ABSTRACT
Personal Construct Psychology (PCP) was originated by the American psychologist George A. Kelly. His two-volume magnum opus appeared in 1955 and further writings were collected posthumously by Maher (1969). The approach has continued to be elaborated in a rich literature to this day (e.g. Fransella, 2003; Neimeyer, 2009; Walker and Winter, 2007; Winter and Viney, 2005). PCP developed out of the pragmatist philosophy of Peirce and Dewey, in which people are seen as involved in a process of inquiry, of making hypotheses and developing an understanding of the world through discovery and experiment. A person is thus like a scientist. Central to Kelly’s approach, therefore, is the notion that the person is constantly responding to the validation or invalidation of his or her hypotheses. Just like scientists in ‘real life’, the experience of invalidation of, and having to change, our ideas is a highly passionate affair. Scientists do not operate on the basis of bland, unemotional progression of testing and refutation but become attached to their theories and can experience joy, anger, distress, despair, and even a sense of annihilation when their theories, perhaps encompassing a lifetime of work, are refuted. So it is with our world views, or ‘core constructs’.
