The use of what is often called 'clean language' (it's not my term but it describes it well) is an essential for any therapist who is interested in giving only the very best of help to his/her clients. It means not attempting to bring your client to a truth or realisation by any means other than their own thoughts and/or words; it means not encouraging them, by spoken word or tone of voice, to search for something within them just because you believe/wonder if it's there; it means using words and tones that convey only what you mean, and what you mean should be only what you say. Put more succinctly, it means GUIDING and not LEADING.

Of course, there are many therapists, Ericksonian in particular, who rely on the capacity of the human mind to read far more into words than is actually there; the use of metaphor is a good case in point, but then, the words are constructed in an 'artfully vague' manner in order to... GUIDE and not LEAD the client!

Clean language is of primary importance to those who are orientated towards the talking therapies - regression and hypnoanalysis especially. But we should ALL remember that our clients are in a high state of suggestibility when they first enter our office or consulting room at the beginning of a session. We should be aware that whatever we say to a client can carry hidden implications and that enhanced suggestibility can too easily be the cause of those implications acting like suggestion.

It's the language employed within the therapeutic state that's the most important, though. GUIDING helps to uncover the client's truth; LEADING implants the therapist's idea of a possible truth but which will at best partially alleviate the client's symptom(s) for no more than a short while, at worst positively guarantee that the client will never be able to find the relief they seek.

Your clients believe that you are knowledgeable and aware of things which they know nothing about, and, of course, they are right; they would not be coming to you for treatment if this were not the case. They know you are an 'expert' at understanding human behaviour and they believe that you already have some idea of what is wrong with them and why they have their particular set of symptoms. Therefore, if you suggest, albeit only by implication, that there may be something more to what they are telling you, then they will make strenuous efforts to find it... all well and good, except for the fact that they will be sure to find something even there was, in reality, nothing to find.

If you find yourself doubting that fact, just remember that the human mind has a predisposition to keep on looking for what it expects to discover. If we are looking for evidence that somebody does not like us, for example - probably out of fear that we might find it - we will TOTALLY ignore the two or three or even ten instances that seem to show the opposite. We will keep on looking for that ONE piece of evidence that we are searching for until we find it - or something else that can be easily misconstrued as 'proof'. Then we are triumphant! And that belief system has been reinforced and the knowledge that you are not liked has been confirmed. This famous saying is certainly true:

"Be very careful what you look for, because you'll find it."

Now consider the following.

The client says: "I remember Dad coming into my room."

The therapist might say any of these:

"And what did he do, after he came into the room?"

"Aha! Did he, indeed!"

"Did he often come into your room?"

"And were you frightened?"

"Oh no! I bet that scared you!"

"How did that seem to you?"

Any of those statements/questions could lead the client into searching for some unpleasant, even sinister, reason for Dad having come into the room. If you're not too sure about that, ask yourself what you think I'm suggesting your client might think... because I haven't actually stated anything, so anything you believe I meant is exactly the sort of thing a client could 'read'. If you truly cannot see the implications of some/any of those, then are you in trouble! I don't know how you'll do it, but you'll need to gain a clearer grasp of the 'average' set of thought processes.

Of course, 'Dad' may have simply turned out the light and left.

In this case, the therapist's best response, at first, would be to say absolutely nothing, since the client is already engaged in a recall process. Only if s/he is silent for too long (more than 30 seconds) or is showing some visible sigh of emotion or reaction - grimacing, crying, breathing faster, etc. - would there be a need for the therapist to say anything at all.

Then, a 'clean' response could be: "And what happened then?" or, perhaps: "And you remember Dad coming into the room... and what happened then?" Reflecting back part of what has been said is very powerful and the 'What happened then?' carries no implications at all. Interestingly, your client's response to such a question will normally be to tell you what happened immediately after that, whereas if you say: 'And what happened next?' s/he will be inclined to skip the rest of that particular event and move on to the next section of the recall. This can be useful; if your client is 'standing on my own in the back garden' you could respond with: 'And you're standing on your own in the back garden. And what happened next?' Be sure that reflection is EXACTLY that - an exact copy of your client's words and tonalities.

Another good 'clean' response to situations similar to the above is: 'Tell me more about that...' This has another use, too, on those occasions when you have not quite heard what has been said (in hypnosis, some clients talk very quietly). 'Tell me more about that...' is a WHOLE lot better than asking your client to repeat what they have just told you!