1.Travelling etc.
I have been indulging myself in one of the opportunities that being a member of the international community of construct theorists enables one to do — travel to lots of places and be made to feel at home. I’ve been to the North American conference in New Paltz, upstate New York (SUNY), with Jon Raskin as a relaxed but attentive host. Then back to Indianapolis with Larry Leitner and April Faidley. They organised one of their justifiably famous dinner parties for me and Larry’s students while I was there. On to London, where I was able to touch base with Malcolm Cross, Pat Maitland and Peggy Dalton, as well as Tom Ravenette who was up from Epsom for the day. I was able to visit Fay Fransella in Cornwall and see something of the lovely coast and countryside nearby. Then to Ireland to spend some time with Bernadette O’Sullivan in Dublin, before attending a conference in Huddlesfield organised by Trevor Butt on Understanding the Social World. Then off to Florence to do some teaching at the Centro di Psicologia e Psicoterapia Costruttivista with Maria Laura Nuzzo and Gabriele Chiari. They have a lovely centre in the old part of Florence, and live in Rome where I was also able to spend some time. In between I went to Padua where Massimo Giliberto played host. I was able to visit the university and see the lectern built by Galileo’s students for him to be heard as well as the famous anatomy theatre, Giotto frescos and much more. Construct theory can have its benefits.
Before I left however we had the Australasian conference in Bendigo, hosted by Julie Ellis-Scheer with the assistance of Paula and Jacqui. It was a smallish group which meant that the interaction was excellent and we could run one stream throughout. Bob Neimeyer gave the invited address and as usual presented in a very professional manner, with lots of interesting ideas included. Everything organisational seemed to go without a hitch, thanks largely to Julie’s caring attention.
Oh, except that, since Barbara Tooth, our secretary, wasn’t there, no one took formal minutes from the meeting. Bill Warren has some notes and is turning them into minutes which I’ll try to remember to include in the next newsletter. But we did have a change in committee membership. Chris Stevens has agreed to take the vacant Treasurer position.
No one has volunteered (or had their arms twisted) to host the next conference in two years time. We had hoped the New Zealanders would volunteer, but so far no luck. Perth is another possibility raised. How about it?
Speaking of Barbara, she and her husband Andrew Wu, have moved to Sydney from Brisbane. Lindsay Oades has accepted a lectureship in clinical psychology at the University of Wollongong, a major plus for the Wollongong group.
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2. International Congress of Personal Construct Theory.
Next year we have the opportunity to meet in Australia with the rest of the world’s construct theorists — and to do so without breaking the bank. Wollongong will be hosting the conference on behalf of the APS Interest group and the Australasian Personal Construct group. EACH OF YOU IS INVITED TO ATTEND.
Can I just say that if you haven’t been to a pcp conference before you will be pleasantly surprised at how different it is from many other conferences you have been to. Firstly people mix freely — well known people are approachable and delighted to talk with others. There is an intermingling of people from different cultures. Most commonly we have largish contingents from the US, UK, Italy, Germany, Spain and Australasia, plus smaller numbers from other parts as well. There will be a mix of presentation formats — not just papers all day, every day. There is an integration of applied, theory and research, so that the conference has relevance to practitioners, not just academics. The participants are not just psychologists. Many people from other disciplines add to the diversity and stimulation.
Can I also encourage those with work in progress to consider presenting because the atmosphere is very positive — not critical. People practice constructive alternativism. You will find the audience helpful and encouraging. This is the feedback you need and it may come from potential markers of your thesis, if you are a student.
Irrespective can I ask you all to have a look at the website which will be evolving over the next couple of months.
PUT THIS ADDRESS IN YOUR ADDRESS BOOK.
http://www.pct2001.uow.edu.au
3. PCP Citation Database
We have been busy upgrading our PCP website in Wollongong — about time many of you will say. Anyway, part of that has involved getting the PCP database working as we’d want it, thanks to the expertise of David Webster. It contains several thousand references and was originally put together by Gabriele Chiari from Rome.
http://www.psyc.uow.edu.au/pcp/citedb/
The database allows you to enter references that are not currently in the list. Can I ask anyone who accesses it to please contribute to updating it. Include references of your own or others that are not currently included but should be. That way we’ll have it growing and getting up-dated with minimal effort to all concerned.
4. Report on the 7th International Congress on Constructivism in
Psychotherapy, held in Geneva, 19-23 September. "In 1995, Michael Mahoney wrote of his surprise that virtually every cognitive therapist he knew - including Albert Ellis - called him/herself a constructivist. Personal construct therapists, process-experiential therapists, narrative therapists, and a variety of therapists from other schools also call themselves constructivists. So when I went to the Constructivism in Psychotherapy conference in Geneva in September (the only Australian among 400 delegates) I was fascinated to see who would actually be there.
The particular drawcards for me were Michael Mahoney whose writings on change processes and constructivism I have admired for the past 14 years; Leslie Greenberg (the role of emotion in psychotherapy); Jeremy Safran (the therapeutic alliance); and Bob Niemeyer (constructivist psychotherapy). Additionally, I was interested to sample more of the European tradition of constructivism, which first impacted on me when I read Guidano & Liotti's (1983) seminal work "Cognitive processes and emotional disorders: A structural approach to psychotherapy."
The conference was one of the most stimulating that I have attended. I went to half- day pre-conference workshops by Bob Niemeyer and Michael Mahoney. Bob's workshop entitled 'How to do constructivist psychotherapy' focused on Bruce Ecker's Depth Oriented Brief Therapy (DOBT) (Ecker & Hulley, 1996) which was previously unknown to me, and on Narrative Therapy with which I was much more familiar. Bob suggested that DOBT is particularly relevant for 'incoherent narratives' of self, while narrative therapy is most appropriate for 'problem-saturated dominant narratives.' Ecker's work is quite innovative and thought provoking; Australian psychotherapists would do well to consider bringing him out here. Mahoney gave a masterful overview of "Comfort and challenge in the therapeutic relationship."
Of the keynotes, I was most struck by Greenberg's presentation. With methodology which is getting increasingly sophisticated, Greenberg is mounting an irresistible case for the key roles played by emotional arousal and depth of experiential processing in change processes in psychotherapy.
There were some fascinating symposia with titles like "Attachment and Construction of the Self", "Piaget and Constructivist Psychotherapy: From Theory to Practice," and "Can Constructivism Develop without Empirical Investigations of its Effectiveness?" For really out of the ordinary work, I was particularly struck by Galderisi and Mucci from the University of Naples who argued from hard neurological data for a neurological basis to constructivism. For instance, they noted that even at an early stage in the visual system 80% of connections to the lateral geniculate nucleus come from inside the CNS, rather than from external inputs, suggesting a constructed basis to visual perception.
In the new world of evidence-based therapies, the Achilles heel of constructivism in gaining wider acceptance appears to be its lack of empirically validated treatments. Here I think there is some real confusion in terminology. Is constructivism an epistemological position? An approach to psychotherapy? If so, what approach? Is there any identifiable core of constructivism which spans PCP, Greenberg's process- experiential psychotherapy, Mahoney's eclecticism, and White's narrative therapy - let alone Ellis' RET or Beck's Cognitive Therapy? Perhaps it is not possible to evaluate "constructivist psychotherapy"; constructivist psychotherapy is a loose alliance of diverse therapies. We have to get a lot more specific about what it is we are evaluating, if we are wanting to evaluate anything at all.
Maybe the one defining feature of the people gathered at this conference was a widely held interest in the process and mechanisms of change. Where I believe constructivism needs to develop is in the area of methodology. Greenberg and Safran lead the way in this regard, demonstrating that it is possible to do good empirical work on process and link it to outcomes. Grounded theory (Glaser & Strauss, 1967; Strauss & Corbin, 1990) is another useful methodology which has been relatively underutilised in psychotherapy research.
Finally, the conference was dedicated to the memory of Vittorio Guidano, a towering figure in the constructivist movement, who died last year at the age of 52. At 10 o'clock on the first morning, there was hardly a dry eye in the auditorium after Michael Mahoney's moving tribute to his best friend. It left me in no doubt that whatever else constructive psychotherapy is, it is psychotherapy with a heart.’
James Bennett-Levy ([email protected])
Adjunct Lecturer
Southern Cross University
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5. Dennis Hinkle’s Autobiography.
While I was in the UK Fay Fransella and I discovered that Denny Hinkle’s autobiography had just been published. Denny was one of Kelly’s last students, widely considered to be one of his best (perhaps the best). Hinkle’s thesis must be one of the most cited unpublished theses in psychology, with its innovative techniques including laddering, implication grids and resistance-to-change grids. That he disappeared from the scene has been a puzzle and frustration to many. His autobiography includes the period when he was doing his PhD with Kelly.
I’m yet to see the book, so any reference to it here is not necessarily a recommendation. Indeed I suspect that a colleague’s assessment is likely to agree with mine — ‘the only pornographic book I’ve ever read’. Another indicated he wouldn’t like to get caught with it coming through customs. What follows are some details I’ve down-loaded from websites. (From Amazon site: http://www.amazon.com ).
From the Barnes and Noble site: http://shop.barnesandnoble.com)
Burning Point by Dennis N. Hinkle
Our Price: $US13.45
ISBN: 1886360081
Publisher: Alamo Square Press Pub. Date: May 2000
sales rank: 297,650 at Barnes & Noble, 523, 936 at Amazon.
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6. English PCP workshops
‘I enclose information about a series of workshop being held in the North of England (York) which should be of interest. As many of you will know we do not get too many PCP training events held in the North so it is worthwhile making the most of those we do get.
Saturday, 27th January 2001 - Back to Basics. An introduction to PCP for beginners, and a refresher course for those who have some knowledge.
Saturday, 21st April 2001 - The Person as a Whole System. This workshop will explore the relationship between Personal Construct Psychology and the body as a physical/energy system.
Saturday, 7th July 2001 - PCP and Creativity. This workshop will explore the ways in which PCP can help us to be more creative and develop our imaginations.
Saturday, 29th September 2001 - PCP at Work. This workshop will look at the ways in which PCP can help us to develop our skills and competencies, improve decision making and understand better the people with whom we work.
COSTS: Each workshop costs £65. If you book all 4 workshops at the same time the cost is reduced to £225. Some student bursaries may be available. You can pay the £225 in two stages if you wish, half (£112.50) when you book and the other half on the day of the first workshop. If your organisation is paying for the workshop(s) we can invoice it.’
For further details please contact the PCP Northern Research Group (01904
438757) John M Fisher
7. Course presented by the Western Australian PCP group.
Personal Construct Psychotherapy Course
Personal Construct Psychology...
attends to the ways in which people make sense of existence and direct their journeys. People do more than react to experience and are more than the product of their histories. People strive purposefully and intentionally to understand a complex universe. They actively interpret their experiences and they develop unique methods for coping with them on the basis of the interpretations that they make. Our first task as therapists is to view the world at least temporarily through the experiential frameworks of our clients. Their images and figures of speech are powerful signs of unique realities. We seek to learn something of their personal languages and to learn about the meanings and distinctions that operate in their lives and which, at times, seem to elude verbal expression. We seek also to hear, and to empathise with, as George Kelly did " …the language of distress … cries echoing from deep down where there (are) no sentences, no words, no syntax."
Once we can sense the other's outlook, the way he or she handles things, the way he or she does things, then we can start to enquire whether these ways are effective, whether they're working, and what the gaps seem to be. We can join with the person in a series of powerful enquiries to develop new meanings and understandings which offer greater freedom for development.
The Personal Construct Psychotherapy course...
will include: an introduction to Personal Construct Theory, methods for assessing the client's unique world, methods for therapeutic change, working with children and adults, and wider applications of PCP, including attachment issues
The program...
will run for 10 fortnightly sessions, each of 2 hours, commencing in February 2001 at Graylands Hospital. The most likely times for the sessions are Wednesday 7-9 pm, but there is some flexibility in this. Both didactic presentations and interactive practice will be used.
Program participants will receive a completion certificate. The course is an education program of the Personal Construct Psychology Association of WA and is being run in association with the APS (WA Branch) as a continuing education program for psychologists.
The program is open to practising psychologists, graduate psychology students who engage in therapy or counselling in course placements and to previous participants who would like a refresher.
The presenters...
are practising clinical psychologists including Dr Janet Bayliss, Tony Jonikis, and Dr Miriam Stein, who incorporate PCP methods in their casework and psychotherapy.
Fees...
will be $500 (incl. GST), $480 for early registration in 2000 and $250 for full time students. Cheques should be made payable to Personal Construct Psychology Association of WA and sent with the details overleaf to:
Peter Prisgrove 4 Third St,
Bicton WA 6157
For further information, call...
Peter Prisgrove (9438 2621) (or email at [email protected])
Janet Bayliss (9386 5338)
Miriam Stein (9384 7257)
Payment…
Please enclose personal cheque or information as to who will meet course fees.
Application...
Name:
Address:
Phone: (H) (W)
Current position:
Academic qualifications:
Course (students):
Are you an APS Member? Yes / No
Could you attend on Wednesdays at 7-9pm? Yes / No
Are there other days/times you would prefer? (specify):
Any days/times you would be unavailable? (specify):