Dear Mr. S Freud,
My name is George Kelly, and I am writing to you to enlighten you about my new theory - personal construct psychology. Individual construct psychology is different from the current psychological theories. For me, man is not a battlefield, as proposed in the psycho-analytic thesis, or a ping pong ball with memory, as presented in the learning theory. For me, man is a scientist who is everlastingly seeking to try and guess what is to follow by string and reconstructing his universe. My approach developed from my interest in people who don't support the general findings. I wanted to know why. I discovered it is because each individual has their unique method of construing events they experience.
My theory is guided by the notion that individuals attempt to make sense of the world around them and anticipate their future experiences by formulating and revising their constructs. Personal constructs are goggles through which individuals construe their environment to interpret situations. Each individual's constructs are unique to them. When we construe, we create bi-polar constructs, e.g. good-bad. The emergent pole of the construct is what the individual construes, and the contrast pole is what they perceive as opposite to the emergent pole. Constructs enable us to anticipate and make predictions; no man has ever reacted to a situation only to what he construes the case to be. As the universe constantly changes, individuals continuously revise their construct system as they encounter new experiences that may validate or invalidate their current constructs or potentially form a new construct. Personal construct theory states that man organizes concepts into an intricate hierarchical web unique to every person.
Personal construct psychology believes people differ from each other in their construction of events due to differences in anticipation of the same events, not because they have experienced different events. Therefore, personal construct theory elucidates how two people may react wholly differently in undistinguishable situations. Furthermore, personal construct systems have a limited range of convenience as not all elements will fit all constructs. If something is not A, it must be not A isn't true in psychological terms. For example, many would struggle to place bananas on the trustworthy, untrustworthy construct as it doesn't come under the range of convenience of the construct.
An advantage of personal construct psychology is that it possesses a more extensive range of convenience when applied than other existing theories. Alternative theories tend to become vaguer and hazier as they depart from their focus on convenience. The emphasis of the comfort of personal construct theory is the field of interpersonal relationships and how people construe each other. This focus can be applied to all individuals, leading to the theory standing strong as the range of convenience is extended.
The fundamental postulate...
