Introduction to Clean Language Questions

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The Clean Language questions were developed by counseling psychologist David Grove, who instead of giving advice, went by his client’s choice of words rather than paraphrasing and devised questions that contained as few assumptions and metaphors as possible. 

Clean Language is a new way of thinking about the way people think, with profound implications and powerful effects. As a general principle, Clean Language questions are about the positive stuff in the speaker’s landscape – the resources they have, and the outcomes they desire.

Developing Questions

Encourage the person to be more specific, to become clear about what's true for them.
  • Elaborate. These are the two most common Clean Language questions. Invite the person to elaborate on their experience, to find out more about it. It is recommended to ask these questions predominantly on the positive aspects of the person's experience.
    • "(And) what kind of X is that X?"
    • "(And) is there anything else about X ?"
  • Name and address. Encourage a person to elaborate on the thing they have mentioned to give more details. Clarify what the person is thinking about and where it is. Useful to explore emotions.
    • "(And) where is X?"
    • "(And) whereabouts it X?"
  • Asking for a metaphor. Once you have identified some symbols and locations, ask:
    • "(And) that X is like what?"
  • Relationship questions. Once you have two symbols, you can find out if, and how, they relate to each other.
    • "(And) is there a relationship between X and Y?"
    • "(And) when X, what happens to Y?"

Sequence Questions

Help a person to decide where an event starts and where it finishes. These questions help the speaker fill in the information that they may not have realized was missing.
  • "(And) then what happens?"
  • "(And) what happens next?"
  • "(And) what happens just before X?"

Source Questions

This is one of the least-used Clean Language questions and it generates several kinds of sources of information - any of which you can ask further questions. 
  • "(And) where could X come from?"

Intention Questions

Finding out more about the desired outcomes, thinking in positive terms, and have focused on the goal.
  • "(And) what would you like to have [to] happen?"

Necessary Condition Questions

These questions explore causality and possible obstacles. It is usual to ask layers of these questions, first finding out all, or most of the conditions that need to be in place for the desired outcome to be achieved and then checking if each of the conditions can be met.
  • "(And) what needs to happen for X?"
  • "(And) can X happen?"

Questions that utilize other verbs

  • "How do you know X?"
  • "Does … have a size or a shape?"
  • "What determines … ?"
  • "Where does / could … come from?"
  • "Can … ?"

The Syntax

You may be wondering what has happened to the ‘and’ I mentioned before. That comes in when you combine one of these questions with the client’s words. 

A clean question has three functions:

  • To acknowledge what the client has said.
  • To direct their attention to one aspect of their experience.
  • To send them on a quest for self-knowledge.
So if I client says, “I would like to be more healthy.”
  1. "And you would like to be more healthy" (acknowledge)
  2. "And when more healthy," (direct attention)
  3. "Is there anything else about that?" (quest for self-knowledge)

References

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