I have a notion of “clean language’ as language devoid of blame or shaming. As in NVC. This is different. I am not sure I fully get it, but it is language that simply evokes the phenomenology in the client.
This is NLP, but I can overcome my resistance as I read stuff from David Grove. A New Zealand Maori psychotherapist.
Quotes follow.
From the Philosophy
G. Clean Language is hard for the therapist operationally and is easy for the client because it addresses the notion: “What’s the next question the client would really like to be asked?” and it is a discipline of only using the client’s lexicon.
H. In the delivery of Clean Language:
i. Acoustical parameters are of great importance (rhythm, tone, etc.)
ii. The definite article ‘the’ is left out.
iii. Most sentences start with ‘and’.
iv. No proper names are used, and only personal pronouns after they have been introduced by the client.
v. Repetition is of a recursive form. Recursive in the sense of a spiral rather than a circle. Recursive thematically — as Bach’s variations which have a forward momentum. And part of that forward momentum is temporal, so the recursive nature of questions moves time forward. Repetition creates a protective temporal and spatial womb or matrix in which your job is to be a good midwife; to recognise and develop and assist in the birthing of new information which is born out of:
o Static noise
o Non sequiturs
o Asides
o Off the topic red herrings
o Under the breath comments
o Idiosyncratic sounds
o EsotericaI. Clean Language recognises and gathers together all disparate kinds of information into an organising proximal landscape, or ‘psychescape’ which includes all the usual suspects (words, feelings, memories) and:
* Dreams
* Hallucinations
* Obsessive-Compulsive phenomenology
* Tics and traits
* Superstitions
* Values and all kinds of Spirituality
* Personal cosmology
* Cultural and social milieu
* Ancestral affiliations
* And those kinds of information that expand time