The Navigation of Worlds, Space and Time

Introduction

This section is based around assisting the facilitator to navigate the client in and through their worlds. The first barrier to this is the boundaries that encompass/encase those worlds. Just as the first explorers had no maps, neither do we and neither will the client. However we do have the following tools to aid in our exploration and thus assist in this navigational issue.

“Whichever way you go, you find something.” David Grove

There are a set of intervention strategies that facilitate a journey through our worlds.

Writing About and Drawing our Worlds: Internal worlds can be mapped externally by overlaying them into a room or a landscape, which has the effect of objectifying an internal phenomena into a real geographic space from which information is gained – this is done by having the client write or draw then place the pieces of paper in space around them.

Using Emergent Knowledge techniques allows us to navigate these worlds, using the theories of boundaries, and portals and windows.

Solutions are found at a different level than the problem is stated, by using simple dynamic rules that transform complexity into a route that can be navigated. The primary world is the level in which the problem is stated and the solution is found in secondary and tertiary worlds, which are at different levels to the problem.

“We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.” - Albert Einstein

As a facilitator using these techniques a range of materials should be acquired to allow your client the maximum choice when expressing themselves through writing and drawing:

  • A3 / A4 / A5 / Letter / Legal Paper
  • A selection of good dictionaries
  • Flip / Easel Chart Paper
  • Scissors and Sellotape / Scotchtape
  • Post It™ notes – Various Colours
  • Blue tak / Poster Putty
  • Pencils / Crayons / Coloured Markers / Pens
  • Index Cards

Summary Outline

Navigation of the client’s worlds is a truly rewarding process; new information and new insights will emerge. As facilitators we should be aware of how the client is describing their world now and their earlier worlds, their use of pronouns and location of feelings, their gestures and non-verbal language. All of these provide us with clues to aid our client in discovering even the smallest piece of information that once known, may dissolve the issue totally.

The boundaries and the clues to portals that a client gives us, we may use these emergent techniques to aid in the development of the client’s world.

We shall also take our first step in having the client externalise their internal world by writing or drawing their answers to our questions. This is a key aspect of Emergent Knowledge and will continue to be developed throughout this work. This process opens the door to the ‘Potential Space’ of the client and therefore to a solution generated by the client’s own system.

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