ABSTRACT

This chapter focuses on the basic task of the psychotherapist: elaboration of the construct system in which his client’s difficulties are anchored. For one thing, when one asks the client to elaborate his construction system one raises the psychotherapeutic issues to a higher level of abstraction. From the standpoint of the psychology of personal constructs it is important that the client himself choose what is a relevant answer to the question. Sometimes it is more feasible to try to produce personality readjustments by attacking the symptoms than by going directly after the basically faulty structures. The psychology of personal constructs lays stress on the need for alertness both to the various ways different clients construe their world and to the varying ways any given client will construe his world during a course of therapy. Enactment is strong medicine. It may bring the client so abruptly face to face with interpersonal realities that he cannot handle them.