UNDERSTANDING OUR OWN PSYCHOLOGICAL WORLD
Personal construct theory
To examine how individuals view the world, George Kelly (1905–67) developed personal construct theory. In contrast to the psychoanalytic emphasis on the person as a victim of unconscious desires and impulses, this humanistic theory portrays people as active hypothesis-generators. Personal construct theory treats the individual as her own personal scientist, one who is actively aware of how her own psychological world is constructed and construed. By understanding how the individual perceives the world, we can anticipate how they will behave within it and understand their reactions to events. According to Kelly, trait theories (see below) try to locate the individual on the personality theorists’ dimensions, whereas personal construct theory looks at how people see and align events according to their own personal dimensions. Kelly basically took the view that we are all scientists – so each individual is continually categorizing, interpreting, labelling and judging himself and his world. Each of us generates c onstructs and hypotheses, which then help us to anticipate and control events in our lives. The subjective nature of reality Consistent with this is the notion that we cannot know what another person really means when they say that they are in love or that they are unfriendly. We can only begin to know by relating what they say to their behaviour. Kelly also proposed the notion of constructive alternativisim – the idea that there is no reality, that reality is only what we perceive it to be. This comes from the observation that while we may not always be able to change events, we can always construe them differently. Different people may choose to perceive an event in different ways, which allows for different courses of action. For Kelly, part of the therapeutic process was to help the client find appropriate or useful constructs of events, rather than simply being concerned with diagnosis and categorization. Kelly saw the individual as being capable of enacting many different roles and engaging in continuous change. In his terms, a ‘role’ is an attempt to see another person through that person’s own constructs. To enact a role, your behaviour must be guided by your perception of the other person’s viewpoint. Kelly used role-playing as a therapeutic technique to help people gain new perspectives, and to find more convenient ways of living. Explaining negative emotions Kelly also tried to explain why people experience certain negative emotions. Anxiety, he suggested, occurs when our construct system provides no means for dealing with an experience. This can occur when we start a new job or have to deal with a person we do not understand. Guilt results from discrepancy between our ideal self and our action. So you feel guilty when you do something that is discrepant with the kind of person you would like to be, or thought you were.
Personal construct theory
To examine how individuals view the world, George Kelly (1905–67) developed personal construct theory. In contrast to the psychoanalytic emphasis on the person as a victim of unconscious desires and impulses, this humanistic theory portrays people as active hypothesis-generators. Personal construct theory treats the individual as her own personal scientist, one who is actively aware of how her own psychological world is constructed and construed. By understanding how the individual perceives the world, we can anticipate how they will behave within it and understand their reactions to events. According to Kelly, trait theories (see below) try to locate the individual on the personality theorists’ dimensions, whereas personal construct theory looks at how people see and align events according to their own personal dimensions. Kelly basically took the view that we are all scientists – so each individual is continually categorizing, interpreting, labelling and judging himself and his world. Each of us generates c onstructs and hypotheses, which then help us to anticipate and control events in our lives. The subjective nature of reality Consistent with this is the notion that we cannot know what another person really means when they say that they are in love or that they are unfriendly. We can only begin to know by relating what they say to their behaviour. Kelly also proposed the notion of constructive alternativisim – the idea that there is no reality, that reality is only what we perceive it to be. This comes from the observation that while we may not always be able to change events, we can always construe them differently. Different people may choose to perceive an event in different ways, which allows for different courses of action. For Kelly, part of the therapeutic process was to help the client find appropriate or useful constructs of events, rather than simply being concerned with diagnosis and categorization. Kelly saw the individual as being capable of enacting many different roles and engaging in continuous change. In his terms, a ‘role’ is an attempt to see another person through that person’s own constructs. To enact a role, your behaviour must be guided by your perception of the other person’s viewpoint. Kelly used role-playing as a therapeutic technique to help people gain new perspectives, and to find more convenient ways of living. Explaining negative emotions Kelly also tried to explain why people experience certain negative emotions. Anxiety, he suggested, occurs when our construct system provides no means for dealing with an experience. This can occur when we start a new job or have to deal with a person we do not understand. Guilt results from discrepancy between our ideal self and our action. So you feel guilty when you do something that is discrepant with the kind of person you would like to be, or thought you were.
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