AUTHOR INTERVIEW
Winston Churchill once said. Because the Power
Information, like
of Six is such a simple operant it is able to contain
complexity. The numbers at its heart hold the
energy, does real client’s problem so that client and facilitator do
work. It changes brain
not have to. It is a modus operandi for seeking
solutions at any level of expertise; an algorithm
chemistry, it changes
that enables the emergence of new knowledge
and healing whatever the client’s starting point;
neuronal connections,
a prescription that, if followed to the letter, will
engage clients with their symptoms directly and
it changes behaviour
change the neuro-chemistry of the brain in ways
that are wholly self-generated.
and it changes lives
Photograph by James Lawley Self Organization
The neural pathways of learning have been
input and the present tense – are common to • And how do you know when well documented by scientists such as Joseph
all Clean processes. Adjacent spaces, iteration, [e.g. you’re feeling very sad]? LeDoux in The Emotional Brain. LeDoux
and formula are shared with Clean Space. All • And where is describes the chemical changes that strengthen
six conditions are present in the Power of Six. [the feeling as described by the client]? and stabilize synaptic connections, resulting
Sixness is exclusive to it. • And whereabouts is it? in what he calls the creation of “extinction-
Musicians find it difficult to improvise music • And does it have a size or a shape? resistant learning” in the brain.
without a beat. The repetitive patterns of the • And that is like what? After conditioning, the response of individual
Power of Six send a message to the higher cells to the conditioned stimulus is increased
nervous system that here is a measure around There was no shortage of directions in which (the same input produces a bigger output).
which the mind can play safely and securely. the questioning could go at that point, but In addition, individual cells develop stronger
This is not the kind of security that written the first inkling of a formula had appeared. interconnections, so that when one fires the
music provides. No-one here tells the performer Another formulaic trace appeared in Grove’s others also fire.
what to play. The cue from the Power of Six practice of Intergenerational Healing, when Applying this critical finding in the context
conductor is more on the lines of: “I will look the search for the origins of a symptom or the of self-organization, we can say that the
after the beat; this is your time and space; you source of a redemptive metaphor would take procedures of the Power of Six condition
can now be yourself ”. the client back in time: the brain to learn from itself. This is no
Like Clean Language and Clean Space ordinary conditioner. It disentangles, improves
before it, the Power of Six emerged within the manageability, and restores shine and vitality to
framework of a philosophy dedicated to helping the parts other conditioners cannot reach. The
people help themselves in the way only they repeated question And what else do you know?
could. These were never intended to be elitist becomes a conditioned stimulus that prompts
procedures. David Grove was adamant that his not just more of the same with each repetition,
methods should not only support sophisticated but a series of enhanced outputs leading the
therapeutic interventions, but also be capable client beyond rethinking and modified feeling
of combining with other disciplines – medicine, to extinction-resistant learning.
coaching, counselling and so on – and be Physical or psychological symptoms are not
straightforward, teachable, and transferable. something to be feared, ignored or evaded.
Increasingly in my work as a therapist I find that They are signals from the bodymind that it
whatever the client or the condition, the patterns is attempting to heal itself. The Power of
of the Power of Six deliver emergence at least Six weaves a formulaic spell over such
as well as more elaborate methodologies and symptoms. It enables them to proclaim
often more quickly. Given the many choices of what they know, to reveal their strengths and
approach available to me when working with a from body  to biography  to ancestry weaknesses, and to tap their reserves – and
client, it then becomes more a matter of my will  to culture  to land  to cosmology yet to go further, for that is the nature of
to be simple. emergence. Information iterates and emerges
in a methodical six-stage time trail which led as new knowledge that heals.
Formulaic Questioning eventually to work in spatial sorting and was
How did the idea of a standard pattern of later formalized into the basic six-step, and
To learn more about Emergent Knowledge and
questioning take shape? When Grove was then more sophisticated twelve-step, quasi-
sixness visit www.powersofsix.com This article
developing Clean Language and Therapeutic formulaic procedures of Clean Space.
is an edited extract from the book The Power
Metaphor for the symptomatic treatment The Power of Six abides by the same
of Six, A Six Step Guide to Self Knowledge
of trauma, the sequence in which the first procedural logic, but takes the systematic
by Philip Harland, dedicated to the late David
questions were asked was gradually refined by principle further. Philosophically and practically,
Grove and published by Wayfinder Press. It is
David and his partner Cei Davies into a code the formula is different to any other you may have
available via the powersofsix website and from
that followed a typical and teachable (though come across in the fields of therapy, coaching and amazon sites and bookshops.
not, in practice, invariable) order: self-development. “All great things are simple”,
rapport - Winter 2009/10
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