Product Description

What do you do as a therapist, teacher, doctor or manager when your client, student, patient or colleague says "It's like I'm hitting my head against a brick wall," "I've got a knot in my stomach" or "I'm looking for the right path to take"?

Metaphors in Mind describes how to give individuals an opportunity to discover how their symbolic perceptions are organised, what needs to happen for these to change, and how they can develop as a result.

Based on David Grove's pioneering therapeutic approach and use of Clean Language, Symbolic Modelling is an emergent, systemic and iterative way of facilitating the psychotherapeutic process.

This comprehensive book covers the theory of metaphor, self-organising systems, symbolic modelling, the practice of Clean Language, the five-stage therapeutic process, and includes three client transcripts.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #46813 in Books
• Published on: 2006-11-09
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 336 pages

Caroline Myss, Ph.D. best selling author of "Anatomy of the Spirit" and "Why People Don't Heal"
Metaphors in Mind presents a broad integration of deep perspectives about helping people learn how to facilitate their own creativity in solving their own problems in their own way. Well done!

David J. Grove, M.S. author of "Resolving Traumatic Memories"
Be prepared for this book to launch you on a personal journey of change and development. The parade of thought provoking concepts, stories and challenges contained within will provide a reliable travelling companion to accompany you along the way.

Ernest Rossi, Ph.D, Author of "Dreams, Consciousness and; Spirit" and "The Psychobiology of Mind-Body Healing"
Tompkins and Lawley have written a book that provides people with a tool for profound analysis and insight. The use of metaphors as a means of evaluating how you order your world, your relationships, your occupation, and interpret the experiences of your life is invaluable. This book should be read by everyone who has an interest in expanding their awareness of why they say the things they do, and discovering how the 'contents' of their lives are sources of empowerment

Customer Reviews

Groundbreaking development in human changework
This is a definitive book about the most important development in human psychology since Freud. Lawley & Tompkins have written an accessible, insightful account of a new way to use language which will not only appeal to the ordinary reader but to therapists, psychologists, educators, trainers, doctors, managers and consultants - indeed anyone interested in facilitating human change. Read this book and I guarantee you will never use language the same way again.

A major work in psychology and psychotherapy
I believe this book marks a significant advance in psychology and therapy. David Grove is a genius. For me, he is up there with Freud, Jung and Milton Erickson. And while anyone who experiences David at work can see he is doing something very different with his clients, understanding that something has not been easy until the arrival of "Metaphors in Mind". The authors have had access to David and have made his work accessible.

Not many serious books are as well written as this one. Penny & James have managed to make the chapters largely self-contained. Chapters begin with an outline of what will be covered, then the details and then a useful summary. There is no mystification. It is obvious the authors want people to have a clear understanding. The book is well referenced, has a useful index and also contains three annotated transcripts of symbolic modelling at work with clients.

The only limitation is that it is a book. Symbolic Modelling pays attention to body language, "line of sight" (where people look as they think) and the way that words are said. And David Grove has developed a style of therapy that is equally rich in language and what goes with language. I hope audio and videotapes are the next project for Penny and James or that David will produce taped copies of his more recent work

Symbolic Modelling learning resources
Metaphors in Mind opened the door to a new, more effective and respectful way of communicating with people I work with and also in my daily life with family and friends. I notice this more neutral and specific way of asking questions, combined with this way of considering how different elements of people's communications and how they have organized and see their world and the relationships inherent in that world, offers a different kind and, it seems, a different level of understanding. What I appreciate most is, having begun learning and using Symbolic Modelling with clients, I can rely on the person's system to find its own solutions with this process. This to me is the height of respecting each person's inherent wisdom and uniqueness.
A marvelous tool to support this book is the DVD, "A Strange and Strong Sensation", also created by Penny Tompkins and James Lawley. Seeing a live client session unfold allowed me to hear the cadence and rhythm of the questions and observe how the therapists use the questions to build the structure of the process. That really helped me to get a sense of how the symbolic modelling process works and I would have liked the opportunity to buy the book and DVD together.