David Grove

David Grove was a clinical psychologist and psychotherapist who developed a method called “symbolic modeling”¹⁾ and accompanying processes like “Emergent Knowledge”²⁾ , which is a form of experiential therapy that uses metaphors and storytelling to help clients understand and work through difficult emotions and experiences.

Grove believed that people's thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are influenced by their internal symbolic representations of their experiences. He believed that these symbolic representations, or “clean language,” are the key to understanding how people think and feel about their experiences.

“The first objective is for the therapist to keep the language clean and allow the client's language to manifest itself. The second objective is that the clean language used by the therapist be a facilitatory language; in the sense that it will ease entry into the matrix of experience, and into an altered state that may be helpful for the client to internally access his experience.” David Grove and Basil Panzer, Resolving Traumatic Memories (1989) Irvington [pages 8-10]

Through symbolic modeling, Grove aimed to help clients discover and change their internal symbolic representations in order to change their thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. This was done through a series of questions and prompts that helped clients explore their own experiences and identify the underlying symbolic representations that were driving their behaviors.

Grove's work(Carol Wilson, 2017) has had a significant impact on the field of psychotherapy, and his approach has been widely adopted by therapists around the world. It is now commonly used in a variety of settings, including clinical, educational, and business settings.

James Lawley and Penny Tompkins³⁾ are therapists and trainers who have developed a method called “Clean Language,” which is based on the work of David Grove and his approach to symbolic modeling. Clean Language is a form of experiential therapy that uses a specific set of questions and prompts to help clients explore their own experiences and identify the underlying symbolic representations that are driving their thoughts, feelings, and behaviors.

Clean Language is designed to be a non-intrusive and non-directive approach, which means that the therapist does not offer interpretations or solutions to the client, but rather helps the client to explore their own experiences and find their own insights and solutions. The therapist uses a series of questions and prompts to guide the client through the process of discovering their own symbolic representations and understanding how these representations influence their thoughts, feelings, and behaviors.

Lawley and Tompkins have written extensively (Penny Tompkins & James Lawley, 2000)⁴⁾ about Clean Language and have developed a number of training programs and resources to help therapists learn and apply this approach in their work. Their work has had a significant impact on the field of psychotherapy and has been widely adopted by therapists around the world.