Personal Construct Psychology Methods for Qualitative Research

Personal Construct Psychology (PCP) originated in George Kelly’s clinical psychology practice in the mid-20th century and has since given rise to a number of techniques for enabling people to gain insight into their own and others' thinking. The most widely known of these is the repertory grid, which has been successfully adapted and applied in a variety of research contexts. But it has principally been used as a quantitative, statistical technique. However, there is a range of other innovative methods that have been devised by PCP practitioners and researchers which may be useful for qualitative work, but these are still relatively unfamiliar to academic researchers. This entry examines a number of research methods arising from PCP, placing these within the theoretical and philosophical landscape. It argues that PCP methods provide opportunities to extend and enrich the predominant methods currently used by qualitative researchers and illustrates them through examples from actual research.