Understanding Individual Through the PCP Approach

"I keep six honest serving-men

(They taught me all I knew;

Their names are What and Why and When

and How and Where and Who...."
~ Rudyard Kipling ~

In the area of PCP we often ask ourselves;

• What are we trying to understand about an individual?
• Why are we trying to understand them?
• When do we need to try and understand them?
• How do we try and understand them?
• Where do we try and understand them?
• Who are we trying to understand?

About PCP

Personal Construct Psychology (PCP) is an intergrated and comprehensive psychological theory of human experience and behaviour that was invented by Professor George Kelly (1955), an American Psychologist. Kelly's first degree was in mathematics and physics and he planned to have a career as an engineer. He also had a degree in education, but his PhD was in Psychology. The Psychology of Personal Construct (1955) set out the theory of personal constructs. PCP is probably unique in having its underlying theory set out specifically and completely in one work, from the outset. PCP unusually has its own methods which are firmly based in personal construct theory. The Repertory Grid, In particular, has proved to be popular and adaptable methods of finding out how people "construe".

Kelly was working on creating PCP during the heyday of behaviourism and when psychodynamic theories were also still influential. Both of these offer the prospect of little control for the individual but kelly didn't believe either that thing were done 'to us' or that we were subject to mysterious internal 'forces'. His interests was in the 'general processes' by which people make sense of their world and navigate their way through it. As we experience the world and everything in it, we abstract out own meanings and then impose those meanings on our next experience. The name he gave to these processes was 'contruing', which involves applying constructs (at a very low level of awareness) (Kelly, 1955).

Here are some examples of constructs:

• Kind vs Cruel
• Happy vs Depressed
• Loyal vs Unworthy
• Expensive vs Cheap
• Friendly vs Miserable
• Selfish vs Concerned about other

Do you notive anything? Different people have different view of the opposite constructs such as people have to views is either they become loyal or feel unworthy (rather than disloyal or traitorous or seditious or deceitful)

Kelly (1955) stated that we can't understand something unless we constrast something with the opposite meaning of it. There can be no 'good' without knowing what is 'not good'. In short, Constructs are bi-polar (contain two opposite poles of meaning).

One of the key feature in PCP is that it is Reflexive (Bannister, 2003).
"Reflexivity, is a bedrock assumption of personal construct theory if you try to use the language, terms and assertions of construct theory you must accept that they are as applicable to you as they are to your subjects, your patients and the world in general."
"There are not two languages, two psychologies, one for them and one for me, there is one psychology for all of us". (Bannister, 2003)

Constructs are connected together in a hierarchy, with some being more important (superordinate) than others (subordinate). Although we can change our constructs (we are all capable of 'reconstruing') change can be difficult especially if changing one constuct means changing lots of others in our construct system.

What do constructs do for us?
- They allow us to anticipate events/make predictions/create hypotheses.
- Gives us 'control' over how we perceive people, situation and things, especially when we know something about PCP.

The link to behaviour:
Kelly's model of the person is "Person the Scientist" i.e we all have theories about ourselves, others, the world.
Our 'Theories' are our personal constructs. Our 'hypotheses' come from applying our theories (our personal constructs) to the events with which we are confronted. Our 'behaviour' is the way in which we test out our hypotheses. As Kelly says "Behaviour is the experiment". Just as in a scientific experiment, our hypotheses may be validated or invalidated. Behaviour is how we test our construing (our hypotheses).

Some Uses if PCP with Individuals:
Psychotherapy,

Leadership Development,

Management Development,

Job Analysis,

Stress Management,

Coaching & Mentoring,

Conflict Resolution,

Career Counselling,

Academic Research.

Some Uses of PCP with Group:
Organizational attitude surveys

Evaluation of Training Programmes
Team Development
Culture changes with organizations
Intregrating different culture (e.g mergers of companies)
Knowledge management
Construing of Building / equipment / computer software

Market Research
Academic Research
Education and Teacher Development

Rock the Core!
Joe



     Bannister, D. (2003). Kelly versus clockwork psychology. International handbook of personal construct psychology, 33-39.

     Kelly, G. A., & Kelly, G. A. (1955). The psychology of personal constructs (Vol. 2). Routledge.