Emergent Knowledge

Emergent Knowledge was created by New Zealand therapist David Grove. Based on his work in clean language and clean space while also incorporating Emergent, Chaos and Six Degrees of Separation Theories he developed Emergent Knowledge. Emergent Knowledge can be applied in the fields of therapy, coaching, mentoring, facilitating and self-discovery.

Grove was inspired by the new science of emergence. He worked on the notion that adjacent information spaces would network together, and that from their iteration and integration new knowledge would emerge with minimal input from the facilitator. The repetition of a single question drove an algorithm of change that prompted a systematic restructuring of the client’s personal cosmology in which the old stuff – fear, guilt and so on – self-reorganized into a more manageable form, and in some cases ceased to exist altogether. The techniques were formalized into a set of processes which became known as Emergent Knowledge. The Whirly Gig was developed to enable clients to gain access to 360 degrees of space.

“Emergent Knowledge is an information-centered process developed as a theory of self-discovery, to facilitate an individual’s journey into the inner landscapes of mind, body, and soul. This information contains knowledge which, when drawn on, provides a solution to whatever problems have been identified. This knowledge or wisdom resides in the inner world of the individual and can be used to resolve life’s challenges or problems.’“ David Grove 2005

In 2001, I had become friends with David and also an apprentice to his work while holding space for him to develop and flourish while he developed new ideas. He continued to search for new ways to facilitate clients doing their personal work more effectively and efficiently with the least possible interference from a facilitator. He had created his Clean Space process and was experimenting with the effects of space and the differences the different spaces made. However most of the spaces were at ground level and he began wondering if there was a way people could be at different heights. Together we brought several wheelchairs and experimented with them first. David then expanded his thinking even more and came up with the idea of a gyroscope that would allow people to be at any angle and access 360 degrees of space. We bought some very large gyroscopes and a car racing seat which could easily be adapted to safely hold a person. David wanted a 3-ringed gyroscope but at the time you could only buy them with two rings. After constantly tinkering we got a fabricator to join them together to create the much needed 3 ringed gyroscope. This is the Whirly Gig we have today.

When we were first in West Kirby we lived in a row of Victorian terraces, and a neighbour was complaining about the Whirly Gig taking up a car park space. David went out to see what all the fuss was about and when I went out a bit later to investigate, he had the postman upside down in it! They were interesting days.

Emergent knowledge is a methodology used by coaches, therapists, mentors and facilitators to help their clients find the wisdom in their own system enabling them to resolve their own problems, issues and goals. It frees the person being coached (or the ‘coachee’) of all preconceptions and all imposed ideas and helps them to pull answers from deep within themselves.

The processes condition the brain to learn from itself and the client’s symptoms are encouraged to proclaim what they know, revealing strengths and weaknesses, tap their reserves and to achieve their goals. This is done by forming a network of individual nodes of information, harnessing the iterative principles of emergence.

Clean Space developed in the late 90s, based on a realization by Grove that valuable information was to be found in the internal and external body~mind spaces clients occupied, rather than focusing solely on the linguistic constructions they employed. Our fixed perceptions of therapy as a static dialogue between therapist and client following conversational rules changed rapidly and dramatically. The therapist became a facilitator, freeing the client to move, to seek out physical positions equating to mental spaces containing what had previously been inaccessible or intractable information. Space became psychoactive, and therapy took on a new dimension.

James Lawley and Penny Tompkin

Originally designed as a therapeutic tool, Emergent Knowledge has found an important place for itself in the coaching and mentoring business world.

The information needed to effect self-organized change is literally ‘in-formation’ – that which is found or formed from within. It is neither planted nor suggested by the therapist or coach. New information changes the brain, it changes behaviour, and it changes lives. David Grove called self-generated information the data that makes a difference. It is our inner intelligence at work.

Emergent Knowledge is a very flexible process that can be adapted in many different ways to solve many types of problems, to stimulate creativity, to achieve goals and as a generative development process.

Each persons problem is uniquely created in their system based on the structure of their personality. Many coaching and therapy methods are developed generically and although they can work they are not based on a persons own system. To use a metaphor many methods are like buying a suit off the peg whereas using Emergent Knowledge is like buying a made to measure suit created just for you. Throughout our lives we encounter problems we find hard to understand or resolve and we need a method which finds the solution to these problems that is based on the structure of our personality. The way to do this is to use a methodology that facilitates you to tap into the wisdom held in your own system which will contain the solution to your problems.

When the brain over thinks a problem this type of self-reflection being an excess of order creates pathways that deepen and harden over time. The brain then finds it hard to escape these pathways and facilitate a change of behaviour for itself. The more you self-reflect the more difficult it becomes to access different information in your system that can help with the problem. Using the gyroscope and the power of six enable you to bypass these focal points and pathways giving you access to knowledge which is in your system but not available to you at present because of how your mind is operating

In an Emergent Knowledge session, the facilitator invites the client to find different physical spaces (while strapped into the Whirly Gig giving them 360 degree access) to represent different aspects of their thinking. The client moves from space to space, pausing in each one to consider what they know there. In this way, they build up a network of connections between the many thoughts, feelings and ideas in their mind and body.

Exploring this spatial network is like travelling down the pathways of the mind. The effect may be hard to describe but the process is supremely simple to facilitate. Typically people are surprised at the new understanding which arises apparently out of nowhere. Change happens naturally as a result of the client’s system becoming more aware of its own organisation.

Emergent knowledge is a problem-solving method in which the coach or facilitator uses utterly neutral language to put you in touch with your intuition. Clean language was developed to have no influence whatsoever so that the facilitator doesn’t guide the coachee’s responses, and lets them come entirely from within themselves.

The work that David Grove created is profound and effective. Clean Space in particular suits my style. I am dyslexic and have a natural affinity with doing things spatially. It fits me better than more formal analytical therapy. As an Emergent Knowledge facilitator I provide the environment and the process to support you to make that self-discovery that naturally leads you to the wisdom in your system that leads to a self-organisation that is unique to you. I also use it with couples, groups and teams to access ‘the wisdom in the system’.