ABSTRACT
“Constantly changing while remaining the same” is a stratagem which has not so much to do with the patient but with the therapist, the manager, that is to say the one who has to create and manage change. “Muddying the waters to make the fish swim to the surface” is a particular stratagem because it contains a contradiction in terms that completely violates the logic of common sense. A different application of this stratagem, which quickly unblocks situations sometimes difficult to manage, regards intervention with families. The stratagem follows the logic of contradiction because it refers to the ability to move from a certain point of view to the opposite, to the flexibility that allows us to be first tough and then soft, direct then subtle, close then detached. “The stratagem of the unveiled stratagem” is apparently an absence of stratagems but it is rather the most subtle of all.
