problem, we would facilitate her to incorporate them into a metaphor landscape in the same way as we facilitated her to develop her desired Outcome landscape. Then we would have worked with the two landscapes facilitating the client to find out how the present Problem could become the future desired Outcome.
Everything we would have done from now on would be much easier, because the client has a context, a network of symbols, a landscape, within which to make sense of her own experience.
In a moment, you’re going to get a chance to facilitate a colleague to develop a landscape like this. But before you do, are there any questions about how we facilitated the client so that a landscape emerged for her to live in?
Participant 9: I have a very short question. This very slow and very accurate style that you just demonstrate now reminds me of one case from my practice. In this case, the landscape was forming very, very slowly, and because of that we had time only for building the problematic aspect, nothing else. And my question is, how to go back to this landscape in the next session?
Penny: The easiest way to do that is to ask the client to draw their landscape at the end of the session. And then to bring it to the next session.
Participant 9: Yes, I had this idea and after our supervision, I will ask the client to do this very thing.
Penny:I will just add one thing. When they bring the drawing back, do not assume that the information on that drawing will be exactly the same as now, because it may have evolved between sessions. You can start by asking them to describe the drawing and then asking, ‘’And what’s happening now?’ or ‘What do you notice now?’.
James: So we’re going to put people into pairs. for 15 minutes each way. Remember, the main purpose of the practice is to facilitate your client’s desired Outcome landscape, you don’t have to solve anything. You can start with this question:
And when there is so much uncertainty in the world. What would you like to have happen when there is uncertainty?
[BREAKOUT ROOMS]
James: How did you get on? Did your client get a landscape?
Participant 10: Before this session I thought a metaphorical landscape in my inner world is a distorted reflection of the outer world. But when I modelled my own landscape it appears that my landscape is real and like a real universe around me. Is it okay?
James: That’s what it’s meant to be, Perfect. That’s what we’re aiming for. And the reason is, when it’s like that and it changes, then you change. The two work together. They have to stay in sync.
Participant 10: Yes, yes. It was exactly like that. I have a feeling of synchronisation with my feelings.
Participant 11: I have a question, how to work with a category of time in the landscape, for example, when a client has a very, very huge dynamics, like changing by day and night and day and night and other time changes? How do we take it into account these changes in time?
James: So, what is it that’s changing in time? Can you give me an example?
Participant 11: I mean the situation when the landscape begins as day, then it changes to night, and then day, then night. When it changes from day to night, everything changes in the landscape simultaneously,
James: Okay. And then it becomes day again?
Participant 11: Yes, yes.
James: So, the change from day to night to day will not be random. There will be a pattern to those changes. So when the client identifies the pattern of day, night, day, they can work with the pattern and not the just the changing every day. And so one question you could ask is:
And when from day to night, to day, to night, to day, to night, that changing from day to night to day is like what?
And maybe the client will find a metaphor for the whole pattern.
Penny: And when you get a metaphor for a pattern, that metaphor contains the structure of all of the examples, all of the times things change – day, night, day, night, day, night – in the client’s life. When the metaphor of the pattern changes the person changes too.
James: I have another context where this kind of thing happens. When someone is compulsive. They do a behaviour over and over, again and again and again. It’s a similar kind of structure in that when the compulsion gets activated everything changes. You can get a metaphor for the pattern for the whole doing-the-same-thing over and over
We’ll do patterns next time; how we work with patterns. Now we’ll leave you to continue with your own discussion.
Symbol inventory of client's metaphor landscape
(In order of appearance)
Symbol | Attributes | Location |
Ground | 3-5 meters in diameter | Under feet |
Grass | Under feet | |
Soil | Rather tall. A construction, like somebody has got soil from somewhere. | Under grass |
Feet | Bare. Feel warmth. Toes catching grass. | On grass |
Metal ball. | Supporting element which also provides flexibility to my body. | Inside my hips |
Body | Can move around metal ball. Like a surfer on the soil. | Movement comes from middle of spine |
Emotion – Joy, interest, curiosity | – Lightness like air, space inside chest increases. – Wind direction (thing). | – In chest and – In middle of back |
Wind direction (thing) | Circling clockwise like a toy. | – In middle of back |
Wind | Comes from the right | |
Washing machine | Like some big vehicle. Stuff inside. | On the right |
Garbage | A lot. | Inside machine |
