The Type of Diagnosis
Diagnosing operates upon distinctions. Therefore, the question about how these distinctions come about, which are used and not least, where they are used, gains much significance. It makes a difference whether one thinks in a framework of healthy or ill, helpful or damaging, whether one uses a questionnaire or sets one’s own questions, whether one thinks, feels, senses or perceives the client during observation or everything together. Also, the question of which phenomenon one becomes aware of during observations or which of one’s observations one explicitly or implicitly processes and communicates, must be considered.
One major distinction for our theory is that between a diagnosis focused on process, versus one that attempts to classify according to a structure.