Creative Definition Procedure - These steps can be used to sort out the definitions and associations of a word or concept. The idea is that a word isn't just defined by other words. Its meaning is the associations that a specific person makes with it. These steps can be used on a word that the client is particularly hung up on. The statements people make are always somewhat distorted and delete some of the information.
Language is after all just a symbolic over-simplification.
There is valuable insights to gain by finding out what specifically it is that has been deleted or distorted. That tells us something about how that person's mind works. We are being presented with a Surface Structure in the language that the person uses. But noticing what is distorted or deleted and trying to recover it we can get an idea of what the Deeper Structure is. These are the most common distortions and deletions, and examples of how to deal with them.