Articles by this Author
Clean Space Revisited
These notes:
- Describe a Clean Space 'Lite' version that contains only the central elements.
- Identify the main choices available to a facilitator within the Lite version.
- Note some of the ways facilitators have found to respond to the unusual.
- Document some of the common add-ons in the feature-rich versions practiced by experienced facilitators.
Embodied Schema: The basis of Embodied Cognition
Embodied Schema are
multi-sensory experiential patterns acquired pre-verbally which later
are used to both describe and proscribe our personal perspectives of how the
world works. They are so natural to us, like a fish
trying to describe water, we seldom notice them.
Those who cleanly model embodied schema from the words and nonverbals that represent how a person internally does what they describe, are privileged to join that person in their private, interior, subjective world. Modelling embodied scema will give you something like 'second sight' into the organisation of others' psychescapes. That in turn will lead to the more precise use of Clean Language.
Accepting Acceptance
What happens when people say they
accept, and when they actually do accept the ‘current
reality’ of their lives. We investigate what acceptance is, how we do it, and how we do not.
We also wonder what difference it makes to the potential for change
and transformation when people truly accept their current reality
from an authentic, deep and cellular state of being.
Attending to Salience
We have been self-modelling what we pay attention to in
a client session that: (1) guides our line of questioning, and (2)
gives the session its sense of directional flow. We call this process: Attending to (or selecting for / sorting for) salience (significance / importance / relevance / what is fundamental). These notes explore the nature of that process.
Using Symbolic Modelling as a Research & Interview Tool
Vectoring and Systemic Outcome Orientation
Whatever happens during a session, excellent facilitators and therapists always seem to know where to go next. They are also able to pursue a line of questioning and to navigate elegantly through the client’s information. To find out how they do this we undertook a modelling project. Our exemplars were David Grove, Steve De Shazer, Robert Dilts, Steve Andreas (and ourselves).
Maximising Serendipity
This paper explores six stages which need to happen for serendipity to have occurred, the features of each stage and ways maximize the potential for serendipity.
Coaching in the Moment

A prototype model of how to use Vivian Gladwell's (of Nose to Nose) approach to training clowns to develop any skill that can benefit from in-the-moment feedback
which does not interrupt the process. The example given is enhancing skills of Symbolic Modelling.
The Role of Meta-comments
‘Meta-comments’ are those verbal and
nonverbal expressions which comment on what has just happened. These ‘about-the-now’ comments can
range from the fully conscious and explicit to the completely unconscious
and implicit. They are much more common than you might expect. This paper describes how to recognise and make use of them in your facilitation.
Iteration, Iteration, Iteration
If you search for 'iteration' on the web you will find precious little
outside the domain of mathematics and computing. And yet iteration is
commonly seen in nature as a way for organisms to grow and develop and
as a change process in an increasing number of psychotherapeutic
procedures. So what is iteration and how can we make use of it? These are unpublished notes written for
The Developing Group.