About Us

Apricot Island was founded in 2001 by Marian Way, a skilled facilitator and trainer, who specialises in clean approaches to learning and development such as Clean Language, Symbolic Modelling and Clean Space.

Our Philosophy

All our trainings and workshops are designed and delivered by experienced trainers who believe that your learning and development is best supported by a 'clean' approach, which means...

• respecting our participants' needs and honouring diverse opinions
• creating an atmosphere of sharing, trust and openness - so we talk about the real issues, not just what's happening on the surface
• believing in you and your ability to learn and develop and achieve your goals
• really listening and paying attention to your map of the world, and working from the inside out, building on your insights and realisations as we go
• utilising the language, and especially the metaphors, you use to describe your experience - they're rich with meaning and potential
• introducing new ideas, skills and information at appropriate times so you have the best chance of assimilating and therefore benefiting from them
• challenging any assumptions that may be limiting your progress - in a respectful way
• working at a deep level, so your learning sticks and the changes you make last

This approach to learning and development is based on the principles of Clean Language, which was developed by psychotherapist David Grove. He had discovered that asking about people's problems (which were often described in metaphor) using their exact words, encouraged new insights and possibilities for change. He experimented with different questions and found that questions which 'interfered' with the client's experience the least were in fact the most effective in bringing about change.

Penny Tompkins and James Lawley spent several years studying David's methods, observing therapy sessions and studying transcripts. They developed a model of David's work, which they called Symbolic Modelling, to enable others to get similar results. This model is described in detail in their book, Metaphors in Mind and there is a wealth of related information on their web site.

At Apricot Island, we sometimes use Clean Language and Symbolic Modelling in their purest form - for example when working one-to-one with coaching clients or when finding out about participants' desired outcomes. And when we're introducing new skills or information to our participants, we do so with the principles of 'clean' in mind.

You can find out more about Marian and Phil by clicking their photos, right.