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BOOK REVIEW |
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PERSONAL
CONSTRUCT METHODOLOGY
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Peter Caputi, Linda L. Viney, Beverly M. Walker, and Nadia Crittenden (Eds.) |
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Chichester: Wiley, 2011, Paperback, 366 pages,
£ 34.99, € 42.00 |
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reviewed by Viv Burr |
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University of Huddersfield, UK |
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This edited
collection sets out to describe and review a number of methods derived from
Personal Construct Psychology (PCP), and the thirteen chapters that make up the
book come from over twenty international clinicians and academics, including
postgraduate students, with a strong representation from Australia.
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| Beverly Walker |
Peter Caputi |
Linda Viney |
The book is
split into four parts, and explicitly presents a balance between quantitative
and qualitative methods by devoting one part to each of these after two ‘scene’
setting chapters, and the final part looks at the use of PCP methods in
counselling and clinical settings.
I have to
say at the outset that I am rather sensitized to the issue of the need to
disseminate the riches of PCP to those who may be unfamiliar with it, and this
inevitably informs my review. Without a subtitle, the rather generic term
‘methodology’ doesn’t suggest to the potential reader what they will find
inside the book; the word ‘methodology’ is used in both clinical and research
contexts, and this slight ambiguity may mean that the book is passed over by
those practitioners, academics and researchers who are not already part of the
PCP ‘network’. In fact, the balance of the material included in the book has a
strong clinical focus, and so it is likely that it will be clinicians and other
practitioners who will find the greatest use for this book.
The first
of the ‘scene setting’ chapters’ begins with a brief introductory overview of
the construct system, to enable readers to understand what follows. They focus on
reliability and validity of techniques to assist in clinical assessment -
including several types of Grid, Laddering and the Self Characterisation Sketch -
outlining the appropriate applications, as well as limitations, of each. The
focus is firmly on these as quantitative methods and it would have been good to
see their qualitative uses foregrounded a little more in this ‘scene setting’,
especially since the book’s structure appears to give equal status to both
quantitative and qualitative approaches.
The second
scene-setting chapter argues for the use of qualitative methods in psychology,
outlining the usual criteria of credibility, transferability, dependability and
confirmability, and arguing that qualitative methods are consistent with PCP
research. Although
the chapter will be helpful to those unfamiliar with qualitative methods, I
would have liked to see it extended to include a discussion of how PCP methods may
be shown to meet these criteria.
Part 2 of
the book consists of four chapters devoted to selected qualitative methods; Laddering,
Tschudi’s ABC technique, the Self Characterisation Sketch and Experience Cycle
Methodology. The first three of these illustrate each chosen method as a
clinical tool through good, detailed case examples, often offering creative
suggestions for novel adaptations and ways of analyzing the material. The
authors do also offer examples of how the methods have been or could be used in
an academic or action research context, although the level of detail in these
instances would not be sufficient for a novice PCP researcher to try out the
methods for themselves. As a qualitative researcher I found the chapter on Experience
Cycle Methodology particularly interesting, as it describes an innovative
variation on the standard semi-structured interview. Exceptionally, this
chapter has a research (rather than clinical) focus. However the material
reported in the three illustrative case studies was not, I felt, detailed or
‘rich’ enough to attract the attention of qualitative researchers new to PCP.
The next
four chapters are devoted to quantitative methods. The first is an introduction
to grids and some variants, and methods of completing them, although this is
perhaps not detailed or illustrative enough for the true novice. This is
followed by a chapter on various traditional and new methods for analyzing
grids, and a chapter on computer-modelling of relationships between
constructs, providing visual, spatial representations. I found these chapters
to require a more sophisticated understanding of grids and grid analysis than I
possessed, and the grounding provided by the introductory material in earlier
chapters didn’t quite bridge the ‘gap’. The final chapter in this part of the
book discusses the use of content analysis scales for quantitative analysis of
qualitative data. This is something of potentially great interest to those
qualitative researchers who need to analyse large amounts of data and want a
way of quantifying it whilst still retaining a focus on personal meaning. The
authors provide extensive information on the reliability and validity of the
scales they recommend but, frustratingly, offer little detailed guidance about
how to actually perform the content analysis.
The final
part consists of three chapters on methods in counselling and clinical
settings: narrative, using drawings and pictures, and working with adolescents.
The first broadly describes some of the dimensions of client narratives that
the therapist may find it helpful to listen for, with the aim of enabling the
client to re-write their ‘life story’ in a facilitative way. As with previous
chapters, there is little information about how to do this, although since the
focus is clinical one would not expect a recipe-type approach. Narrative
methods have become more popular with qualitative researchers in recent times, and
it would have been good to see the authors make a connection with this. The
final two chapters draw extensively on Ravenette’s work, for example in the use
of drawings, suggesting strategies for using such visual aids to enable clients
to articulate their construing, using vivid clinical examples.
This book
displays the substantial experience and expertise of those who regularly use
PCP in their work, many of whom are well-established figures in the field. It
illustrates the richness of PCP as a theory and as a source of innovative
methods arising from this framework. However, as I continued to read it I found
myself becoming increasingly concerned about the ‘market’ and potential
readership of the book. PCP theory and methods have much to offer practitioners
and researchers, and books such as this one are an opportunity to introduce
this approach to a wider audience than it currently enjoys. Although those
already working within a PCP framework will welcome the often creative and
innovative material presented here, those practitioners and researchers
unfamiliar with PCP who encounter it may find that the book does not encourage
them to explore further.
One issue
is that it is difficult to know how much preparatory information to include for
the non-PCP audience, and I felt that the introductory material presented,
while well written, was often insufficient to enable the reader to comprehend
subsequent, more complex material. On the other hand, some of the chapters
require such a degree of specialist knowledge that no amount of introductory
material will help; the level of, and therefore the potential audience for, the
different chapters varies considerably.
Although
research uses are often mentioned, the focus is firmly on therapeutic contexts
and the detailed examples are from clinical settings. I would have liked to see
research uses of these methods more extensively explored, as the richness of
the resources PCP holds for the academic researcher is generally underestimated
and unacknowledged. There is usually not enough detail about the methods to
enable first-time users to try them with confidence, and so the book is
unlikely to encourage researchers - or in fact practitioners - from outside of
PCP to take these up.
It is
difficult to know exactly who this book is for; there is a pressing need for a
book which invites and encourages non-PCP specialists, both clinical and
academic, to engage with the theory and its continually evolving repertoire of
exciting, innovative and facilitative methods. There is much clinical and
research wisdom in this book, and I would be very keen to see this reach the
attention of non-PCP clinical and research communities, but I fear that it may
not.
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ABOUT THE
AUTHOR
 Viv Burr is Reader in Psychology at the
University of Huddersfield, UK. She has published in the areas of Social
Constructionism, Personal Construct Psychology, Gender, Sexuality and the
Psychology of Media and is author of 'Social Constructionism' (2003) and
'Invitation to Personal Construct Psychology' (2nd edition 2004, with Trevor
Butt).
E-mail: v.burr@hud.ac.uk
Correspondence:
Viv Burr, University of Huddersfield, Queensgate, Huddersfield, West Yorkshire. HD1 3DH, UK.
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REFERENCE
Burr. V. (2012). Review
of Personal
construct methodology, edited by P. Caputi, L. L.Viney, B. M. Walker, & N. Crittenden.
Personal
Construct Theory & Practice, 9, 16-18, 2012
(Retrieved from http://www.pcp-net.org/journal/pctp12/burr-caputi12.html)
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Received: 4 October
2012 – Accepted: 5 October 2012 –
Published: 1 November 2012
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