The Psychology of Personal Constructs, as elaborated in George A. Kelly's two-volume book of that title, is not only a theory but also an eminently practical approach to the "Human Condition". At the core of it is the art of finding out about personal constructs - one's own or another person's. This requires particular skills and experience. Consequently, many practitioners have learned from "masters" almost like apprentices or disciples. However, not everyone interested is in the privileged situation of having access to an expert to learn from.

Courses. Unfortunately, PCP techniques are not taught in universities so that other ways of teaching the theory and the techniques had to be developed. Fortunately, several institutions offer courses that run for several years and result in certificates that are accepted in some countries, e.g. for practitioners of psychotherapy in the UK. Such courses can be taken part-time, post-graduate, and mostly at the participants' own pace. For details of institutions in the UK, in Spain, Italy and Serbia, see here.

Distance learning. For people without easy access to PCP training centres or at least local groups, it is difficult to learn about PCP in a person-to-person way. The PCP Centre in London (now at the University of Hertfordshire in Hatfield) offers a distance learning programme with special arrangements for people living outside the UK.

Conference workshops. Sometimes, international conferences offer pre- or post-conference workshops that provide basic information about theory and techniques associated with PCP. See conferences.

Books. Most information on PCP is, of course, available in books. And we recommend to use especially the comprehensive International Handbook of Personal Construct Psychology, edited by Fray Fransella, and its handy extract, The Essential Practitioner’s Handbook of Personal Construct Psychology as background and "further reading". For details see: Essential Readings.


But we still see the need for providing "tools" to new (and potential) members of the PCP community. Some readers might feel that the very idea of "tools" doesn't go well with the spirit of PCP because they fear that such tools might be used in a "mechanistic" way. But tools and techniques are not new to PCP. Kelly himself called the major instrument first a "test" (the Role Repertory Test), and then a "technique" (the Repertory Grid Technique). And he decribed a therapeutic intervention which he named the "fixed role technique". Obviously, systematic ways of accessing ("eliciting") personal constructs are needed that have proven to work well if applied in a professional manner.

Repertory Grid. A do-it-yourself method of learning to use the Repertory Grid in an interview setting is already available online, provided by the people who developed the Repertory Grid Analysis programme Enquire Within. Online analysis of repertory grids is possible using the WebGrid programme package.

Other techniques. The Repertory Grid is the foremost but not the only procedure associated with Personal Construct Theory. Others include e.g. Laddering and Self characterisation.

Video. Some experts have made video recordings available that demonstrate the application of PCP-related techniques. Video and audio "podcasts" are the online versions of what we used to know as broadcasts.

We think now that the Internet makes it possible to provide such tools in a systematic and comprehensive way and free of charge, with the required web space and high speed connections to the Internet now being available at affordable costs. We are inviting colleagues to provide material that can be put online (possibly also to accompany workshops or training sessions). This could include texts and computer programmes, as well as demonstrations of techniques recorded as audio and video files. Some of the material will be stored on this Web site, some of it will be made accessible through links to other sites.

Access to this site is free, as is the case with the other - non-profit, self-funded - projects to advance "The Art of PCP": The PCP Portal, the Internet Encyclopaedia and the e-journal Personal Construct Theory & Practice.