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PubMed2001

Affairs of the heart: patients' personal constructions of a cardiac event and their effect on lifestyle change.

The issue of why people do not always make appropriate lifestyle changes in response to a cardiac event has and continues to be of central importance to health practitioners. This paper addresses this issue from the perspective of the lived experience of persons who have suffered an acute myocardial infarction (AMI). The experiences of 10 persons admitted to the coronary care unit (CCU) of a South African clinic were richly described, making use of the grounded theory methodology. These descriptions were then used as a basis for the development of a contextualist theory of the experience of heart attacks. A central feature of the results was that the disease was mainly attributed to stress by the participants. This was in contrast to the explanations offered by the medical profession, who attribute this more to other modifiable risk factors such as smoking, high blood cholesterol, high blood pressure, and lack of exercise. This tension between lay and professional constructions of the aetiology of the condition is deemed to be of import in the recovery process. The paper further alludes to the goodness of fit which exists between the proposed grounded theory and the personal construct theory of George Kelly. The importance of personal constructions of the event is then used as the basis for a proposed intervention process aimed at addressing the difficulties AMI patients' experience in making and sustaining lifestyle changes.

Health Behavior↗
PubMed1985

Personal styles, constructive alternativism and the provision of a therapeutic service.

A series of studies on the 'personal styles' of clients and therapists is reviewed, and their findings are drawn together within the framework of personal construct theory. It is argued that the technical eclecticism of personal construct theory reflects its central philosophical assumption of constructive alternativism; and that a treatment service organized in accordance with this assumption could accommodate therapists of different theoretical persuasions, matching clients and therapeutic conditions in terms of dimensions suggested by the 'personal styles' research.

Attitude of Health Personnel↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Bereavement and personal constructs: old theories and new concepts.

This paper reviews several traditional and current theories regarding the nature of bereavement and argues that conceptualizing grieving in personal construct terms can clarify and extend existing work in this area. In particular, it is contended that a personal construct view of the importance of "core role" (self) structure helps explain Bowlby's theory of "defensive exclusion" of the reality of the death: because an individual's perceived relationship with a significant other helps define his or her core role, loss of the relationship through death directly challenges the most central dimensions of the bereaved person's construct system. Implications of this cognitive theory of bereavement are detailed, and several testable hypotheses are put forward.

Attitude to Death↗
PubMed2001

Complementary therapies and nursing models.

It is suggested that personal construct theory not only has the potential as a model for nursing, but also for complementary therapies, thus allowing complementary therapies or procedures from the therapies and nursing to blend, promoting a seamless integration that enables nurses to offer a wider range of interventions in their nursing care. By coming together in a therapeutic relationship using personal construct theory, it is possible for nurses to enhance the process of healing which is an integral part of nursing care.

Complementary Therapies↗
PubMed1995

Some reflections on the use of repertory grid technique in studies of nurses and social workers.

This paper discusses the repertory grid technique, from its development by George Kelly as a means of demonstrating cognitive/perceptual systems in individuals, as postulated in his Personal Construct Theory, to its use in studies in nursing and social work. The original concept having focused on the uniqueness of, and differences between, individuals' perceptions of the world, in recent years it has been applied to the examination of characteristics within groups. The theoretical basis for this is discussed, with reference to a selection of studies of nurses and social workers, including a small comparative study of psychiatric nurses, general nurses and social workers. The degree to which the findings of these studies may be generalized is discussed. In retrospect, some of the applications are considered to be outside the paradigm of the Personal Construct Theory which underlies the repertory grid technique.

Clinical Competence↗
PubMed1989

Mourning and reminiscence: parallel psychotherapeutic processes for elderly people.

Mourning and reminiscence are therapeutic processes common in therapeutic work with the elderly. However, a theoretical explanation of why they are effective has been lacking. Personal construct theory accounts for both in terms of the search of elderly persons for validation of their construct systems. In this article, this explanation of the parallel psychotherapeutic processes is explored, together with relevant information from the literature on mourning and reminiscence. Therapeutic case studies illustrate the characteristics of the two processes and the relationship between them.

Aged↗
PubMed2002

Goal-setting protocol in adherence to exercise by Italian adults.

A goal-setting protocol, based on research in goal setting and performance and personal construct theory, was tested for its effect on adherence to a new exercise program. The Goal-setting group (n = 50) had significantly less dropout (30%) than the control group (n = 50) (74%). The Goal-setting group also had significantly better attendance (p<.0001). Suggestions for increasing confidence in findings through further research and practical implications of using the protocol to improve exercise maintenance across settings were discussed.

Adult↗
PubMed2006

Exploring parental reactions to the diagnosis of cleft lip and palate.

The birth of an infant with a facial cleft evokes a range of emotions and reactions in parents. During acceptance of a child's disability, parents are said to progress through several stages similar to those responses reported in the bereavement process. This paper describes the process of adapting in terms of personal construct theory, and reports a pilot of the repertory grid technique as a therapeutic tool to elicit parental reactions following diagnosis of cleft lip and palate. Two mothers compared other significant life events to their reactions to the diagnosis of cleft lip and palate. This pilot supported the use of the repertory grid technique as a means to facilitate exploration of parental responses. Comparisons to the bereavement process were evident, although individual reactions or perceptions may differ from those expected. Recommendations are made for a wider research study within cleft lip and palate.

Adaptation, Psychological↗
PubMed1997

Assessing homosexual stress.

The present study was designed to replicate and extend an existing technique for assessing homosexual stress using Personal Construct Theory. In addition to using difference scores between present and homosexual self-ratings on subjects' personal construct rating dimensions to determine homosexual stress, difference scores between ideal and homosexual selves were also studied to determine if this method would represent a more accurate assessment of homosexual stress. Levels of homosexual stress were obtained for each subject from each technique and were correlated with attitudes toward homosexuality. The influence of construct meaningfulness and level of homosexual stress on attitudes toward homosexuality was also explored to determine if higher stress on more meaningful constructs yields more negative attitudes. The results of this study revealed that each stress technique was significantly and equivalently positively correlated with negative attitudes toward homosexuality. Homosexual stress was found to be independent of the meaningfulness measures used but positively correlated with authoritarianism.

Analysis of Variance↗
PubMed1982

Personal constructs and homosexual stress.

This study introduced and elaborated a personal construct theory approach to the assessment of the potential for homosexual threat (homosexual stress). The measure, modified from personal construct research on death threat, was tested with 20 male and 20 female undergraduates. Those individuals who were more stressed by homosexuality were those with more negative attitudes toward homosexuality. Further, those individuals with the most negative attitudes toward homosexuals were those who saw homosexuality as invalidating more important constructs. Males who reviewed homosexuality as more stressful tended to construe homosexuality as a more personally meaningful issue; females showed the opposite tendency. The homosexual stress measure was independent of authoritarianism and was no highly related to religious fundamentalism. It is hoped that this new measure will give researchers a method of assessing the potential for homosexual threat that is both more direct and less obvious than existing face-valid questionnaires.

Attitude↗
PubMed1988

Resisting the stigma of incest: an experiment in personal construct psychotherapy.

This paper describes a psychotherapeutic attempt to help an adolescent girl, incestuously assaulted by her father for over a decade, rebuild a satisfactory sense of self and escape to some degree the debilitating and stigmatizing effects of her experience. The course of events described was primarily determined by the young woman's own sense of what she needed from psychotherapy but was also informed by the theoretical framework of Personal Construct Theory. In terms of methodology the paper is a personal account of a personal experience and draws on a narrative rather than experimental tradition in clinical psychology. The paper ends with an uncertain picture of outcome and prognosis with which most clinicians will be familiar.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1989

[Internal medicine and psychosomatic medicine between dualism and monism].

This paper investigates the possibility that psychosomatics could overcome the dualistic concept of a human being divided into mind and body. According to S. Freud's theories about the individual uniqueness and to G. A. Kelly's personal construct theory, the authors try to determine a monistic concept of the human being also from the clinical standpoint.

Humans↗
PubMed2001

A critical review of the validity of ego development theory and its measurement.

Loevinger's (1976) theory of ego development represents an important and original approach to understanding personality development. More than 20 years have elapsed since the last substantial critical review of the validity of the theory and its measurement (Loevinger, 1979). Our article provides an updated critical review of the theory by reviewing the considerable body of research that has accumulated over the past 20 years. This review addresses the construct, predictive, and discriminant validity of ego development theory and the Washington University Sentence Completion Test (WUSCT; Loevinger & Wessler, 1970; Loevinger, Wessler, & Redmore, 1970) as its measurement. We conclude that there is substantial empirical support for the conceptual soundness of ego development theory and the WUSCT.

Ego↗
PubMed2004

Bridging the idiographic-nomothetic divide in ratings of self and others on the Big Five.

Recent discussions of the idiographic-nomothetic debate were initially reviewed in this paper. Three important issues stemming from this debate were then expounded within the context of Personal Construct Theory and evaluated in an empirical study. Participants were required to rate themselves and people they knew on 25 marker items for the Big Five personality traits and on 12 of their own unique personal constructs. The ratings were analyzed using a number of novel statistical methods, including a simple type of confirmatory factor analysis and an informative graphing procedure. Results indicated that at least half of the statistical information derived from the idiographic, personal construct ratings was unique when compared to ratings on the nomothetic Big Five items. The implications of these methods and results for person-centered and trait conceptualizations of personality were discussed.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1989

Constructive integration of learning theory and phenomenological approaches to biofeedback training.

Two major sources of theoretical development for biofeedback as an intervention paradigm are considered. An integration of cognitive learning theory approaches to the potential regulation of autonomic processes in an information-processing framework and the phenomenological information-processing approach of Kelly's personal construct theory suggest a new methodological paradigm for biofeedback as a tool of psychotherapeutic intervention, especially for the discipline of behavioral medicine. Biofeedback is reconstructed as a sequence of allocating attention to automatic cognitive processes until cognitive control has been mastered. This sequence is also seen as a circumspection-preemption-control cycle that Kelly (1955) suggested was essential to all problem solving. In light of Kelly's fundamental assumptions regarding the nature of constructs, it is suggested that controlled processing approaches to biofeedback require the biofeedback trainee to investigate both ends of psychophysiological dichotomies instead of demonstrative constructs of traditional biofeedback methodology. Other psychotherapeutic techniques are reviewed to validate this new theoretical approach. Finally, treatment within this paradigm is discussed as a recircumspection of relevant constructs that were routinized during the alarm reaction phase of Selye's general adaptation syndrome.

Biofeedback, Psychology↗
PubMed1978

A critique of the clinical-personological approach to idiographic personality study.

Idiographic research occupies an accepted position in personological study and clinical psychology. This review critically examines one such method of investigation, the clinical-personological approach, which relies on inductive inference and attempts to provide description at the level of the "whole person." The data base is essentially clinical, psychosocial and psychometric, and information integration is achieved through "convergent validation." The approach was criticized on three grounds: (a) level of description is only at a single level, ie., the general; (b) the data base is limited to grosser system attributes and is typically of low reliability and validity; and (c) inductive inference formulation is unduly susceptible to influence by chance factors, and attempts to validate the hypothesis are rare. Of the alternative approaches, Personal Construct Theory appears a promising avenue, but is also open to criticism.

Humans↗
PubMed2006

A psychoanalytic understanding of the desire for knowledge as reflected in Freud's Leonardo da Vinci and a memory of his childhood.

The author offers an understanding of the psychoanalytic notion of the desire for knowledge and the possibility of attaining it as it fi nds expression in Freud's Leonardo da Vinci and a memory of his childhood. This understanding has not been explicitly articulated by Freud but may be considered integral to psychoanalysis' Weltanschauung as shaped by Freud's legacy. It emerges through an attempt to explain basic shifts, contradictions, inconsistencies and tensions that become apparent from a close reading of the text of Leonardo. Articulating this implicit understanding of knowledge provides the grounds for a stance on epistemology that is integral to psychoanalysis and relevant to contemporary psychoanalytic concerns on this topic. This epistemology focuses on the necessary involvement of passion, rather than detachment, in the search for knowledge and views the psychoanalytic aim of self-knowledge as a derivative, and most immediate expression, of a broader and more basic human drive to know.

Art↗
PubMed1993

An appraisal of constructivist psychotherapies.

Predicated on a postmodern epistemology, constructivist theories emphasize the proactive, self-organizing features of human knowing and their implications for psychotherapy. This article outlines the potential contributions of 4 clinical lineages sharing a constructivist philosophy--personal construct theory, structural--developmental cognitive therapy, narrative reconstruction, and constructivist family therapy--and briefly reviews emerging trends in psychotherapy research compatible with this perspective. Although current constructivist approaches confront problems as well as prospects, they represent a growing force within psychotherapy, contributing to the sophistication of psychological theory, the diversification of clinical research, and the extension of therapeutic technique.

Adaptation, Psychological↗