Is Clean an art?

[Corrie van Wijk]

Webmaven: "David is one of the only therapists I have ever encountered who could actually do this--develop such a complete understanding of a client and how a client "operates" in the world (or how their pathology operates), and he always did it with such humor, kindness, wisdom, and appreciation often approaching awe at the versatility of the human psyche."

I think David's skill and art to do this, is his most important contribution to psychotherapy. Unlike other approaches he managed to not-trigger the experience directly, which would have reinforced it, but to smoothly and gently avoid it even more than the brain would itself, so by well-balancing and dosing 'call' it back from whence it got lost and to make A at T-1 the owner again, who is now able to deal with it.

Corrie

P.S. When I'm mentioning 'art', I mean a skill that has been practised thoroughly.

[Steve Saunders]

Every client has a complete logic to their present behaviour. As its signals from an inner child one need only ask about the conditions that give rise to the behaviour and the answer is fairly obvious. Given a series of clues, the experienced F will have a good idea.

So for example, asking "Is Clean an art?" implies a source-of-the-question scape.

It resonates with others (attractors) and not with others (no attractors). For me, engineering I felt was an art and a science, and I developed issues about so-called artists putting down engineering as a creative activity.

Clean is an art when the use is artistic, a science when used scientifically, and whole when used both as an art and a science. Clean also by definition lacks dirt and David's jokes and asides were the perfect engaging aspects I feel sorely missing in models of his work.

It's not about Clean, its about the beingness of the Facilitator with the client, in complete acceptance (and sometimes understanding); the artistry of being with a person as they self-"...." to realise that for which they came.

I think science means thinking; art means intuitively doing. When F does not understand he resorts to science, when he does not need to understand he can be artistic.

Over to Corrie:

[Corrie van Wijk]

Steve: "I think science means thinking; art means intuitively doing. When F does not understand he resorts to science, when he does not need to understand he can be artistic."

I think science means skill, and practising skill becomes an art if you don't need to think about it anymore and creativity emerges from your thorough experience.

[webmaven]

I'm really enjoying watching this discussion develop.

Regarding clean as an art, I think that one has to start with development of the skill, meaning developing fluency in the language of clean, and developing technique in asking the right questions/knowing which questions to ask and when to ask them, and learning how to facilitate from the client's responses an understanding of the whole system of the client's universe. There is science involved at this stage, i.e., one has to understand the theories and how they apply in practice.

But I think to become a "master of clean" as David was, you have to develop beyond that level, to the level of art. I agree that there is intuition involved at the artistic level, a natural instinct (or a naturally playful sense of humor, in David's case), some would call it inspiration (that comes from a whole lot of perspiration and working with many, many clients). But even beyond that, I think you have to have a passion for the process itself.

David had a passion for words and great compassion for people, though he told me on the first day of my first retreat that he would much prefer just working with people's metaphors than having to work with the people themselves. He was a bit of a detective, in that he loved the thrill of discovering how a person's mind works, solving the mysteries of why people do what they do (or should I say, helping people to solve their own mysteries) and how they can change what they want to change.

I have always been fascinated with the study of "expert systems" and how people develop expertise in various fields, how they grow from "apprentice" to "journeyman" to "master" in the words of the old guild system. I feel that David's development of expertise as well as the development of his theories has much to teach us about our own development as human beings.

webmaven

[Steve Saunders]

Yes, fascinating - and especially the spaces between masteries.

I once did my own (NLP) modelling of my paths through fields of technologies and there is a pattern there that I obviously also saw in David's work - obvious because its my projection, what he really did is his own mystery.

I dare to suggest that you look at your own pattern rather than copy David's; knowing mine has helped me enormously. When I still trained NLP I would get people to self-model their own excellence and I was strongly against copying other people's ways of excelling; sure it works to practice playing football by copying Ronaldo, but each person has a unique way and losing that to copy another is too great a sacrifice. David said NLP ruined me and certainly I felt much better once I was free of that virus.

Study everything, practice loads - OCD-like, then start to innovate, then start to break the patterns and evolve new forms, then break the boundaries and explore anew - all liberally sprinkled with trial-and-error. David said he conducted thought experiments - like Einstein - for maybe a year before actually trying something out for new. I'm sure I believed that, but he said it - he said he would try out a new question in his mind for months before using it with a client.

The apprentices are recognised because they are with a master, learning from them. The journeyman works alongside the master, performing smaller tasks, trusted to be competent, still learning tips. The new master is pushed out into the world to craft his own trade. The complete Master has his own style and way, unique, developed yet ever-changing.

Maybe there are other views ...

[Corrie van Wijk]

Webmaven: "David is one of the only therapists I have ever encountered who could actually do this."

Thank you for this contribution: I like this one above: 'one of the only'.

I think you are right that knowledge about expert systems will help us to understand what David was doing. Understanding an expert also involves looking at the presuppositions and theories that are involved. David generously shared his ideas with all of us, all we need to do is put the pieces together, so be a bit like the detective. I hope the cleanworld site will help us.