Clean Language works with this unseen and un-verbalised description, it can work with movements, gestures, coughs, lines of sight and so on, it doesn't depend on the client being able to provide a full linguistic description of a symbol. This is what David termed being an equal opportunities employer, not discriminating against other forms of information. In the approach of Clean Language there is information held in the choreography of that hand gesture. Clean Language is about the management of time and the management of space. David described the difference between a conversation and Clean Language with the following example.
Conversation follows a line.
He asked one of the group, Bridget, for a statement. With the conversation paused in that moment David was able to identify and evolve symbols and metaphors which contained the entire meaning of that single word, 'No'. David then went on to describe how, in the case of phobia or trauma, the individual is frozen in time, at that moment just before the event. It's like a falling dream, you never hit the bottom, and so a client's experience of the event is always stuck at that moment just before. David labels the event itself as T and the moment just before as T-1.