Researching difference
• Won’t be seen unless actively researched
• Enables noticing of small steps

In everyday and professional life we are bombarded with masses of stimuli and manage this by looking for sameness. People reading this will be connecting the ideas with their own practice and knowledge:

“That is just like ….”

If we did not do this, treated each sensory input as unique we would not be able to function. The process of making a diagnosis is that of looking for sameness. This is helpful for us as clinicians as it enables us to bring forward knowledge and experience from other people, situations and reading. This is helpful and we could not manage without it, but we risk losing a lot of detail. We may not find difference without looking for it. Small changes or steps are often not big enough to notice. If there are changes, there may be some agency and so we need to bring that forward:

Working with time can be another way to bring forward difference. For instance:

Imagination as a therapeutic resource
• If you can imagine something you can move towards it
• Specificity and detail needed

To imagine something, you need some knowledge about it. Thus to articulate what is imagined can bring forward this knowledge and the possibility of negotiating moving towards it. There is a connection between this and the miracle question in solution based therapy (O'Connell 1998). However, in this approach we are looking for subtle differences which might seem possible to reach and which can generate ideas as to steps to move towards them: