The Lying Game is a PCP technique developed by J.C. Bright. It is a way of exploring a person's desire for change through inviting them to tell lies about themselves. It could be particularly useful for work with young people. This episode talks through the instructions for the technique. The instructions are not published anywhere other than in The PCP Pocketbook of PCP Techniques. This low cost reference book could also be useful for anyone thinking of carrying out research and wants to know what they could use to explore a person’s construing.

References

Cummins and Moran (2023). The PCP Pocketbook of PCP Techniques. Amazon https://amzn.eu/d/40nfBf3

The Traitors UK https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0db9b2t

https://www.bps.org.uk/psychologist/psychology-behind-traitors

https://www.bps.org.uk/psychologist/traitors-cultural-and-psychological-phenomenon

Hope has been found to be the key to wellbeing and with impacts physical and psychological health. Research has found that it is measurable through questionnaires (links below) and that people can learn to be hopeful. This episode references the research findings of Prof. Rick Snyder, who specialised in Positive Psychology, and Prof. Chan Hellman, Founding Director of the Hope Research Center.

These are useful videos to learn more about hope:

Podcast: Why we need hope, with Chan Hellman, PhD, and Jacqueline Mattis, PhD | Speaking of Psychology https://youtu.be/g5v8e3ZK2Xw?si=FrsPae6EeVKADE6X

TED talk: Chan Hellman: The Science and Power of Hope

https://www.ted.com/talks/chan_hellman_the_science_and_power_of_hope?utm_campaign=tedspread&utm_medium=referral&utm_source=tedcomshare

And a straightforward explanation as a summary

Hope Theory - Make Your Life Better: https://youtu.be/ZuHZhi1B4T4?si=fX5nWpTEsM0rJe8p

Adult Hope Scale

https://backend.fetzer.org/sites/default/files/images/stories/pdf/selfmeasures/PURPOSE_MEANING-AdultHopeScale.pdf

Child Hope Scale

https://ospi.k12.wa.us/sites/default/files/2023-11/hopescale_hys.pdf

This month, we are going to look at what Kelly meant by ‘accepting' our client. He was focussed on accepting our client’s constructions, and we need to able to do that at the same time as holding our own professional constructions of the client's construing.

During this episode I refer to Dr. Ross Green, author of The Explosive Child. He shares his approach and resources on his website for parents/carers and professionals: https://livesinthebalance.org/ .

His resources for the Collaborative and Proactive Solutions are free: https://livesinthebalance.org/cps-materials-paperwork/

This episode is a summary of the corollaries. Knowing about them is essential if you are trying to understand the theory of Personal Construct Psychology. A corollary is an implication of a theory, so if the Fundamental Postulate is accepted this means that people DO anticipate events, these 11 corollaries follow on from this. They are the detail of the theory. You might find that this episode is rather dry but in terms of completeness, any person can get the basics of PCP by listening to all the episodes of this podcast.

References

Kelly (1963) A Theory of Personality. The Psychology of Personal Constructs.

Cummins & Moran (2022). A Foundation Course in Personal Construct Psychology: The Coventry Course handbook (Coventry Constructivist Centre Publications on Personal Construct Psychology).

Kelly, G.A. (1955 and 1991) The Psychology of Personal Constructs.

Kelly’s Psychology of Personal Constructs is his theory of personality and I thought we would have a few sessions about basic PCP theory. The theory may be new to you, or provide a refresher and I will include Kelly’s own explanations. Some of the terms he uses are not so familiar to today’s population so I will do my best clarify and elaborate in everyday language and provide examples. Why does understanding the theory matter? If you want to understand how to apply the theory to a new experience, or if you want to devise new techniques to understand the people you work with, then understanding of the theory will be helpful.

References

Kelly (1963) A Theory of Personality. The Psychology of Personal Constructs.

Cummins & Moran (2022). A Foundation Course in Personal Construct Psychology: The Coventry Course handbook (Coventry Constructivist Centre Publications on Personal Construct Psychology).

This episode provides my own key messages for PCP therapy, using the introductory chapter of my book, A Beginner's Guide to Personal Construct Therapy with Children and Young People. The principles apply to working with any other age group too.

Details of where you can find the book are here: https://drawingtheidealself.co.uk/bookshop.

Creating a timeline is really useful way to explore a problem. Here we think about the kind of questions we might ask a client so we get a better understanding of the development of a problem over time. They key is to be very curious and to ask searching questions gently and the timeline provides a visual guide to that discussion.

Reference

Kelly's seven questions are summarised on p.84-5 in Personal Construct Psychology in Pictures. Key aspects of PCP theory - available free rom my website: drawingtheidealself.co.uk.

This episode has a focus on counselling in schools but the principles will also be useful for other counselling work. Truneckova and Viney’s model is laid out nicely in their paper and I summarise it here.

References:

Deborah Truneckova & Linda L. Viney (2012) Personal construct psychology

model of school counselling delivery, British Journal of Guidance & Counselling, 40:5, 431-448. https://doi.org/10.1080/03069885.2012.718739

Cummins & Moran (2023) The PCP Pocketbook of Personal Construct Psychology Techniques

Moran (2023) PCP in Pictures. Free via drawingtheidealself.co.uk