ABSTRACT
The clinical setting invites one to engage in just as rigorous thinking as any scientific laboratory, but it presents its issues in different, and often more baffling, forms. All scientific methods emphasize observation; and some forms of communication, at least, may be considered as forms of observation. The clinical method emphasizes in particular the communication between the client and the clinician. In contrast with statistical approaches to psychology—except, perhaps, factorial analysis—the clinical method involves the formation of new constructs as one goes along. The clinical method is often characterized by its concern with these nonlanguage types of personal constructs. The simplest, and probably the most clinically useful type of approach to a person’s personal constructs, is to ask him to tell us what they are. It is hard to persuade some psychologists that such a guileless approach will work.
