Chapter 19 Kelly: Psychology of Personal Constructs 581Arlene’s roles as student, employee, and daughter would be considered
peripheral roles. More central to her existence would be her core role. With our
core role, we define ourselves in terms of who we really are. It gives us a sense
of identity and provides us with guidelines for everyday living.
Applications of Personal
Construct Theory
Like most personality theorists, Kelly evolved his theoretical formulations from
his practice as a psychotherapist. He spent more than 20 years conducting therapy
before he published The Psychology of Personal Constructs in 1955. In this sec-
tion, we look at his views of abnormal development, his approach to psychother-
apy, and, finally, his Role Construct Repertory (Rep) Test.
Abnormal Development
In Kelly’s view, psychologically healthy people validate their personal constructs
against their experiences with the real world. They are like competent scientists
who test reasonable hypotheses, accept the results without denial or distortion, and
then willingly alter their theories to match available data. Healthy individuals not
only anticipate events but are also able to make satisfactory adjustments when
things do not turn out as they expected.
Unhealthy people, on the other hand, stubbornly cling to outdated personal
constructs, fearing validation of any new constructs that would upset their present
comfortable view of the world. Such people are similar to incompetent scientists
who test unreasonable hypotheses, reject or distort legitimate results, and refuse to
amend or abandon old theories that are no longer useful. Kelly (1955) defined a
disorder as “any personal construction which is used repeatedly in spite of con-
sistent invalidation” (p. 831).
A person’s construction system exists in the present—not the past or future.
Psychological disorders, therefore, also exist in the present; they are caused neither
by childhood experiences nor by future events. Because construction systems are
personal, Kelly objected to traditional classifications of abnormalities. Using the
Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV-TR) of the Ameri-
can Psychiatric Association (2002) to label a person is likely to result in miscon-
struing that person’s unique constructions.
Psychologically unhealthy people, like everyone else, possess a complex
construction system. Their personal constructs, however, often fail the test of
permeability in one of two ways: They may be too impermeable or they may be
too flexible. In the first instance, new experiences do not penetrate the construction
system, so the person fails to adjust to the real world. For example, an abused
child may construe intimacy with parents as bad and solitude as good. Psychologi-
cal disorders result when the child’s construction system rigidly denies the value of
any intimate relationship and clings to the notion that either withdrawal or attack is
a preferred mode of solving interpersonal problems. Another example is a man seri-
ously dependent on alcohol who refuses to see himself as addicted to alcohol even
as his drinking escalates and his job and marriage disintegrate (Burrell, 2002).