Personal Construct Psychology in Clinical Practice

Theory, Research and Applications

David Winter

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• Topic: Psychology
• eBook ISBN:
  9781134961528
• Subtopic: History & Theory in Psychology
• Index: Psychology

Personal Construct Psychology in Clinical Practice provides a comprehensive review of the clinical applications of personal construct theory. It is the first such attempt to bring together the findings from a widely scattered literature and as such will serve as a major reference work both for those already familiar with PCT and for those with little knowledge of it. David Winter provides theoretical analyses, research findings, and descriptions of diagnostic and therapeutic approaches in relation to a wide range of clinical problems, amply illustrated with case material. Guidelines are provided for clinicians wishing to employ methods derived from the theory, such as the repertory grid technique. The author is highly respected in the field and has employed PCT in his clinical research and practice for the past twenty years.

Part I

Personal construing: its nature and assessment

The handbook of clinical procedures which George Kelly produced for his students at the clinic which he directed in Kansas, after twenty years of refinement, developed into what Fillmore Sanford, his editor, termed ‘an extensive exploration into a strange new land of personality theory and clinical practice’ (Kelly, 1955, p. xvii). Today, some thirty-five years later, Kelly’s theory may not appear much less strange to many clinicians and students. The first chapter in Part I will therefore provide an introductory guide to what may still be unfamiliar territory for some readers, a reminder of the basic concepts of the theory for those who are more familiar with it, and a preliminary discussion of the personal construct theory perspective on optimal and disordered functioning. In Chapter 2, assessment techniques employed by personal construct theorists will be presented, and discussion of the findings of research employing these techniques with ‘normal subjects’ will provide further indications of characteristics of the construing of the optimally functioning person, with which construing in psychological disorder may then be compared.

Chapter 1

The theory

Many a reader has fallen by the wayside between pages 1 and 1197 of George Kelly’s The Psychology of Personal Constructs (1955), the two-volume magnum opus which set out the new psychology that he had fashioned out of his attempts to systematise his clinical practice. This is perhaps due not so much to the length of this first statement of personal construct theory as to the unfamiliarity of the terms in which it is couched. Although at first sight it may appear that, in the fashion of some personality theorists, this was an attempt to produce a pseudo-scientific language of neologisms, it was due more to the fact that Kelly was putting forward an alternative to existing psychologies, the terms and concepts of which he could not borrow as they would come complete with their own networks of implications. Thus, the reader will find ‘no ego, no emotion, no motivation, no reinforcement, no drive, no unconscious, no need’ (Kelly, 1955, p. x, italics in original); and that psychological disorders are classified in terms of the way in which the client makes sense of his or her world rather than using conventional diagnostic categories. When familiar terms, such as hostility, guilt, anxiety, and role, are used, they afford little comfort to the reader as they are generally defined in novel ways. As will be seen later, such a situation of finding one’s well-tried concepts wanting is likely to generate anxiety, similar to that experienced by the non-mathematically inclined psychologist who opens a statistics textbook. And one way of avoiding anxiety is to close the book.

The intention of the present chapter is, therefore, to introduce the language, and the way of viewing psychological processes, ‘normal’ and disordered, which will be employed in the ensuing chapters. It will not attempt an extensive exposition of personal construct theory’s fundamental postulate and each of its eleven corollaries since several excellent summaries of the theory, and of research bearing on it, are now available (e.g. Bannister and Fransella, 1986; Adams-Webber, 1979; Mancuso and Adams-Webber, 1982a).

BASIC CONCEPTS

The fundamental postulate and corollaries

The central philosophical assumption underlying personal construct theory is constructive alternativism, which asserts that ‘all of our present interpretations of the universe are subject to revision or replacement’ (Kelly, 1955, p. 15). Every theory, including personal construct theory, is just another such interpretation of the universe which, however tenaciously we may attempt to cling on to it, is likely eventually to make way for a more satisfactory alternative interpretation. This recognition that what we might regard as facts are merely expendable interpretations is perhaps particularly pertinent to the clinical field, where a client’s predicament may be interpreted by clinicians in numerous different ways, where each of these views may be held with intense conviction, and where none of them may match the client’s own perception of his or her situation. How much more productive some of our interchanges with our colleagues and clients might be if we adopted the stance that we are employing alternative constructions of our subject matter rather than that one of us is incorrect.

Kelly’s was not a solipsistic position, inasmuch as he did not deny the existence of a real universe, albeit one that no individual can experience directly. A person’s view of this universe is obtained ‘through transparent patterns or templets which he creates and then attempts to fit over the realities of which the world is composed’ (Kelly, 1955, pp. 8–9); in other words, he construes. Construing is an active, ongoing process in which we each constantly try to give meaning to our world and to predict future events by operating rather like a scientist: making hypotheses, testing them out, and if necessary revising them on the basis of the evidence which we collect. As stated in the words of the ‘Fundamental Postulate’ of personal construct theory, ‘A person’s processes are psychologically channelized by the ways in which he anticipates events’ (Kelly, 1955, p. 47).

Kelly’s ‘Construction Corollary’ went on to state that this anticipation of events occurs through ‘construing their replications’. By searching for repeated themes in our experience of the world, we provide ourselves with a basis for predicting future events. Also central to this process of construing, according to personal construct theory, is the recognition of similarities between some events, or elements of the individual’s world, which at the same time differentiate them from other events. In doing so, we develop a construction system which, in the words of Kelly’s ‘Dichotomy Corollary’, ‘is composed of a finite number of dichotomous constructs’ (italics mine). Each construct can therefore be regarded as bipolar, with one pole, the emergent pole, indicating a way in which at least two elements are similar while its other pole, the implicit pole, defines their contrast with some other element or elements. For example, a psychology student may be in the habit of construing the theorists about whom he reads in terms of the distinction Copyrighted Material ‘psychodynamic–behavioural’. He may fairly readily consign Freud and Jung to the former pole of this construct, contrasting them with Eysenck, whom he regards as behavioural. He may have some difficulty, however, in placing Kelly on this construct dimension; and his attempts to use the construct to make sense of his girl friend’s behaviour may result in his concluding that it is not applicable to her. In personal construct theory terms, the girl friend is outside the range of convenience of this particular construct for this individual and, although Freud, Jung, Eysenck, and Kelly are all within its range of convenience, only the former three fall within its focus of convenience, the area of its maximum usefulness. While the element ‘Kelly’ is outside the focus of convenience of the construct, it is within its context, the elements between which the individual normally uses it to discriminate, and which in this case comprise psychological theorists. Kelly’s (1955, p. 68) view that ‘there are few if any personal constructs which one can say are relevant to everything’ is expressed in the ‘Range Corollary’ of personal construct theory: ‘A construct is convenient for the anticipation of a finite range of events only.’

Although an individual may be able to express the distinction embodied in a construct verbally, as in the ‘psychodynamic-behavioural’ example above, it should be remembered that the verbal labels themselves do not constitute the construct. Further, many of the ways in which people discriminate between events, their constructs, have no verbal labels: some, for example, are of the order of physiological responses. As will be discussed later, the labelling of unverbalised constructs may be a central component of therapy.

If constructs are viewed as bipolar, it follows that each construct is ‘a pathway of movement’ (Kelly, 1955, p. 128), and presents the individual with a choice in that a particular event may be assigned to one pole of it or the other. Kelly’s (1955, p. 64) ‘Choice Corollary’ provides a basis for predicting the particular choice that the individual will make, stating that ‘A person chooses for himself that alternative in a dichotomized construct through which he anticipates the greater possibility for extension and definition of his system’. The choice that is made will therefore be that which appears to the individual to facilitate the anticipation of future events, either by broadening the range of convenience of the construct system or by increasing its internal consistency. It is an elaborative choice. Implicit in Kelly’s notion of choice is the rejection of a hedonistic view of human motivation: a person’s choices are directed not towards maximising his or her level of pleasure but towards maximising the extent to which the world can be predicted. As we shall see later, such a view may make the sometimes puzzling, and sometimes apparently self-destructive, choices of our clients rather more comprehensible.

A person’s constructs are not disparate units but rather, in the words of Kelly’s (1955, p. 56) ‘Organization Corollary’, are organised into ‘a construction system embracing ordinal relationships between constructs’. The relationships of one construct to others in the individual’s construct system will indicate something of the construct’s personal meaning and may allow aspects of the individual’s behaviour to be predicted. For example, if our student’s constructions of being ‘academic’, being ‘boring’, and being ‘socially isolated’ are interrelated, he might be expected not to produce a good examination performance. In stating that the construct system embraces ordinal relationships between constructs, Kelly is suggesting that its organisation is hierarchical, with some constructs subsuming others. Thus, the construct ‘psychodynamic–behavioural’ when applied by a psychoanalyst to different forms of therapy may be subsumed under the construct ‘intensive-superficial’, while itself subsuming the construct ‘classical analytic–neo-Freudian’ under its ‘psychodynamic’ pole. In personal construct theory terminology, ‘intensive–superficial’ is superordinate, and ‘classical analytic–neo-Freudian’ is subordinate, to this individual’s ‘psychodynamic–behavioural’ construct. If the student views all behavioural approaches as superficial, the latter construct may be regarded as regnant over the former. A further distinction which may be made between constructs is in terms of whether they are comprehensive or incidental, subsuming a wide or small variety of events.

The particular relationships between a person’s constructs will determine his or her predictions about the world, and these predictions may or may not be validated by subsequent events. If the person is conforming to Kelly’s model of man-the-scientist, such experiences of validation or invalidation will lead to the strengthening or modification respectively of the predictions and constructions concerned. As stated in the ‘Experience Corollary’ (Kelly, 1955, p. 72), ‘A person’s construction system varies as he successively construes the replications of events’. For example, if our student is confronted by a number of people whom he construes as both academic and interesting, he may modify the relationships between his constructs accordingly. Similarly, if he finds that he has difficulty not only in subsuming Kelly, but also the cognitive and humanistic therapists to whose work he is exposed, with his ‘psychodynamic– behavioural’ construct, he may attempt to develop more adequate constructs to apply to psychological theories and therapies.

It has been questioned by some writers (e.g. Mischel, 1964) whether a construct can ever really be invalidated since events are always construed by the individual, and are likely to be interpreted in a way which is consistent with the system of constructs from which the individual’s predictions were derived in the first place. As Kelly (1955, p. 13) pointed out, however, what saves the individual’s constructions from being purely self-fulfilling prophecies is that ‘he can usually assess the outcomes of his predictions at a different level of construction from that at which he originally makes them’. Also of note is that, although Kelly viewed people as operating like scientists, he was equally clear that they are not always good scientists. Indeed, as we shall see, to a large extent he equated psychological disorder with bad science. The apparent failure of some individuals to modify their construct systems in response to their validational fortunes is not inconsistent with Kelly’s theory, and indeed the theory is able to predict which individuals, and which of their constructs, are most likely to be resistant to invalidation. For example, Kelly’s (1955, p. 77) ‘Modulation Corollary’ states that ‘The variation in a person’s construction system is limited by the permeability of the constructs within whose range of convenience the variants lie’. By a permeable construct, Kelly is meaning one which ‘will admit to its range of convenience new elements which are not yet construed within its framework’ (p. 79). Our student’s ‘psychodynamic-behavioural’ construct, for example, is relatively impermeable, being increasingly inapplicable to psychological theorists and therapies, let alone to people and events in general. If an individual’s superordinate constructs are impermeable, they are unlikely to be able to subsume new constructs, and the individual may therefore show little reconstruing in response to the events with which he or she is confronted.

Not only are people not always good scientists, their construct systems are also not always completely internally consistent. If, for example, the person revises their construing of events, their new constructions may not be entirely compatible with their existing constructions. As Kelly (1955, p. 83) puts it in his ‘Fragmentation Corollary’, ‘A person may successively employ a variety of construction subsystems which are inferentially incompatible with each other’. Therefore, in this corollary Kelly introduces the notion of a construct system being composed of separate subsystems. Our student may, for example, develop a subsystem of constructs concerning psychological theories and another, relatively independent, subsystem more applicable to his girl friend and other people. Any inconsistencies between subsystems may be tolerated if the individual’s superordinate constructs are sufficiently permeable to subsume the inconsistent constructions. Thus, successive, apparently inconsistent, constructions of a person as cruel and kind may be resolved by applying a superordinate construct permeable enough to accommodate the notion that ‘you have to be cruel to be kind’ (Bannister and Fransella, 1986, p. 17). If permeable superordinate constructs are not available, the individual may employ various strategies in an attempt to cope with incompatibilities between constructions. However, as we shall see, these strategies are themselves not without their problems and, used to the extreme, may be the basis of a psychological disorder.

It will now be apparent that, as Kelly’s (1955, p. 55) ‘Individuality Corollary’ states, ‘Persons differ from each other in their construction of events’. The differences in people’s behaviour in a particular situation may therefore be explained by the fact that they are viewing the situation differently. However, especially within a particular cultural group, there also tends to be a marked degree of similarity in various aspects of construing and therefore of behaviour. This issue is addressed by Kelly’s (1955, p. 90) ‘Commonality Corollary’, which asserts that ‘To the extent that one person employs a construction of experience which is similar to that employed by another, his psychological processes are similar to those of the other person’. Given that our clients’ behaviour generally departs from cultural norms in some respects, the clinician who adopts a personal construct theory approach will attempt to gain an understanding of the individualistic ways of construing the world which are likely to underlie the client’s behaviour. In thus attempting to view the world through the client’s eyes, the clinician is laying the basis for a constructive social interaction with the client for, as Kelly’s (1955, p. 95) ‘Sociality Corollary’ states, To the extent that one person construes the construction processes of another, he may play a role in a social process involving the other person’.

New corollaries

Although there has been very little modification of Kelly’s basic theory by later personal construct psychologists, some writers have proposed new corollaries in areas where the theory is not extensively elaborated, such as social interaction and the early acquisition of constructs.

For example, drawing upon the Sociality Corollary, Thomas (1979) has formulated a ‘Self-awareness Corollary’ and a ‘Social Awareness Corollary’. The former states that ‘To the extent that a person construes his own constructions of experience, he or she acquires consciousness. To the extent that a person construes his or her own processes of construction he or she acquires more complete awareness of themselves as a person’ (p. 53, italics in original). The Social Awareness Corollary asserts that ‘The forms in which a person construes his or her constructions of social interactional processes will condition their ability to consciously influence their processes of interaction with others’ (p. 62). Thomas has also been concerned to apply personal construct psychology to social systems, and has proposed a ‘Complementality Corollary’ for this purpose. This states that ‘When people share in a common pool of events including each other, but by virtue of their position sample these events differently, their constructions of experience will develop to complement each other. The complementation will produce a social system which exhibits greater complexity of stable organisation than exists in the constructions of any individua...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half Title page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of figures and tables
• Preface
• Part I Personal construing: its nature and assessment
• Part II Construing in psychological disorder and its treatment: a review of research
• Part III Clinical applications of personal construct psychology
• References
• Index