capstone slide 17

It is really important to distinguish between analytically solving a problem, and navigating through to a solution.

Academics may attempt to discern what is involved, in the general case, in getting to Safeway to buy groceries, but most of us don't wait for the answer and just go.

This is a problem which can be navigated, even though the solution cannot be well articulated. That such things exist, and are in fact common, is a rather important insight.

In fact, there is no solution to the question "which way do I need to point my car so it will go directly, without changing direction, from the School of Public Health to the Safeway down by the harbor southeast of the Wolfe-street building?"

If you seek "an intervention" that will get the car from here to there in "one direction" it will be fruitless. What is needed is a strategy for navigating, and the flexibility to recognize that "driving", like "living" involves many changes in direction. Seeking "one change" that will accomplish a task, on the geographic-direction world, won't work. The change has to be sought on the "how do I navigate?" world.

In the "navigate" world, the answer is easy: "Head south till you can't go south anymore because you'd run into the water, then turn left, keep the water on your immediate right, and go till you get to Safeway. "

What I'm thinking here is that too much expert advice is attempting to give a patient a "single direction solution" when there are no single-direction solutions in the real world, and patients need to be encouraged to open their eyes and steer their own car and not drive into the water.

Empowerment is not an "option" -- it is the only way to navigate rough terrain with unknown and unknowable obstacles ahead.