| Core constructs
defined core constructs as those that govern people’s
maintenance processes – that is, those
by which they maintain their identities and existence (1955, p. 482).
Kelly worked in the tradition of American pragmatism, citing the
of John Dewey as his inspiration. Dewey was strongly opposed
to Cartesian dualism, that doctrine that separates mind from body, and
instead emphasised action as the focus of his psychology. The
of action (like construing) fuses thought, emotion and behaviour in the
intentional way that people approach the world. Kelly proposed the
of core constructs having no allegiance to either mind or body that are
comprehensive and consequently have a wide range of convenience. They
therefore conceived as superordinate
concerning the process of the self (Stefan, 1977; Butt, Burr &
Although Kelly is often characterised as a humanist in psychology
textbooks, he differed from other humanists like Rogers in that while
he saw the person as a centre for choice and agency, he made little
reference to the self . He certainly did not conceive of an
essential self that pre-dated construing and inhabited a material body.
Core constructs, like all others, are the result of
a process of construction . They evolve to help us anticipate a
particularly important set of
events – ourselves. But the self is not an internal spiritual entity,
but a mind/body (or Merleau-Ponty’s "body-subject"). So Kelly drew on
the concept of core structure to understand problems like psychosomatic symptoms and
conversion hysteria (1955, pp.
868 –873). His analysis centres on what people may be doing with
complaints; how they may be using them in their interaction with others
and the world. His objection to dualism is nicely summed up in this
The (hysterical) client translates
his problem from terms which for him are ‘psychological’ into
terms which for him are ‘physiological’. He thinks that makes
a different problem out of it. He is able to think so because he is a
dualist. If he were not a dualist, the disguise would not work.
is therefore characteristically a disorder of culture groups whose
is dualist. (1955, p.
Of course, this construing is conducted beneath the client’s level of awareness . It is also an example of pre-emptive construing , in which the mistake
is to think of a phenomenon as either physical or psychological. The
hysterical symptom is therefore considered to be physical and nothing
but physical by the client. The job of the psychologist is to propose a
useful psychological construction, drawing on the concept of core
see: Core role structure
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