Clean Language:Revealing Metaphors and Opening Minds

Methodological, practical and easy to use tools. The print is good too, not too busy and easy to read.

The central idea of the book is that metaphors are a fundamental tool for organising thoughts and we use them subconciously to make sense of the world, without even being aware of it. Some typical examples of that are temperature used for affection ("They greeted me warmly."), size used for importance ("Tomorrow is a big day."), height used for quantity ("Prices are high."), and purpose represented as a physical object of desire ("I saw an opportunity for success and grabbed it."). Though such simple metaphors should be unversally understood, more complex metaphors can be easily understood by different people in different ways. The authors argue that we can get better understanding and awareness of others' and our own ideas by recognising metaphors, pushing them from subconcious processing into concious analysis, understanding the ties between a metaphor and the real situation and reverse-engineering metaphorical solutions into real ones. For example, the next time you feel stuck while working, try thinking about what kind of stuck feeling that really is and what would make you feel unstuck.Clean Language is an approach to soliciting information and facilitating discussion that recognises this central role of metaphors, helps us spot metaphors in other people's thoughts and our own ideas and makes those connections explicit. The premise of Clean Language is that such concious analysis of metaphors helps understand other people better. One particularly eye-opening aspect of this approach for me was how much my own metaphors and assumptions can cloud my understanding of clients' issues and situation. Clean Language provides a toolkit, through a set of twelve questions, that prevents polluting communication with our own metaphors, hence the title "Clean". Instead of introducing our own metaphors into the mix, Clean Language questions help people improve active listening.Most of the examples in the book are about psychology, and helping people with psychological issues, but I've been able to translate many of those examples easily into software consulting. Since reading the book, I became a lot more attentive to the way others use metaphors and a lot more careful about driving the conversation with my own metaphors that could be easily misunderstood. This hardly makes it a life-changing experience, but anything that improves communication will surely be a useful toolkit for many people in the software industry. Business analysts, team leaders, process improvement coaches and consultants will probably benefit from this book the most.I give the book four out of five stars. For all the good content, there is a bit too much repetition for my taste in the book. The example discussion sessions sometimes go on forever and I found myself skipping large portions of those parts.

I used to think I was pretty good at asking questions until I read Wendy Sullivan's and Judy Rees' book Clean Language: Revealing Metaphors and Opening Minds.The book to me was a revelation.Here's an example, someone comes to you and says, “Hey, I'm having problems in a relationship.”You ask, innocently enough, “Do you have the courage to stand up to them?”Now it turns out this response, even though it's a question, is injecting many of your own biases into the way the question is asked.First of all it's a binary question which they call a closed question -- Do you? This limits the responses to yes or no.Next, “do you have the courage…” The implication is that courage is the scarce resource that you need to draw upon.…and finally, “to stand up” to them, which implies that you need to resist or respond to them and that “standing up” is the correct metaphor, not push them, or lean into them or lean away from them, or walk away from them. And so with this innocent question you're injecting many of your own biases and assumptions into the question.Clean Language has a set of structured questions which help get away from this. I find it hard to remember the specific questions but the idea of asking questions in a more neutral open way is compelling and one which we all can practice more of.I thoroughly enjoyed Clean Language and lean on it as I wrote my own book.

Bought this book along with TRUST ME, I'M THE PATIENT because it appeared to compliment each other and further my understanding of what exactly it meant by "Clean Language". Additionally, I had also signed up on UDEMY, which is a Learning Platform on line for a course by Judy Reese and was intrigued with the course. Udemy offers zillions of different courses online. Clean Language was a totally different approach for me which emphasizes a newer way to listen and respond to another, in any relationship. Read it slowly, learn the principles of the approach, and applyit gingerly and you will get it.

I first learned about Clean Language in my hypnotherapy course at Cambridge last year. I was amazed at how we are all affected by what words we hear. This book is easy to read and gives very good examples of how to approach therapy of any kind using appropriate phrases and words to get the maximum benefits in relationships and in therapy. I was so impressed with this theory that I have sent the book to my sister who works on the crisis line in Arizona in order to help her communicate more effectively with desperate people who call her on the phone.

Very useful concept to improve your communication skills and better understand others, their problems and their challenges. The book is easy to read, full of exercises and examples, which will take you through the different ideas and techniques.I enjoyed the reading and how easily you can implement and apply it on your daily personal interactions.

I think this is a very fascinating book. I don't think you have to say the questions exactly as they're written. I love the use of clean language mostly because I'm a screenwriter and I would like to make my therapist characters more authentic.

Such a great read! I love concise direction and methodology. Highly recommend reading.

This is really clearly, or cleanly, written. It has sparked my interest in metaphor, and is already influencing my coaching style. Clients find it very helpful to have their awareness raised through opening up how they have been thinking about things. I can't imagine sticking to the prescribed questions alone, but I hope my questioning has improved, by becoming more free of my own views, as a result of reading this book.

interesting but could have been explained in a few pages.

Fascinating book that unfortunately loses something in the construction.

Great

This is an extremely helpful book and explains communication in an effective way. Also fits in well for NLP Trainers!