The Poetry of our lives: Symbolism in experiential Personal Construct Psychotherapy
April J. Faidley*, Larry M. Leitner**
*Flagstone Psychology, Indianapolis, IN (USA), **Department of Psychology,
Miami Uni-versity, Oxford, Ohio (USA)
Abstract
From our earliest preverbal encounters with the world, through a lifetime
of experience, we are constantly transforming our experiences symbolically.
It is through these symbolic trans-formations that we shape the meaning
of our lives. Despite the fact that Kelly discussed the role of symbols
in his 1955 volumes, little subsequent work has been done by personal con-struct
theorists to elaborate the interwoven processes of symbolizing, creating
meaning, thinking, feeling, and acting. We propose to address this issue
in three stages. First, we will review Kelly’s thoughts and theory on this
matter. Second, we will elaborate Kelly’s position such that some of its
implications for the therapy room can be seen more clearly. Finally, we
will use these therapeutic implications to conceptualize and describe work
with specific cli-ents.
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