Personal Construct Theory

Personal construct theory provides the underpinning theoretical framework for my approach as it offers a coherent account of each individual's self theory or personal construct system. Within personal construct theory each person is construed as having a foundation of beliefs that influence their feelings and actions, created as we grow up they are not always in our conscious thoughts but they will always influence how we understand ourselves, others, events and the world in general. These early self theories develop in childhood from the feedback we receive from others and our personal meaning making process and they are not necessarily reviewed, evaluated and elaborated as we become adults.

For example, a teacher may have told us we were hopeless at maths, or we may have come to that conclusion ourselves in primary three and never re-evaluated it. In the present we avoid situations that involve numbers, statistics, etc based on the historical evaluation of a seven year old. Personal Construct Theory seeks to identify beliefs and values, to evaluate how relevant they are in the present, to consider what else could be a viable construct/belief and then to experiment with alternatives. The goal for a psychologist employing personal construct theory is to try to subsume (understand) how the other person construes, to view the world through their belief system and so identify where change might be possible.

Some constructs have more impact on a person's meaning making system and these are called super-ordinate constructs. They are linked to most of the other constructs and are frequently referred to when the individual tries to make sense of their experience. Sometimes two or three super-ordinate constructs are employed as key ways of making meaning a bit like putting on glasses with a coloured lens, depending on the colour of the lens you will experience the world in a certain way. When we speak with other people we cannot assume that their meaning systems are necessarily similar to our own. The people we have the most difficulty with will probably have very different meaning systems to us, that is, they are viewing the situation through different coloured lenses.

The Exploring Possibilities programme translates theory into practice so that participants increase their understanding of the role of self theories in the process of change. It employs repertory grids to identify core beliefs about self in the profiles and then offers coaching sessions to use the Possibilities Cycle to consider alternatives, elaborate beliefs and values and to make meaningful and effective changes.