Personal constructs and psychodynamic psychotherapy - A case study

During a short term, psychoanalytically informed psychotherapy, a college student's salient constructs regarding her self and her object representations were elicited via the Role Construct Repertory Test. The course of this psychotherapy is traced and is examined with regard to the information provided by component analyses of these repertory grids. The aims of this article are to demonstrate the utility of an independent measure such as repertory grids for 1) additional understanding of the patient's modes of construing self and others; 2) establishing meaningful foci for a short-term treatment; 3) providing information for a more considered set of interpretive interventions regarding key conflicts; and 4) considering changes and outcome in light of the foci of the treatment.