Clean Language Event 26th - 28th September 2024

Annual Clean Language Event

In September, we offer you the opportunity to deepen your knowledge and skills in Clean Language over three consecutive days, each offering a different approach. These days also provide a great chance to meet old acquaintances and new like-minded individuals!

Below is a brief of what we will be offering on the different days.

Masterclass – Choice points

Thursday, September 26

Facilitated by Penny Tompkins, Caitlin Walker, and James Lawley

“And what happens just before we run that old pattern? Discovering choice points and how to create new ways of being response-able.”

The theme for this workshop is choice points. The masterclass will be conducted in English.

We all have unwanted habits when it’s like we are on auto-pilot, compelled to get caught in the same pattern of thoughts, feelings and behaviour – over and over.

And, whether we are aware or not, there are moments in every pattern when we can make a different choice. We can run the same old pattern of behaviour or we can be ‘response-able’.

When we discover these ‘choice points’ we can slow time down and learn how to access the resources needed in that moment to create alternative pathways – both neurologically and behaviourally.

In this masterclass you’ll learn how to discover the choice points in patterns, and how we can influence ourselves to have more choice to respond and act in more life-affirming ways.

Click for video about the Masterclass with Dr Caitlin Walker, Penny Tompkins & James Lawley

SOLD OUT

Some pictures of Clean Language Event 2023

Conference – Patterns

Friday, September 27

Similar to the previous two conferences, we have attached a theme to the day. Patterns are an important aspect of our daily lives. Patterns in our thinking, speaking, and acting. And patterns play a significant role in how we apply Clean Language, so there is plenty to discover!

The day starts at 10:00 am, doors open at 9:30 am. We will “end” the day at about 5:00 pm with networking & drinks as usual till 6:00 pm!
However, not really end…

New: optional evening program

Use the time on Friday evening to enjoy a dinner with us, followed by an evening program that we will co-create together. Think of storytelling, board or card games, making music/jam sessions, good conversations, brainstorming. Perhaps you have other ideas you would like to propose?

Conference: Keynote by Okke Gerritsen. Plus two tracks: English and Dutch each 3 sessions

Buy your ticket now

Keynote – Patterns on Identity Level

This keynote will be given by Okke Gerritsen. Click on the image to the right to read more about his keynote.

Session speakers

Like last year we will have two tracks of sessions happening in parralel. One track wil have sessions in English, the other in Dutch.

Click for more information; Keynote "Patterns on Identity Level" by Okke Gerritsen

Conference Program

This is what the day will look like:

Welcome and opening of the day
Keynote by Okke Gerritsen.
Session round 1
Lunch
Session round 2
Session round 3
Debrief & Closing
Drinks & Networking

The English track consists of three sessions. Click on the image below to learn more about each session.

Click for more information; conference speaker Annemiek van Helsdingen: Neuroscience of Change & Embodied Metaphors: How can behavioural patterns be replaced effectively?

Click for more information; conference speakers James Lawley & Penny Tompkins: PRO for Life

Click for more information; Conference Speakers - Dr Caitlin Walker - Neuroscience of Change & Embodied Metaphors

The Dutch track consists of three sessions. Click on the image below to read more about each session.

Click for more information; conference speakers Kirste den Hollander and Rita Bouwens: Flaws in the fabric of our thinking – Clean helps to unravel

Click for more information; Conference Speakers - Jacqueline Doomen and Michael Oskam

Click for more information; conference speakers Wendy Nieuwland and Maaike Nooitgedagt: Patterns in Liminality

Open Space – Experimenting & Experiencing

Saturday, September 28

The Open Space concept was successfully introduced last year and we are bringing it back to CLE this year. That means a full day of interesting sessions and possibly some FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out). On this day, you can propose and shape your own session. Other participants can then attend your session. If you have a theme or question for a session, you can propose it. We will then work with the group to see if there is someone willing to facilitate a session on that topic. Do you want to facilitate a session? You don’t have to do it alone, ask another participant to do it with you.

We will end the day and the event with networking & drinks as usual!

Open Space - Experiment and Experience images of footprints going from "let's start" to "The End"

Buy your ticket now

Dutch video of Michel and Pascal explaining about the Open Space day.

Practical Information

Early Bird Offers and Bundles:

For those who already know they want to attend and decide to buy tickets first, we offer an early bird discount. This discount applies to a certain number of tickets, and it’s first come, first served! Scroll down to see which tickets are still available.
For those who want to attend all days, we have a limited number of All-In Tickets available.

Location:

Just like in 2022, we have chosen De Lunterse Boer. This location is beautifully situated in the woods and offers the space and facilities that suit CLE. There are hotel rooms available. There are hotel rooms at De Lunterse Boer. For those who want to spend one or more nights please check availablitity and reserve the rooms with De Lunterse Boer.
Phone: +31 318 48 36 57
Address: Boslaan 87, 6741 KD Lunteren
Website: www.lunterseboer.nl

Directions:

The beautifully located and quiet spot of De Lunterse Boer means that it is more difficult to reach by public transport. Therefore, we ask you to consider carpooling solutions together. Taking care of the environment and being there for each other. For planning your trip to De Lunterse Boer, we advise you to use google maps and if you have specific wishes or questions, please contact us!

Lunch & Dietary Requirements:

Throughout the day, there will be coffee, tea, water, and snacks. Each day includes a lunch buffet.
If you have specific dietary requirements, please specify them in the form when purchasing your tickets. If you are buying tickets for multiple people, please clearly indicate for whom these dietary requirements are relevant.

Timings:

Each day, we will greet you from 09:30 with coffee & tea and, of course, the opportunity to make your name badge!
Expect an end time of around 18:00, but on Friday, of course, we expect to see most of you even after that time due to the evening program!

Tickets:

Please use the form below to order your ticket or visit our Ticket Tailor shop directly.

Okke Gerritsen - Patterns on Identity Level

Patterns, you can find them always and everywhere. And we all have them. They belong to us. Conscious ones but especially many unconscious patterns. A pattern is an established, regular repetition of certain behaviours, interactions, feelings, desires, fantasies, resistance, thoughts, or beliefs. They arise when certain behaviour repeatedly proves successful for us and are often formed in relation to something or someone else in a particular important context. Many of these patterns are automatically activated without us being aware of them. We carry our patterns into how we relate to others: in love, in friendships, at work, and in our free time. When the pattern no longer works well, this once successful mechanism starts to work against us. Thus, we distinguish between functional and less functional or even dysfunctional patterns. In this keynote, I want to look at patterns from different perspectives with you. The guiding question is always: 'What can I learn from this?' As a person, father, mother, brother, sister, or partner but also as a guide, coach, facilitator, leader, and team member or employee. The different perspectives will at least include: Clean Language and the three approaches I am most familiar with in my work as a guide at Phoenix Training, Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP), Transactional Analysis (TA), and Systemic Work.

In exploring patterns, we inevitably encounter transference and countertransference. Transference means the projection of feelings, desires, and expectations from an earlier relationship onto another person. This person can be your partner, your friend, your boss, or even the guide. Countertransference is, in that case, the transference from the guide. For transference and countertransference, the question is not whether a person repeats patterns from earlier relationships, but what that person repeats. We all repeat patterns we have learned from the oldest relationships we know: with our parents, between our parents, and with our brothers and sisters. Which patterns do you carry from your history, and how do they shape your behaviour in new contexts and how you view people and groups? What is about you, and what is really about the other or the context? Are you able to untangle these and see the difference between them? And how do you do that? When we work 'Clean,' we set aside our own patterns as facilitators and try to prevent projecting, filling in, and interpreting as guides. We aim to keep the client's experience as clean as possible. At Phoenix, we use our own patterns and transference to arrive at meaningful interventions. In that sense, we fully engage in the encounter. An intriguing tension field to explore!

About Okke

Phoenix

Three years of education: Professional Communication

This program is an officially recognized post-HBO Register course. Once you complete this program you'll receive a Phoenix certificate, an NLP practitioner certificate, and you will receive a diploma from the Foundation for Post Higher Vocational Education (SPHBO). Additionally, you will be included in the Abiturient Register, monitored by Cpion, a register that can be consulted by employers and clients.

Okke extended this education with the following courses:

Systemisch Werken
De Maskermaker
Trainersopleiding

Opleiding bij NTI-NLP:

Opleiding NLP Master Practitioner.
International NLP Master Practitioner certificate.

Opleiding bij Oskam Organisatieadvies:

Clean Language (Core Skills, Clean for Teams, Clean Space)

Conference Speaker - Keynote by Okke Gerritsen

BACK

Annemiek van Helsdingen - Neuroscience of Change & Embodied Metaphor

How can behavioural patterns be replaced effectively?

Although David’s work and Symbolic Modelling haven’t been the subject of scientific research directly, there are more and more parallels that can be drawn when we look at what recent findings in the neuroscience of behavioral change show. Annemiek van Helsdingen will share one of these models: the memory reconsolidation process. This helps make changes in the implicit memory (or how we do something over and over without thinking about it). In the workshop, we will compare this model to what our experiences are with change happening through Symbolic Modelling and embodied metaphor, to see what we can learn together.

About Annemiek

Annemiek van Helsdingen has been active teaching in the Clean community since 2006. She brought Clean to The Netherlands with Maaike Nooitgedagt and Wendy Nieuwland, and has since developed Soul-based Coaching, which is based on Symbolic Modelling. Since 2016, she has been teaching live online to a worldwide community of coaches.

Conference Speaker - Annemiek van Helsdingen

BACK

James Lawley & Penny Tompkins - PRO for Life

Initially we developed the invaluable Problem-Remedy-Outcome Model for use in therapy and coaching. Since then the scope of the PRO Model has continued to evolve into areas outside of change-work such as management, education, health and research – and inevitably into our everyday lives.

We all have problems, some of which need to be remedied. And we all have desires for how we’d like ourselves and the world to be. Being able to recognise how you are making sense of the moment, the medium and long term in terms of PRO informs your system how best to respond, and what to do next.

Join us to explore the signals that currently inform you … and how you can enhance them with added awareness and choice.

About Penny Tompkins & James Lawley

Penny Tompkins and James Lawley are psychotherapists. They were first registered with the United Kingdom Council for Psychotherapy (UKCP) in 1993 and recognised as supervisors in 1995.

Penny and James are co-developers of Symbolic Modelling and leading authorities on the use of David Grove’s Clean Language and self-generated metaphor for personal and professional development. They co-authored Metaphors in Mind: Transformation through Symbolic Modelling and between them have written over 200 articles freely available at cleanlanguage.com.

James has also developed their work as a qualitative research methodology, resulting in the publication of several academic articles and co-editing the ground-breaking book, Clean Language Interviewing: Principles and Applications for Researchers and Practitioners.

Conference Speakers - James Lawley & Penny Tompkins

BACK

Dr Caitlin Walker - Getting symptoms to confess their strengths

When I first watched David Grove work, a key principle was how he accepted and extended the symptoms in a client’s landscape through clean questions and developing a metaphor that contained it. He had a phrase, you pay them exquisite attention and then they can confess their strengths.

In this workshop we will take a symptom or pattern that you have, we will explore it with clean questions and then consider what it would be doing if it weren’t busy doing that. The purpose is to meet and greet some different symptoms, practice getting their structure rather than being seduced by their narrative and then musing on the entailments of the metaphors and what strengths they might be hiding.

This session will start out ultra-clean and then move into more of a ‘street-clean’ for the musing part.

About Dr Caitlin Walker

Dr Caitlin Walker is a facilitator, organisational development consultant and educator. She is the originator of Systemic Modelling, taking the principles and skills of Grove’s Clean Language and Penny Tompkins’ and James Lawley’s Symbolic Modelling and adapting them for use with groups. She’s the author of From Contempt to Curiosity: Creating the conditions for groups to collaborate and So you want to be #DramaFree, a manual for reducing unnecessary drama in your life.

Caitlin has a doctorate in Clean Language Interviewing and curriculum design. She is a certified to Level 5 in Coaching and Mentoring in the Workplace

BACK

Kirste den Hollander & Rita Bouwens - Flaws in the fabric of our thinking

– Clean helps to unravel

Our brain loves patterns. Patterns help us to safe energy and allows us to engage in other meaningful activities. However, sometimes those patterns don’t yield the results that we envisioned. And than what? How do you break the pattern? During the workshop we dive into the world of mistakes and unintended outcomes. Above all, we'll experiment with ways Clean can help break persistent woeful mistakes to move from error to learning experience.

About Kirste den Hollander & Rita Bouwens

Kirste den Hollander, MSc is a learning professional and currently working as Lead Learning & Development within an IT organization. She has long been fascinated by the question, "why is learning from error easier said than done". In recent years, she has been researching the process of learning from mistakes in teams and organizations to find answers to this question. She combines these insights in practice during team coaching, intervision or training sessions by combining them with the power of Clean Language.

Rita Bouwens is an experienced trainer and coach with a systemic view on patterns and processes. Currently, she works as HR manager in a large international organization. Rita thrives on challenges within a team and loves to discover what is happening beneath the surface. Her legal background enables her to quickly access situations and her experience in NLP, systemic coaching and Clean Language help her to create breakthroughs in challenging situations.

Conference Speakers, Kirste den Hollander and Rita Bouwens

BACK

Michael Oskam & Jacqueline Doomen - Discovering patterns in talents

In this workshop we will investigate together! Would you like to explore the theme of patterns in talents with us?

People who can make great use of their talents in their work are more satisfied, more productive and experience less stress. But how do you know what your talent is?

We see that highly educated professionals like to subject themselves to bad tests in which they would know who they are and what they can do after 10 multiple-choice questions.

That's why we will start with eliciting some definitions: When do we actually talk about a talent? And what is a strong point, a quality or a competence?

Having these definitions enables you to explore talents in different ways. For instance based on an existing model about talents, or according to the Clean Language methodology in which your experience of your talent is completely central, or something in between.

Finally, we will discuss talents and patterns with each other. We are curious to see what insights we will come to!

About Jacqueline Doomen and Michael Oskam

Jacqueline Doomen studied psychology. After a short career in addiction care, she switched to the HRM profession. In her more than 20 years of work experience in this field, Jacqueline has held many different roles: team leader, project leader, product owner, career coach, mobility advisor, trainer and HR advisor. She has mainly worked in the non-profit, but also in the profit sector and both as an employee and as a self-employed person.

Areas of expertise: Career advice, talent development, labour mobility, From Work to Work (VWNW), sustainable employability, positive psychology, progress-oriented work, agility and employability. In short: someone who knows what she's talking about when it comes to talents!

Michael Oskam studied organizational psychology. He started as an assessment psychologist and in that capacity tested the qualities (competencies) of candidates to determine their suitability for a certain role or position. He was also a management consultant and policy officer. Since 2008 he has been an independent consultant and nowadays he mainly acts as a trainer and sometimes as a team coach. Since 2017, he has been providing the various Clean Language trainings in the Netherlands. In 2023, the first Dutch Clean Language book was published, which he wrote together with Madelon Sinnige.

Areas of expertise: Clean Language, Clean Space, Positive Psychology, Career Assessments, Behavioural Skills Training and Learning & Development. Since 2022, he has been organizing the Dutch Clean Language event with Pascal Clarkson.

Conference Speakers, Jacqueline Doomen and Michael Oskam

BACK

Wendy Nieuwland & Maaike Nooitgedagt - Patterns in Liminality

In our work, we guide change and development in organizations daily. From within, where the whole system plays a role.

Changes do not follow a straight path from A to B, but rather go through a messy intermediate phase known as the liminal phase.

Liminality is like hovering on the threshold from the known to the unknown. It is an essential but often elusive phase where old structures dissolve and new possibilities emerge. In this interim period - where the old no longer exists and the new has yet to take shape - lie the opportunities for true, sustainable change from within.

This means it is important to stay in it as long as necessary, even when it becomes challenging or uncomfortable (and it will!). Various patterns will emerge, both in others and in yourself.

In these workshops, we will explore which patterns you recognize in the liminal phase (and just before and after it). The helpful and the hindering ones. And we will look for what you can do with them as a leader, as a change facilitator, or if you find yourself right in the middle of it.

About Wendy Nieuwland & Maaike Nooitgedagt

Wendy and Maaike are both academically trained. Wendy in Communication Science with a background in the humanities and sociology, and Maaike is a psychologist specializing in Clinical Psychology.

Both came into contact with Clean Language & Symbolic Modelling in the early 2000s, each in their own way. Through Clean, they found each other and started collaborating in 2006, initially also with Annemiek van Helsdingen.

In 2015, their book Veranderen 3.0, 7 essentiële principes voor verandering van binnenuit was published, and in 2022 they wrote one of the chapters in Clean Language Interviewing, published by Emerald Press.

They are also affiliated with two university business schools, AOG and TSM, as lecturers in Strategy & Change.

Together with Annemiek, they are pioneers of Clean Language in the Netherlands.

For the past 15 years, they have exclusively worked on organizational development issues.

Wendy and Maaike, along with two regular partners, form the agency Gewoon aan de slag, which guides organizational changes from within with a systemic perspective, resulting in sustainable change and development. The philosophy and several tools of Clean Language & Systemic/Symbolic Modelling form the basis of their approach.

Conference Speakers, Wendy Nieuwland and Maaike Nooitgedagt

BACK

Annual Clean Language Event

Masterclass – Choice points

Thursday, September 26

Conference – Patterns

Friday, September 27

New: optional evening program

Keynote – Patterns on Identity Level

Session speakers

Conference Program

Open Space – Experimenting & Experiencing

Saturday, September 28

Practical Information

[email protected]

+31 (0)6 46 15 81 20

Okke Gerritsen - Patterns on Identity Level

About Okke

Phoenix

Annemiek van Helsdingen - Neuroscience of Change & Embodied Metaphor

About Annemiek

James Lawley & Penny Tompkins - PRO for Life

About Penny Tompkins & James Lawley

Dr Caitlin Walker - Getting symptoms to confess their strengths

About Dr Caitlin Walker

Kirste den Hollander & Rita Bouwens - Flaws in the fabric of our thinking

About Kirste den Hollander & Rita Bouwens

Michael Oskam & Jacqueline Doomen - Discovering patterns in talents

About Jacqueline Doomen and Michael Oskam

Wendy Nieuwland & Maaike Nooitgedagt - Patterns in Liminality

About Wendy Nieuwland & Maaike Nooitgedagt