One of the most important patterns of which we are aware is the therapist's ability to sense what is missing in a family system. This capability to discern what is missing is critical in assisting the family in changing, and it applies at many different levels of behavior. For example, one thing which we, specifically, check for is the freedom of each family member to ask for what he wants. If that freedom is missing for any member of the family, then we work to find ways for him to gain that freedom. This is an example of something important which is missing at a high level of patterning. The process of identifying missing parts of experience and assisting the one with whom you are working in recovering them or completing imperfect experiences — of making things whole — is one of the most powerful interventions which we, as therapists, have available to us. The very process of making things whole, whether at a verbal or a nonverbal level, has a profound physical and neurological effect upon the person involved.

At the verbal level of patterning, Dave has produced a series of sentences, each of which has something missing. The therapist is responding systematically, first identifying that something is missing and then asking directly for it. For example, Dave says,

I've just lost touch.

As the therapist listens to this sentence, he tries to make sense out of it. He hears Dave describe his experience with the verb lost touch. In addition, he hears Dave say, specifically, that he (Dave) has lost touch. But, as the therapist attempts to understand what Dave is saying, he notices that Dave has failed to state with what specifically he has lost touch. In other words, the therapist understands that the descriptive verb lose touch is an expression of someone's losing touch with something or someone, and that what or whom it is is not stated — it is missing — or, in terms of a language description, it has been deleted.