Lesson 7 Graded Assignment: Personal Construct Theory-George Kelly’s Personal Construct Theory

As George Kelly’s Personal Construct Theory originates in philosophy, George Kelly was originally known as George Henry. George Kelly’s Personal Construct Theory derives from personal construct psychology. George Kelly’s Personal Construct Theory is also known by more of its colloquial name ‘constructivism’. George Kelly’s Personal Construct Theory was developed over the latter half of the 1950s, taking up his post at Cornell University during 1955. George Kelly’s Personal Construct Theory unifies psychoanalysis and behaviorism to provide an explanation for personality development, psychopathology, therapy, creativity and free-will with reference to the constructive nature of individual thought processes. George Kelly’s Personal Construct Theory focuses on how people observe phenomena in their everyday life. George Kelly believed that humans are complex observers when it comes to analysing their surroundings or even their own thoughts and feelings. George Kelly’s Personal Construct Theory espoused the idea that people use several different perspectives to analyse one single event, and George Kelly believed that there were four main factors involved in how we consider different events:

People base George Kelly’s Personal Construct Theory on their knowledge of what has happened in similar situations before. George Kelly’s Personal Construct Theory is expected to be successful by ourselves because of our previous experiences of performing it successfully. George Kelly’s Personal Construct Theory is familiar because we have experienced success with it before or failure which we can learn from. George Kelly’s Personal Construct Theory is unexpected as we do not usually see the results turning out differently than they usually would do if George Kelly’s Personal Construct Theory was applied.

Lesson 7 Graded Assignment: Personal Construct Theory

-George Kelly (1905-1967) devised a theory of how we view ourselves and the world based on what he called “Personal Constructs”, and that our stance on developing those constructs comes from envisioning “The Person as Scientist”. He developed a method of assessing someone’s personal constructs known as the “Rep Test. Please describe each of the two concepts above, and explain how the “Rep Test” uses them. What do you think of applying this theory as a therapeutic method?