A 28-year-old man presents with feelings of hopelessness and difficulty identifying what he wants from therapy. His therapist asks, 'Suppose tonight while you sleep, a miracle happens and the problems that brought you here are solved. When you wake up tomorrow morning, what is the first thing you would notice that tells you something is different?' After the patient describes waking up feeling energized and calling a friend, the therapist follows up: 'On a scale of 0 to 10, where 10 is the morning after the miracle and 0 is the worst things have been, where are you today?' What is the primary therapeutic purpose of this sequence?