Personal construct therapy

George Kelly

pp. 244-253

in: Ray Colledge, Mastering counselling theory, Berlin, Springer, 2002

Abstract

George Kelly received a degree in physics and mathematics in 1926 and was later awarded an MA in educational sociology and a B.Ed. He received his doctorate in psychology in the early 1930s and became professor and director of clinical psychology at Ohio State University in 1946. As a result of his training his model of the person is expressed in scientific language, as is his entire theory. His science is based on the philosophy of "constructive alternativism", in which there are no "facts", only support for current hypotheses. Such hypotheses will eventually lead to others as new events occur, but people never learn everything because they are in a constant state of motion and change, like the universe they live in. In fact Kelly sees the person as a form of motion. His approach is about action, prediction and change. Kelly (1969) says that he sat through lecture after lecture in his psychology course watching an endless procession of "Stimulus→ Response" pairs being written on the blackboard and hoping that someone would explain the nature of the arrow in between. No one ever did.