I think you're quite right about the difference between PCP and other
psychologies--whether this is a "con" or not depends to a great extent on
your philosophical perspective. Kelly's ontology is quite explicitly
Heraclitean--the world is seen as a continual flux of processes and
events (in contrast to the more traditional Western view of the world as
composed of essentially static entities and the relations between them).
So the only absolute reference point for defining a "self" in PCP would
be "that which construes."
But since the process of construing is reflexive, it is itself construed,
and the self as construct emerges from this reflexivity, through making
distinctions between the reflexive construing and other processes and
events. So I would agree that there is no presumption of an essential
self in PCP, but this is something I consider an advantage, not a deficit.
I don't see it as a barrier to integration of the construct system, once
you conceive of a person as "a form of motion" rather than "a thing in
motion." It allows us to think about failures of self-integration without
positing intrapsychic homunculi, and it also gives us ways of construing
concepts of self in cultures that don't share Western assumptions.
To ground this in something empirical--it seems to me that recent work in
cognitive neuroscience that shows the brain as being more like a parallel
distributed processing network than a centralized CPU is supportive of
this general approach. But that's an area I'll mostly have to leave to
those with more expertise in physiological psychology.
Regards,
Tim
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Tim Connor, M.S. "Psychotherapy is not
Pacific University an applied science, it
School of Professional Psychology is a basic science in
2004 Pacific Avenue which the scientists
Forest Grove, OR 97116 USA are the client and his
<connort@pacificu.edu> therapist"
--George Kelly
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On Mon, 14 Apr 1997, tomer jackobson wrote:
> after reviewing kelly`s approche to human behavior we came across few
> questions regarding the cons of the theory . in most of the theorys that
> are common among modern psychology there is a significant "room"to the
> "self" concept . kelly`s assumpsions of the human cognitive structures
> is left without this integrative asspect and hence my question is how
> can we accept kelly`s whole view while the last seem to fail to explain
> what we can expirience in our every day life`s ? (i.e a workink system
> that intergate`s our belifes or constructs etc. )
> regards /
> tomer jacobson .
>
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