ABSTRACT
Controlled elaboration of the complaint enables the clinician to circumvent some of the hazards that inhere in letting the client ramble on and on about his troubles. Most therapeutic elaboration starts with an elaboration of the complaint or of something which corresponds to a complaint. Frequently the client’s behaviour expresses a complaint that he does not explicitly define in words. Sometimes the trend of events, as for example those of a disease or aging process, causes the clinician to be concerned about complaints that may arise in the future. The complaint is a matter of construction, and usually a highly personalized construction at that. To try to impose the parents’ construction upon the client at the outset of treatment is to miss the whole point of the psychology of personal constructs. The therapist, then, should be careful to make it clear that he understands that the complaint lodged by the parents is a personalized sort of thing.
