Drawing the Ideal Self (Personal Construct Psychology - PCP)

Quite often people who are beginning their journey as a PCP therapist will want to get an idea of what an initial session might look like. From a PCP point of view, there is no one version of what would be included - every therapist will have their own way of doing it. This is what I usually try to do, so it might give a starting point to a new PCP therapist thinking about what they could do, or would never do. My aim is to stimulate thinking, rather than to say that this is how to go about it. Over time, each therapist will develop their own style of a usual first session.

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References 

Scott Miller: https://www.scottdmiller.com/downloadmeasures

Never, never, never give advice. A paper from Tom Ravenette. Ep.8

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This episode is based on a short summary of the PCP approach to psychotherapy from David Winter. This is in answer to a question often asked when people are coming to the end of their foundation course in PCP: What is the PCP approach in therapy?ReferenceWinter, D. A., Winter, D. A. and Reed, N. (Eds.) (2016). The Wiley Handbook of Personal Construct Psychology. 

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Every day, we make more predictions than we could count. This episode is a reminder that making any prediction involves a lot more construing than is immediately obvious. We need to think about that if we are trying to help someone. Kelly suggests that if we pay attention to what is not being predicted as well as what is, then we have a better chance of understanding their construing.References:Kelly, G.A. (1963). A Theory of Personality. New York: Norton.Ross Green's website is https://livesinthebalance.org/

Tom Ravenette is often thought of as the psychologist who gave us techniques for interviewing children and young people but he was also very hot on the theory of PCP. This is a short section from a paper which gives us another explanation of what Kelly meant by a construct. In order to use PCP in our practice we need to have a sound theoretical knowledge andI think it is always helpful to have another explanation - you might find it validates your current knowledge but maybe that it extends it a little too. 

Reference:

Ravenette, T. (1985). Practitioners who work with children in Ravenette, T. (1999) Personal Construct Psychology in the practice of an Educational Psychologist. A Practitioner’s View. 

This episode is a look at some useful reminders in parts of a conference paper by Peggy Dalton. Unfortunately, Peggy died in 2012 but I was lucky enough to attend some of her PCP workshops. I always left them thinking hard about my work and about PCP theory.  In case you would like to know more about Peggy, and her role in the world of PCP, there is a link to a thoughtful obituary by Mary Frances here: https://www.pcp-net.org/journal/pctp12/frances-dalton12.pdf.Peggy reminds us of the importance of exploring the construing of siblings, and the construing of self though the eyes of siblings. This applies to all of us with siblings, so you can listen with thoughts about how your siblings construing has influenced you, as well as thinking about the people you work with. The PEG is probably the best technique to explore this and you can find the instructions on my website here https://drawingtheidealself.co.uk/resources.I would also recommend Peggy’s book A Psychology for Living, Personal Construct Theory for Professionals and Clients (2005) as a great introduction to PCP.This paper was presented in 1992 so the names she gives to the children mentioned seem quite old fashioned and are not representative of today's population. 

Reference:Dalton, P. (1994). My sister, my brother, myself - sibling factors in the child’s construing of self. in European Perspectives in Personal Construct Psychology. Selected Papers from the Inaugural Conference of the EPCA 1992

Dorothy Rowe is probably somewhere at the top of a list of popular psychology writers. This chapter was written a long time ago but it provides an introduction to her later work. Although she does not explicitly reference Kelly in this work, Rowe was a PCP therapist who wrote in a style that enabled people to understand her work easily.

Reference:

Rowe, D. (1985). Depression is a Prison. In Epting, F. & Landfield, A.W. Anticipating Personal Construct Psychology. Uni. of Nebraska Press, Lincoln and London.

This episode is a great reminder of why we should always explore young people's own views of when we try to understand their problems. Butler and Green explain the value of taking a PCP approach to working with young people but their reasoning and the application of theory applies equally well to adults. Note that they use the term PCT here i.e. Personal Construct Therapy.

Reference:

Butler, R.J. & Green, D. 2007). The Child Within. Taking the Young Person's Perspective by Applying Personal Construct Psychology. 2nd Ed.

Eric Button wrote a summary of Kelly's corollaries in a very accessible way. This was taken from a paper in Personal Construct Theory and Mental Health, (1985). Don't think that because it was a long time ago that it won't be just as useful now! This should be particularly useful for anyone studying PCP theory.

Reference:

Button, E. (1985) Personal Construct Theory: The Concepts. In Button, E. (Ed.) Personal Construct Theory and Mental Health. Croom Helm. (Now out of print but you might find it second hand.)

The Lying Game is a PCP technique developed by J.C. Bright. It is a way of exploring a person's desire for change through inviting them to tell lies about themselves. It could be particularly useful for work with young people. This episode talks through the instructions for the technique. The instructions are not published anywhere other than in The PCP Pocketbook of PCP Techniques. This low cost reference book could also be useful for anyone thinking of carrying out research and wants to know what they could use to explore a person’s construing.

References

Cummins and Moran (2023). The PCP Pocketbook of PCP Techniques. Amazon https://amzn.eu/d/40nfBf3

The Traitors UK https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0db9b2t

https://www.bps.org.uk/psychologist/psychology-behind-traitors

https://www.bps.org.uk/psychologist/traitors-cultural-and-psychological-phenomenon

Hope has been found to be the key to wellbeing and with impacts physical and psychological health. Research has found that it is measurable through questionnaires (links below) and that people can learn to be hopeful. This episode references the research findings of Prof. Rick Snyder, who specialised in Positive Psychology, and Prof. Chan Hellman, Founding Director of the Hope Research Center.

These are useful videos to learn more about hope:

Podcast: Why we need hope, with Chan Hellman, PhD, and Jacqueline Mattis, PhD | Speaking of Psychology https://youtu.be/g5v8e3ZK2Xw?si=FrsPae6EeVKADE6X

TED talk: Chan Hellman: The Science and Power of Hope

https://www.ted.com/talks/chan_hellman_the_science_and_power_of_hope?utm_campaign=tedspread&utm_medium=referral&utm_source=tedcomshare

And a straightforward explanation as a summary

Hope Theory - Make Your Life Better: https://youtu.be/ZuHZhi1B4T4?si=fX5nWpTEsM0rJe8p

Adult Hope Scale

https://backend.fetzer.org/sites/default/files/images/stories/pdf/selfmeasures/PURPOSE_MEANING-AdultHopeScale.pdf

Child Hope Scale

https://ospi.k12.wa.us/sites/default/files/2023-11/hopescale_hys.pdf