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THE INTERNET ENCYCLOPAEDIA OF
PERSONAL CONSTRUCT PSYCHOLOGY |
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| Philosophy of "as if" | |
| George Kelly
(1964/1969) advocated adopting an "as if" position towards knowledge.
That is,
he encouraged people to try out different constructions of events in
order to
see what might happen when they act "as if" these constructions are so.
This
"as if" position nicely complements Kelly’s seminal notion of constructive
alternativism, which holds that there are an infinite number of
ways to
construe the world. In order to gain a fresh and potentially
transforming
perspective, all people need to do is loosen
their constructions of something,
entertain novel possibilities for construing it another way, and then
test out
these new possibilities by acting "as if" these new
constructions are
true. If the constructions adopted fail to prove useful (or even if
they do and
one wishes to simply experiment with even more alternatives just to see
what
might result), one can simply formulate further alternative
constructions of
the same events and act "as if" these apply instead. By encouraging
this kind
of playful exploration, behavior becomes an experiment that people use
in
testing their personally constructed hypotheses. Kelly's work has commonalities with the "as if" philosophy of the German philosopher Hans Vaihinger (Mahoney, 1988; Warren, 1998) - especially Kelly's ideas about approaching language using an invitational mood. Interestingly, Vaihinger's (1924) work influenced the individual psychology of Alfred Adler, which it has recently been argued shares commonalities with constructivism (Watts & Phillips, in press).  Vaihinger defined thought
as "a purposive organic
function" that aids in adapting to different situations and the psyche as "an organic formative force"
which can change what is presently known in order to assimilate new
information. He observed, "the mind is not merely appropriative, it is
also
assimilative and constructive" (p. 2). This clearly influenced personal
construct theory, in which the construct system is the ongoing
creation of an
active person who, ideally, uses the system to anticipate events and,
in light
of those events, continually revises the system to ensure its utility
in
everyday life. Kelly, himself, credited Vaihinger with influencing his theory, especially the idea that our constructions are better viewed as useful hypotheses rather than representations of objective reality. His own words encapsulate the influence Vaihinger’s 'as if' philosophy had in the development of personal construct psychology. Kelly wrote: In other words, we should feel free to act "as if" our constructions are true, all the while realizing that they are merely tentative hypotheses that can be revised or discarded at any time. Thus, Vaihinger’s philosophy of 'as if' can be viewed as one of the central premises upon which personal construct psychology is based. The philosophy of "as if" is especially pertinent for constructivist psychotherapy. Rather than seeing people’s personalities as hard-wired in some kind of essential way, personal construct therapists employing fixed-role therapy encourage an "as if" approach. For example, a client who identifies as "shy" might be asked to act out the role of a "gregarious" person for a few weeks; that is, the client lives "as if" he or she was more outgoing in order to see what ensues. By acting "as if" he or she is more outgoing, the client experiments with new ways of behaving and anticipating life, which often leads to positive therapeutic change. While the logic of 'as if' has been mostly applied in the realm of psychotherapy, it can easily be generalized to just about any area of human inquiry, making it a key concept in personal construct psychology specifically and constructivism more generally. |
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| References | |
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Jonathan D. Raskin & Laurie
Ann Morano
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Establ.
2003
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