Facilitating Insight and Healing Through Client-Generated Clean Metaphor (NTSCH)

Organization: North Texas Society of Clinical Hypnosis (NTSCH)

Website: https://www.northtexashypnosis.org/  

Event Title: Facilitating Insight and Healing Through Client-Generated Clean Metaphor 

Dates: 01/28/2026, 6-7:30pm CT

Location: Virtual 

CE: 2 

Contact : Tracy Payton Watson, LPC 

Description: This presentation explores David Grove’s Clean Language Method, a client-centered approach to psychotherapy that uses precise, non-directive questioning to facilitate insight and healing through metaphor. Participants will learn how Clean Language preserves client autonomy by minimizing therapist assumptions, interpretations, and influence, allowing clients’ own words and metaphors to guide therapeutic change. The session will outline the core principles of Clean Language, including the therapist’s stance of curiosity and “notknowing,” the role of metaphor as an organizing system of experience, and the standardized question sets used to elicit and track client-generated metaphors. Clinical applications for trauma, anxiety, depression, addiction, chronic pain, and somatic experiences will be discussed, along with ethical considerations for preserving client agency and supporting trauma-informed care. Through illustrative transcripts, case examples, and interactive reflection, participants will gain practical skills for integrating Clean Language into clinical practice. This CE session aligns with best practices for experiential and metaphorical therapy, emphasizing client-led insight and emergent healing. 

Learning Objectives: 

1. Describe and compare Milton Erickson’s use of therapist-generated metaphor, indirect suggestion, and utilization with David Grove’s client-generated metaphor approach in facilitating insight and therapeutic change.  

2. Identify at least three key distinctions in how insight and healing are conceptualized and achieved through Erickson’s strategic, directive use of metaphor versus Grove’s nondirective Symbolic Modeling process.

3. Apply ethical and clinical decision-making principles to determine when Ericksonian metaphor interventions or Grove’s client-led metaphor tracking are most appropriate for supporting insight and healing across diverse client presentations. 

Speaker info: Tracy Payton Watson, LPC CV_8.4.23_Tracy