Drawing the Ideal Self (Personal Construct Psychology - PCP)

This episode is a look at some useful reminders in parts of a conference paper by Peggy Dalton. Unfortunately, Peggy died in 2012 but I was lucky enough to attend some of her PCP workshops. I always left them thinking hard about my work and about PCP theory.  In case you would like to know more about Peggy, and her role in the world of PCP, there is a link to a thoughtful obituary by Mary Frances here: https://www.pcp-net.org/journal/pctp12/frances-dalton12.pdf.Peggy reminds us of the importance of exploring the construing of siblings, and the construing of self though the eyes of siblings. This applies to all of us with siblings, so you can listen with thoughts about how your siblings construing has influenced you, as well as thinking about the people you work with. The PEG is probably the best technique to explore this and you can find the instructions on my website here https://drawingtheidealself.co.uk/resources.I would also recommend Peggy’s book A Psychology for Living, Personal Construct Theory for Professionals and Clients (2005) as a great introduction to PCP.This paper was presented in 1992 so the names she gives to the children mentioned seem quite old fashioned and are not representative of today's population. Reference:Dalton, P. (1994). My sister, my brother, myself - sibling factors in the child’s construing of self. in European Perspectives in Personal Construct Psychology. Selected Papers from the Inaugural Conference of the EPCA 1992

Dorothy Rowe is probably somewhere at the top of a list of popular psychology writers. This chapter was written a long time ago but it provides an introduction to her later work. Although she does not explicitly reference Kelly in this work, Rowe was a PCP therapist who wrote in a style that enabled people to understand her work easily. Reference:Rowe, D. (1985). Depression is a Prison. In Epting, F. & Landfield, A.W. Anticipating Personal Construct Psychology. Uni. of Nebraska Press, Lincoln and London.

This episode is a great reminder of why we should always explore young people's own views of when we try to understand their problems. Butler and Green explain the value of taking a PCP approach to working with young people but their reasoning and the application of theory applies equally well to adults. Note that they use the term PCT here i.e. Personal Construct Therapy.Reference:Butler, R.J. & Green, D. 2007). The Child Within. Taking the Young Person's Perspective by Applying Personal Construct Psychology. 2nd Ed.

Eric Button wrote a summary of Kelly's corollaries in a very accessible way. This was taken from a paper in Personal Construct Theory and Mental Health, (1985). Don't think that because it was a long time ago that it won't be just as useful now! This should be particularly useful for anyone studying PCP theory.Reference:Button, E. (1985) Personal Construct Theory: The Concepts. In Button, E. (Ed.) Personal Construct Theory and Mental Health. Croom Helm. (Now out of print but you might find it second hand.)

The Lying Game is a PCP technique developed by J.C. Bright. It is a way of exploring a person's desire for change through inviting them to tell lies about themselves. It could be particularly useful for work with young people. This episode talks through the instructions for the technique. The instructions are not published anywhere other than in The PCP Pocketbook of PCP Techniques. This low cost reference book could also be useful for anyone thinking of carrying out research and wants to know what they could use to explore a person’s construing.ReferencesCummins and Moran (2023). The PCP Pocketbook of PCP Techniques. Amazon https://amzn.eu/d/40nfBf3 The Traitors UK https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0db9b2t https://www.bps.org.uk/psychologist/psychology-behind-traitorshttps://www.bps.org.uk/psychologist/traitors-cultural-and-psychological-phenomenon

Hope has been found to be the key to wellbeing and with impacts physical and psychological health. Research has found that it is measurable through questionnaires (links below) and that people can learn to be hopeful. This episode references the research findings of Prof. Rick Snyder, who specialised in Positive Psychology, and Prof. Chan Hellman, Founding Director of the Hope Research Center. These are useful videos to learn more about hope:Podcast: Why we need hope, with Chan Hellman, PhD, and Jacqueline Mattis, PhD | Speaking of Psychology https://youtu.be/g5v8e3ZK2Xw?si=FrsPae6EeVKADE6XTED talk: Chan Hellman: The Science and Power of Hope https://www.ted.com/talks/chan_hellman_the_science_and_power_of_hope?utm_campaign=tedspread&utm_medium=referral&utm_source=tedcomshare And a straightforward explanation as a summaryHope Theory - Make Your Life Better: https://youtu.be/ZuHZhi1B4T4?si=fX5nWpTEsM0rJe8p Adult Hope Scalehttps://backend.fetzer.org/sites/default/files/images/stories/pdf/selfmeasures/PURPOSE_MEANING-AdultHopeScale.pdfChild Hope Scalehttps://ospi.k12.wa.us/sites/default/files/2023-11/hopescale_hys.pdf

This month, we are going to look at what Kelly meant by ‘accepting' our client. He was focussed on accepting our client’s constructions, and we need to able to do that at the same time as holding our own professional constructions of the client's construing. During this episode I refer to Dr. Ross Green, author of The Explosive Child. He shares his approach and resources on his website for parents/carers and professionals: https://livesinthebalance.org/ .His resources for the Collaborative and Proactive Solutions are free: https://livesinthebalance.org/cps-materials-paperwork/

This episode is a summary of the corollaries. Knowing about them is essential if you are trying to understand the theory of Personal Construct Psychology. A corollary is an implication of a theory, so if the Fundamental Postulate is accepted this means that people DO anticipate events, these 11 corollaries follow on from this. They are the detail of the theory. You might find that this episode is rather dry but in terms of completeness, any person can get the basics of PCP by listening to all the episodes of this podcast.ReferencesKelly (1963) A Theory of Personality. The Psychology of Personal Constructs.Cummins & Moran (2022). A Foundation Course in Personal Construct Psychology: The Coventry Course handbook (Coventry Constructivist Centre Publications on Personal Construct Psychology). Kelly, G.A. (1955 and 1991) The Psychology of Personal Constructs.

Kelly’s Psychology of Personal Constructs is his theory of personality and I thought we would have a few sessions about basic PCP theory. The theory may be new to you, or provide a refresher and I will include Kelly’s own explanations. Some of the terms he uses are not so familiar to today’s population so I will do my best clarify and elaborate in everyday language and provide examples. Why does understanding the theory matter? If you want to understand how to apply the theory to a new experience, or if you want to devise new techniques to understand the people you work with, then understanding of the theory will be helpful. ReferencesKelly (1963) A Theory of Personality. The Psychology of Personal Constructs.Cummins & Moran (2022). A Foundation Course in Personal Construct Psychology: The Coventry Course handbook (Coventry Constructivist Centre Publications on Personal Construct Psychology).

This episode provides my own key messages for PCP therapy, using the introductory chapter of my book, A Beginner's Guide to Personal Construct Therapy with Children and Young People. The principles apply to working with any other age group too.Details of where you can find the book are here: https://drawingtheidealself.co.uk/bookshop.

Creating a timeline is really useful way to explore a problem. Here we think about the kind of questions we might ask a client so we get a better understanding of the development of a problem over time. They key is to be very curious and to ask searching questions gently and the timeline provides a visual guide to that discussion.ReferenceKelly's seven questions are summarised on p.84-5 in Personal Construct Psychology in Pictures. Key aspects of PCP theory - available free rom my website: drawingtheidealself.co.uk.

This episode has a focus on counselling in schools but the principles will also be useful for other counselling work. Truneckova and Viney’s model is laid out nicely in their paper and I summarise it here.References:Deborah Truneckova & Linda L. Viney (2012) Personal construct psychologymodel of school counselling delivery, British Journal of Guidance & Counselling, 40:5, 431-448. https://doi.org/10.1080/03069885.2012.718739 Cummins & Moran (2023) The PCP Pocketbook of Personal Construct Psychology Techniques Moran (2023) PCP in Pictures. Free via drawingtheidealself.co.uk

This episode focuses on construing in dementia and the challenges that presents to the carer, particularly if they are caring for a parent. I refer to a paper by Mike Bender and Sally Robbins who write about the impact of dementia on construing and on the construing system. The implications of changes in the construing of the person and their child are significant.If you work with people who would be described as having difficulties with anger, there is a new lost cost book out from Peter Cummins and Diane Allen at the Coventry Constructivist Centre: A Beginner's Guide to Interpreting Anger using Personal Construct Psychology. It is  available only on Amazon because that keeps our costs to a minimum level and we don't need to make the book more expensive. You can use this link or do a search on Amazon: https://amzn.eu/d/ilpCNc0. ReferencesBender, M. and Robbins, S. (2006). Making sense of dementia Ch. 10 in Caputi, P, (Ed.) Personal Construct Psychology: New Ideas.Mitchell, W. (2009) Somebody I Used to Know.

This episode is about the PCP way of doing a useful therapy session in a one-off session. The evidence for using a single session, or One-at-a-time therapy is that a single session can be helpful. Tom Ravenette has a useful paper on this which I use in this episode but you can also take a look at Windy Dryden’s model.References:Personal construct Psychology and the assessment of young people: the ‘one-off’ interview. Ch. 13 in Ravenette, T. (1999). Personal Construct Theory in Educational Psychology. A Practitioner’s View. Windy Dryden Single Session Therapy on You Tube:https://youtu.be/wIcuOVOABRw?feature=shared https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iT_XmacU83U

The inspiration for this episode came from a BBC Radio 4 programme, The Age of Diagnosis by Suzanne O'Sullivan. The programme is an abridged version of her book. This episode looks at Kelly's definition of disorder, something quite different from current diagnostic manuals. His version is more likely to help us to understand and help the person because it is focussed on their construing and this is something that could change. Kelly said, "Perhaps the proper question is not what is a disorder but where, and the therapist question is not who needs treatment but what needs treatment" (Kelly 1991).Reference: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m00291y8

This episode looks at De Boeck’s (1981) analysis of Kelly's statements about looseconstruing. This is a helpful summary. If you would like to read the paper, it is largely aboutgrids analysis of construing in schizophrenia, so it may not suit everyone.ReferenceVan den Bergh, O., de Boeck, P., and Claeys. W. (1985) Schizophrenia: What is Loose inSchizophrenic Construing? Button, E. (Ed.) Personal Construct Theory & Mental Health.Room Helm,Australia

Kelly’s theory is all about the anticipation of experiences and how we make sense of experiences in the light of our personal construing. A PCP formulation will focus on what is seems to be going on in the person’s construing system. Kelly has six important questions for the therapist to help them to formulate and then uses particular terms to describe what seems to be happening - a reference to the construing system and its constructs. Remember that more than one thing can be going on at a time, and that we would always check out a formulation with the client because we might be missing something. Also note that Kelly does not separate the assessment and intervention because the assessment will always be live - people are likely to offer more relevant information about their construing as they develop a relationship with the therapist. Construing will develop and new constructs and connections will emerge over time, sometimes leading to them being able to explain their experiences and the impact on their construing for the first time. Reference:Kelly, G.A. (1955 and reprinted 1991) The Psychology of Personal Constructs.

This episode introduces the DiS podcast navigator booklet which you can get the link below (it is free). The aim is to help you to find past episodes more easily by sorting them by their topic. The booklet has hyperlinks directly to the podcast episodes on You Tube. The link is: https://BookHip.com/NCWLAVV

This month the episode is about laddering, which came as a request from a listener. A great request because it is an extremely powerful technique so should be used with great care and full attention being paid to the person you are working with. Laddering can very quickly get to aspects of a person’s construing they may not have expressed in words, so the experience can be surprising to them - for good or bad reasons. Learning to use laddering is very important for PCP practitioners because it is a way to explore how the person’s choices in their daily life are connected to their core constructs. This episode looks at two papers on laddering, one by Fransella and one by Walker and Crittenden. Laddering is something that looks and sounds very easy but it requires theoretical understanding to use it well. Kelly proposed that a person has many, many constructs and that they are organised in a hierarchical system. Some constructs will be extremely important to the person - their core constructs. Having an awareness of a person’s core constructs will be very important if we want to understand them better. The authors here describe laddering and pick up some of the common questions about process. Fransella, F. (2003). Some Skills and Tools for Personal Construct Practitioners. Ch. 10 in Fransella, F. (Ed). International Handbook of Personal Construct Psychology. Walker, B., and Crittenden, N. (2012). The use of Laddering: Techniques, Applications and Problems. Ch. 3 in Caputi, P., Viney, L.L., Walker, B., and Crittenden, N. Personal Construct Methodology.

Today is not a usual episode but an invitation to tell me know whether you find the podcast useful and what you’d like to hear about in future.

If we want to be able to help people, we will need to understand their personal construing of the problem. Exploring this with them- finding out about their constructs - will enable us to begin this process. This episode includes a typical referral for an anxious child, with three very different possible constructions of the problem. This is a reminder that construing is personal and individual, and is related to what we make of our experiences. The PCP Pocketbook can be found here: https://amzn.eu/d/7AO5chv

n this episode we will think about Kelly’s definition of hostility applied to an aspect of the recent race riots in the UK. On the whole, as we have experiences, we make adjustments to construing, based on fresh evidence. However, there will be times when, despite all the evidence, we hang on to our current construing. Kelly’s professional or transitional constructs offer potential explanations for where our construing is ‘stuck’. Hostility is one of them. As always, Kelly pays particular attention to the fact that changes in our most important (core) constructs will be a major challenge for us because the implications will be far-reaching.

Have you considered what lies ahead when you retired from working? Whatever you do now, one day that will happen, so it is better to be prepared for it. This month’s episode is a new technique, Drawing the Ideal Retired Person. This is an exploration of the future, aiming to promote a smoother adjustment to that phase of your life. There will also be a step-by-step video on You Tube so you can see the technique in parts, hopefully making it easier to follow. https://youtu.be/0z8htw-sO_Q?si=_ASdbxyXJXjC8g3e 

This episode introduces a new technique to explore the impact of physical health problems through the exploration of personal construing. Concerns about our bodies can be persistent and may be very distressing so understanding what lies behind the distress is important if we want to help someone. The steps of the process are described here but there is also a more detailed video example on my You Tube channel.

This month’s episode will be focussed on time.  I listened to a few things on the radio about time and read some articles which were all very interesting and sparked this episode. I summarise the information from them and think about what Dorothy Rowe had to say about it and a few ideas for exploring a person’s personal constructions.  References All in the mind(Why it is hard to recall 2021) https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m001scxf A sense of time(Can we learn a sense of time?) https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m0003qxf Do we have a sense of time?(Connections between body signals and time perception) https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/w3ct4y3w A stopwatch on the brain's perception of time(Emotions affect awareness of time passing) https://www.theguardian.com/science/2013/jan/01/psychology-time-perception-awareness-research Rowe, D. (1995). Dorothy Rowe’s Guide to Life.

I thought it was time to invite you to have a go at something you could easily use with people you are working with. This involves eliciting constructs, identifying the more important ones and then pyramiding those constructs. You will use fantasy characters or stories that had an impact on you when you were growing up and it does not matter what sort of media they are from - books, TV, film, games etc. The important things is that they are fictional, which I hope will make the exploration suitable for any age.  I have given an example of my own construing working through the technique so that you can hear a real example. I hope you will find that you can try it yourself and then that you might find it useful in your work. If you do, I would be interested to hear how you found it. As always, what you will end up with is a range of constructs but these will be more concrete. The stories I used were: The Wolf and the Seven Young Kids - Grimm’s Fairytales https://sites.pitt.edu/~dash/grimm005.html Little Red Riding Hood - Grimm’s Fairy Tales https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Red_Riding_Hood Snow White - the movie and then the audio version of the film which I had on vinyl. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snow_White_and_the_Seven_Dwarfs_(1937_film) The L Shaped Room - Lynne Reid Banks https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0099469634?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&ref_=cm_sw_r_cp_ud_dp_RC7BHHNN58HBPDSWQ7A9 The Singing Ringing Tree https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Singing_Ringing_Tree The Famous Five - Enid Blyton https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Famous_Five

This episode has an idea you can experiment with as an exploration of yourself. Miller Mair’s Community of Self is an interesting and rather playful way to take a look at yourself as a number of characters engaged in ‘producing’ you. I have taken some excepts from a paper by Mair and if you are interested, it would be worth reading the whole paper for more about the background to it. References: The Community of Self. Ch.8 in Towards a Radical Redefinition of Psychology. The selected works of Miller Mair, by Winter, D. & Reed, N. (2015).   Cummins, P., & Moran, H. (2023). The PCP Pocketbook of Personal Construct Psychology Techniques. Available on Amazon only. Grieg, A. & MacKay, T. (2023). The Homunculi Approach To Social And Emotional Wellbeing. 2nd Edition. 

Happy New Year! This month I have been thinking about the way we might experience being construed by teachers. This is meaningful throughout our lives and can affect the way we construe ourselves. It was sparked by listening to the BBC Radio 4 Life Changing programme which reminded me how important that is:. The episode was from May 2023: Overheard. The programme blub says, “Dr Sian Williams talks to people who have lived through extraordinary events that have reshaped their lives in the most unpredictable ways.” In response to that programme, I thought I would explore how I was construed by teachers. I re-read my secondary school reports and could see connections between how I was construed, how my construing developed and the links with my professional interests. 

This month’s episode will consider how validation is a more useful construct than reinforcement when we wonder why someone made a challenging choice. It also summarises a paper about the impact of wrongful imprisonment on a person. The paper is freely available - details below. A dilemma faced by one such prisoner is used as an example. I have been thinking about that situation ever since I heard about it - it made me think again about my core constructs.  I hope you find it interesting and useful. Please let me know if you do. It helps me to know whether what I am doing makes sense to other people. If you are a regular listener, I would love to know that too. You can email me at [email protected].  Reference Brooks, S.K, Greenberg, N. (2020). Psychological impact of being wrongfully accused of criminal offences: A systematic literature review. Medicine, Science and the Law. 2021;61(1):44-54. doi:10.1177/0025802420949069 

You may be thinking about how you might use PCP in research. This episode features an interview with Dr. Emily Strong, Educational Psychologist, whose research has focussed on children who speak selectively. This is one of the tricky issues to get around, especially when we need to explore a child or young person’s views. The interview with Emily you will hear what she did and what she found through her work. Her thesis is available online and I would encourage you to read it for the research and for the literature review. If you would like to follow up and ask Emily for the resources she uses, see the details below. References Strong, E.V. (2019). We do have a voice: using a Personal Construct Psychology technique to explore how children and young people with Selective Mutism construct their current and ‘ideal’ selves. Unpublished thesis. School of Education, The University of Birmingham. https://etheses.bham.ac.uk/id/eprint/9559/13/Strong2019ApEd%26ChildPsyDVolume1_Redacted.pdf For more information about this technique, please contact Dr Emily Strong: [email protected] [email protected]

Often it can be helpful to go back to the basics of PCP theory and get a clearer understanding than you had first time around. I found a really nice explanation of a construct in Richard Butler’s book. I think he provides a  good summary and I wanted to share it with you. If you already feel secure in your understanding, you might like to hear the way he expresses it and then take some time to consider the way you explain constructs to other people. References Butler, R. (2009). Coming to terms with personal construct theory. Ch. 1 in Butler, R., Reflections in Personal Construct Theory. Wiley-Blackwell Ravenette, T. (1999). Personal Construct Theory in Educational Psychology. A Practitioner’s View. 

This episode is about exploring what the client expects from their counselling sessions. Fay Fransella and Peggy Dalton remind us how important it is to do this early in the counselling relationship and they provide a description of a first session in PCP counselling. I hope you find it useful. Reference Fransella, F., and Dalton, P. (1990). Personal Construct Counselling in Action. Sage. 

Watching the news has been pretty miserable over the last year or so with so many people trying to flee awful situations. I have been thinking a lot about the people who are traumatised by experiences, and about the people who seem to recover well from similar experiences. This is unrelated to an objective assessment of the experience’s awfulness and closely related to their personal construing. Similarly, people can be devastated by common experiences, or by experiences which are not dangerous. The danger lies in the psychological threat of the experience. This month’s podcast is is about Kenneth Sewell’s model for understanding post-traumatic stress and for the components of PCP psychotherapy.  Reference Sewell, K. (2003) An Approach to Post-Traumatic Stress. In F. Fransella (Ed.) The Essential Practitioner’s Handbook of Personal Construct Psychology. John Wiley & Sons. 

This episode explores the difficulty of getting some tasks done and refers to an exercise you can download from my website - drawingtheidealself.co.uk.  The exercise follows a process for exploring your personal construing of the admin tasks you have to do. It is not specific to an age for use (even children have their tasks at school and home), nor to a profession (a homemaker also has many admin tasks). So, I hope it can be used with anyone. Understanding why some tasks are more challenging for you is important to finding your own solutions. The way you construe your work will impact on your construing of the tasks you choose to do first, and those you find more painful. I decided to make this because I know people can feel a lot of guilt (Kelly’s definition is about being aware that you are ‘playing’ a role in a way that makes you feel very uncomfortable - see my podcast episode to learn more about this: Drawing the Ideal Self podcast episode 32). This exercise is designed for you to try alone, promoting your reflection on persistent issues. Hopefully, you might find something that makes your position make more sense and reduce self-criticism. By then end, hope you will be able to find ways forward to address things in your own way, based on your construing. It would be even better to use it in a pair, working to support understanding and growth in each other. 

If you are enjoying learning about Personal Construct Psychology, you may be interested to take it further. This episode has information about some of the possibilities available, some paid and some for free. References Foundation courses Coventry Constructivist Centre Cathy Sparkes and Adele Pile  Claire Morris  Masters course Padua masters course (taught in English)  Quarterly study sessions Coventry Constructivist Centre Constructivist Meet Up videos The George Kelly Society Useful videos Viv Burr - PCP research methods https://youtu.be/SeRv62ugJFc https://youtu.be/YFlwtIaSxjo Dusan Stojnov Using PCP in coaching - 2 videos https://youtu.be/0HDPf2xvZdA https://youtu.be/c7tWbGjpTT4 PCP Education and Training videos https://www.youtube.com/@pcpaeducationandtraining1097/ Journals Personal Construct Theory and Practice Journal of Constructivist Psychology Costruttivismi Rivista Italiana Di Costruttivismo

I thought it might be useful to see how a PCP approach might be useful in exploring the menopause. I found a paper by Foster and Viney describing a group approach. They developed a model of menopause based on a personal construct account of change and informed by women’s meanings and then a brief intervention aimed at tackling the psychological impact of the menopause. Their study is a nice example of how PCP techniques can be used to facilitate reflection, loosening and tightening, resulting in improvements in the way the women felt across a number of measures of wellbeing. References Foster, H. & Viney, L.L. (2006) Ch. 18 in Menopause: The start of a change. Caputi, P., Foster, H. And Viney, L.L. (Eds.) (2006). Personal Construct Psychology: New Ideas. Ravenette, A.T. (1980). A drawing and its opposite: an application of the notion of the ‘construct’ in the elicitation of children’s drawings. Ch. 9 in Ravenette, T. (1999). Personal Construct Theory in Educational Psychology. A Practitioner’s View.  Linda L. Viney & Mary T. Westbrook (1976) Cognitive Anxiety: A Method of Conent Analysis for Verbal Samples, Journal of Personality Assessment, 40:2, 140-150, DOI: 10.1207/s15327752jpa4002_5 Mary T. Westbrook & Linda L. Viney (1980) Scales Measuring People's Perception of themselves as Origins and Pawns, Journal of Personality Assessment, 44:2, 167-174, DOI: 10.1207/s15327752jpa4402_7

I am sending this message now in case anyone is just about to print and make the ESP cards! I have been able to re-order cards, making it easier to see what is in each category and to print the sets. I have also added a few more cards, based on my work with children in the last couple of weeks. I will be adding the new document to my website by the end of 12/11/22. In future, if I add new cards, I will add them at the end of the document so you can easily find them and just print the new cards. I am also making the same ordered set without the word labels in case you want to use the cards without them and elicit both poles of the construct. You could also add labels in a different language. I know there are people in the PCP therapy schools in Serbia and Italy who might find them useful. I am aware that this set of cards do not show people with visible disabilities. I will address that in future when I have worked out the best way to do it.

The Exploring Situations and Problems (ESP) cards are a new tool for exploring construing in children. They might be useful if your time with a child is very limited, or you need something to use with children with poor attention or are not easy to engage. The cards can be the beginning of a PCP elaboration and an in-depth exploration of the constructs. The ESP cards are used to create a storyboard of a child’s day, in order to help them to explain which parts of the day they find difficult, and to help them to reflect on what happens at those moments. The images and text provide an emergent pole of a construct to get the discussion going. These cards may be particularly useful for working with children who find it difficult to tell you how they construe situations, or to explain what happens when things go wrong for them. There are some rating scales included, so you can use the cards in the most accessible way. The ESP cards are available from my website: drawingtheidealself.co.uk.

This month is an interview with Sam Beasley, Educational Psychologist, working in Hampshire, UK. It is not only for educational psychologists because there will practitioners in lots of services that work in similar ways to EPs - professionals who have very limited time in their contact with children and young people. Sam talks about how her interest in PCP began and how she uses PCP within her work as an educational psychologist with children, adolescents and adults. If you know any educational psychologists, or any trainee or assistant EPs, please tell them about this month’s episode. There are a number of things Sam mentioned which I have linked to below. You can listen to the podcast interview with Abi and Cleo about the CEDS for this podcast - episode 15, August 2021. References The Children’s Exploratory Drawings: http://theceds.co.uk/ Self Image Profile: https://www.pearsonclinical.co.uk/store/ukassessments/en/Store/Professional-Assessments/Personality-%26-Biopsychosocial/Normal/Self-Image-Profiles/p/P100009227.html Blob Trees: https://www.blobtree.com Gogos (by Crazy Bones): do a Google search (they are available second hand) Using Personal Construct Psychology in Practice with Children and Adolescents: https://www.drawingtheidealself.co.uk/using-pcp-in-practice Salmon Lines: Salmon (1995) Psychology in the Classroom: Reconstructing Teachers and Learners https://www.tes.com/news/find-yourself-salmon-line Hampshire and Isle of Wight Educational Psychology Service https://www.hants.gov.uk/educationandlearning/educationalpsychology/aboutus Southampton University Educational Psychology Doctorate course https://www.southampton.ac.uk/psychology/postgraduate/research_degrees/courses/doctorate_in_educational_psychology_pgr.page

This month’s episode is about the impact on our construing of having a of physical illness or injury. I found a really PCP model in a paper by Linda Viney (1990): Constructivist Model of Psychological Reactions to Physical Illness and Injury. Everyone will have experience of illness and injury so I hope this will have universal appeal. If you would like a written copy of the model, it can be downloaded from the RESOURCES page of my website: drawingtheidealself.co.uk .

Although this month’s podcast is about sports coaching, the ideas are suited to many other coaching encounters. I refer to a diagram which you will be able to see via the link on the podcast description on my website (see below). The Expectation Effect by David Robson BBC R4 https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m00199wp Richard J Butler (1996). Sport Psychology in Action Nadal’s pre-serve ritual video clip https://olympics.com/en/video/nadal-s-pre-serve-ritual Butler (1996) Enhancing confidence in others diagram on the podcast page of my website - look for Ep.26 https://drawingtheidealself.co.uk/https-drawingtheidealself.com-podcast

This month the podcast is about constructs. If you are new to PCP, I hope this might summarise what a construct is, the difference between constructs and elements, and verbal, non-verbal and pre-verbal constructs. References A drawing and its opposite: an application of the notion of the ‘construct’ in the elicitation of children’s drawings. Chapter 9 in Ravenette, T. (1999). Personal Construct Theory in Educational Psychology. A Practitioner’s View.  Dalton, P. & Dunnett. G. (1990). A Psychology for Living. Personal Construct Theory for Professionals and Clients. Fransella, F. & Dalton, P. (1990). Personal Construct Counselling in Action.

This month’s episode is about slot ratting or slot movement. Have you wondered why you haven’t been able to keep up with a desired change in yourself? Have you tried to help someone who wants to make changes, knows what to do/how to be in their new self, and yet they cannot sustain them. Slot rattling is a really useful concept that can help us to understand one reason this might happen.

April’s episode is about holidays, from a PCP perspective. I thought it might be interesting to have a think about this is case you want a little light PCP thinking to consider whilst you are away. If you haven’t decided on a holiday yet, you might find it useful to think about some of this before you make your arrangements. I reference an interesting paper by Beverley Walker: Travelling: “We don’t call it travelling; we call it living.” If you do try to order the book this paper is in, take care to get the right one for your own language - it is also in German. Reference Walker, B. (2003). Travelling: “We don’t call it travelling; we call it living.” in Scheer, Jorn. W. (Ed.) Crossing Borders - Going Places. Personal Constructions of Otherness. ISBN: 9783898062961

This episode is an answer to a question I hear often, "How can I use PCP approach in work with children and young people?" I thought I would talk about my own approach but please remember that other practitioners will have a completely different and equally successful approach. This is one of the great benefits of PCP - there is no prescribed way, so it is about gradually working out your own way of doing things.  This means that the approach is accessible to all professionals working with children and young people. Although I am a psychologist, I hope this explanation could be useful to people of all those professions. 

Ian is a PCP psychotherapist and a social worker who has been using a PCP approach throughout his career. He talks about his journey to date and how he uses PCP in his daily work. Ian’s contact details are Ian Gillman-Smith, Independent Social Work Consultant, UKCP Registered Psychotherapist, Registered Social Worker Email: [email protected] Website: www.iangillmansmith.co.uk References Peggy Dalton & Gavin Dunnett (2005) A Psychology for Living ISBN 0-471-93549-2 Miller Mair (2014) Another Way of Knowing: The Poetry of Psychological Inquiry. Winter & Reed (Eds.) (2014) Towards a Radical Redefinition of Psychology: The selected works of Miller Mair (World Library of Mental Health). Fay Fransella (2021) Inquiring Man: The Psychology of Personal Constructs. (3rd Edition)

This month I re-read Tom Ravenette’s paper, Who are you? A structure for exploring a ‘sense of self’ (1989) and was reminded how creative Tom was and how good he was at designing PCP techniques. This is a paper which describes his exploration process, something he developed from what he learned from his practice. So, that is the topic for today’s episode. A copy of the technique can be found at this link: https://www.dropbox.com/s/5rbrx4tkg1utsf4/Who%20are%20you%20instructions%20Ravenette%201989.pdf?dl=0 If you would like to get Tom Ravenette’s book, you can find out more here: Personal Construct Theory in Educational Psychology.

This episode is an interview with Jenny Newland. Jenny is a psychotherapist but she is also a maths tutor and coaches kayaking - a rare combination I expect! We talk about how she came to PCP and how she uses a PCP approach in her three different roles. If you would like to explore more or get in touch with Jenny, her details are below. Jenny’s contact information: For therapy and getting in touch www.pcp-livingandlearning.co.uk For kayaking www.backtotheriver.co.uk For maths https://mathswithjenny.wordpress.com Her maths animations are on You Tube: Dancing Triangles: https://youtu.be/8Ot4elhCAes Angles and Polygons: https://youtu.be/DqgMgqwLQQQ

It is coming up to the new year and you might be thinking of making some changes in your life - maybe starting something, or stopping something. I thought it could be useful to think about Kelly’s version of aggressiveness which has a different meaning from the dictionary definition. Exploring the implication of changes before making them will help you to anticipate their potential impact - your own and other people’s construing may not be similar. I have tried to find a useful reference about implications grids but there is nothing easily found online to go with the chapter references below. I think you could do a really simple implications exploration by noting the implications of the change for the people below. Remember the last podcast about roles and think about construe your change or development and how they might respond to you. You Your partner Your immediate family (may be parents/children/siblings) Your work colleagues Your friends Other relevant people If you could like a reminder of Kelly’s definition of anxiety, listen to the September 2021 edition. Implications grid http://pcp-net.org/encyclopaedia/imp-grid.html The Great British Sewing Bee BBC TV  - just in case you have never seen it Implications grid http://pcp-net.org/encyclopaedia/imp-grid.html

We all have roles to play, some more comfortably than others. This new technique is a variation on Drawing the Ideal Self for use with adults, children and young people. It explores a role (e.g. sister, parent, athlete, teacher, reader) and can be used to find ways to move forward in the role or to set personal targets. It may be useful to professionals to explore with people they try to help but it can also be used by an individual in their personal development.