Qualitative Grids

[NB Procter & Winter, 2020, Chapter 11 for an update on this topic].
Personal Construct Psychology, with its stress on Reflexivity, is ideally suited to aid clinicians and other practitioners in the business of Reflective Practice. The chapter outlines the theory and methods including Qualitative Grids and Bowties which can be utilised in reflective practice and supervision.

Qualitative Grids are powerful tools for mapping interpersonal construing and provide a new method of interviewing, research and intervention into social situations. This paper introduces some of their forms after discussing the theoretical framework from which they are derived. Although they are based within Personal and Relational Construct Psychology, they can be used within any theoretical approach interested in the study and intervention into human relationships. Kelly’s sociality corollary is a deeply heuristic formulation which presages many similar concepts in contemporary use such as theory of mind and mentalization. But the corollary is open to critique and further elaboration. As originally stated, it is restricted to the construing of one other person or position in a relationship. This enables us to elaborate the Relationality Corollary that includes a person’s construing of relationships and interactions with two or more others, giving us a deeper understanding of group situations. This involves developing a conception of different levels of interpersonal construing. These can be nicely captured using Qualitative Grids and an understanding of this helps the interviewer in designing the grid form suitable for the task in hand.

RESUMEN Elpresentetrabajo aborda eltema delasrelacionesintrafamiliares desde unaperspectives constructivista. Partiendo de la nocidn kelliana de constructos personates, el autor extiende el concepto a los constructosfamiliares, entendiendopor ello la trama de signiflcados compartidos o no dentro de un grupo familiar. Se examina la dindmica del sistema de constructosfamiliaresy sedetallan diferen-tes metodos de registro de los constructos quegobiernan las relacio-nesy acetones dentro de unafamilia. Se exponen varios ejemplos clinicos defamiliasy los diagramas de las construcciones de sus diferentes integrantes. Finalmente, se aborda la cuestidn epistemoldgica y se concluye proponiendo esta perspectiva como modo de aportar a una psicologia etica, quepueda llenar el vacio moral de la sociedad actual Palabras clave: constructos personates • sistema de constructos familiares • terapia familiar-psicologia etica

The concept of the Construct, originated by George Kelly, with its dialectical nature of meaning, is a highly original contribution to modern psychology and a powerful unit of analysis which can be used to throw light on the construing of individual persons as well as of groups, institutions, cultures and societies.

My own work has developed the concepts of family construct and the family construct system in which the family members’ positions are ranged in agreement and opposition to each other. This picture can be applied as well to the internal set of selves or roles that an individual can take up as described by Miller Mair in his Community of Selves. In extreme cases a person can experience dissociation between these selves in what has been described as dissociative identity disorder or dual personality. We will look at situations in which these patterns can be mapped using Qualitative Grids, in particular the Perceiver Selves Grid.

Working with children and young people in a CAMHS setting including engaging the family, setting and materials, asking about the child or young person's interests, working with their constructs, qualitative grids, and a list of questions useful in this context.

This chapter is based on a qualitative study which used Perceiver Element Grids (Procter, 1996, 2002) to explore interpersonal construing and interactions between fathers and sons, where the son has a diagnosis of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). The chapter focuses on an in-depth analysis of the interviews with one family.

In 2008, we heard that the next International Conference on Personal Construct Psychology was to be held on the Island of San Servolo in the Lagoon of Venice. Relishing the opportunity to enter literary and historical dreams conjured up by the name of the City, we discovered that the poets Shelley and Byron had visited a friend incarcerated in the Asylum on that very island nearly two hundred years before, at least according to a fine poem by Shelley called “Julian and Maddalo” (1818). Julian thinks of how he might have helped him, outlining an early description of psychotherapy.

Instructions for a useful method of working with teams, groups or families consists of a Perceiver Element Grid (Procter, 2014), a Qualitative Grid in which people are asked to enter their goals for a piece of consultation in the boxes in the Grid. Specifically, the goals are how they would like all members of the group to be able to see each other and themselves after a period of useful change. The method quickly generates a large number of the group's own positive ideas. This solution focussed method can bypass too much consideration of the conflictual material which has led the group to require consultation. The method can also be used to evaluate qualitatively the change that occurs by repeating the method at the end of the intervention, or in the interim.

It is often difficult for youth to recognize and share their construct systems let alone to discuss how these systems guide their thoughts and behaviours. The purpose of this methodological article is twofold: Firstly, it aims to present and detail four interview techniques we adapted from Personal Construct Psychology, to use in a physically co-located or in an online approach, with 42 participants between 16 and 24 years-old from a variety of North American and European countries affected by the Syrian refugee influx; secondly it presents a five-step approach to data analysis, with the aim to develop an in-depth understanding of the participants' construct systems. Our objective was to explore how this youth construed online interactions about the Syrian refugee crisis and how they anticipated the influence of social media content on the resettlement of Syrian refugees in host countries.

In these thoughtful essays, clinical psychologist and psychotherapist Miller Mair reveals a distinctive voice with which he broadens the field of psychology to include topics well beyond the traditional confines of the discipline: themes arising from a serious consideration of philosophy, religion, the arts and literature. In retrospect we can see that, with Personal Construct Psychology as his starting point, he went on to initiate what have become vital trends in contemporary psychotherapy – a concern with the conversational, narrative and dialogical aspects of human life – focussing on those conversations between the voices of our internal “selves”: A must-read for any student and practitioner of psychotherapy and counselling, from whatever persuasion.
Professor Harry Procter PhD, University of Hertfordshire

This paper grows out of a workshop conducted at the XVI International Congress on PCP, Columbus, Ohio in July 2005. Its intention is to show how Qualitative Repertory Grids (Procter, 2002) are useful in mapping construing in a family. Three types of grid are illustrated: the Perceiver-Element grid (PEG), the Event-Perceiver Grid (EPG) and the Perceiver-Construct Grid (PCG). Byron’s play, “Cain: a Mystery” (1821) is used as a case example.

It is often difficult for youth to recognize and share their construct systems let alone to discuss how these systems guide their thoughts and behaviours. The purpose of this methodological article is two-fold: Firstly, it aims to present and detail four interview techniques we adapted from Personal Construct Psychology, to use in a physically co-located or in an online approach, with 42 participants between 16 and 24 years-old from a variety of North American and European countries affected by the Syrian refugee influx; secondly it presents a five-step approach to data analysis, with the aim to develop an in-depth understanding of the participants’ construct systems. Our objective was to explore how this youth construed online interactions about the Syrian refugee crisis and how they anticipated the influence of social media content on the resettlement of Syrian refugees in host countries.

PCP has been well elaborated socially from Kelly’s original writings onwards. The notions of the construct and construct system can be applied to the ubiquitous social and discursive polarities that surround us in society and culture as well as to individual meaning systems. This helps break down the unhelpful polarization between the individual and the social in psychology and other disciplines. Both construing in interpersonal relationships and groups and the dialogical processes within the individual are interactive and conversational in form. The Sociality Corollary is critiqued and extended to better address interpersonal construing in multi-person situations. Three levels of interpersonal construing are described – the monadic, dyadic and triadic. Qualitative grids are introduced as powerful tools for mapping and intervening in construing in social situations. Relational construct psychology delivers a broader vision and application in both psychological and ethical considerations.