I can't resist the invitation. Yes, Jim, I would and the paragraph
before!
> links between two theories which have quite incompatible underlying
> assumptions.
The assumptions of PCP are presumably Kelly's fundamental postulate
and corollaries. These are neither exhaustive or complete. Those of
Analytical Psychologist (I'm neither a PCP nor an Analytical
Psychologist, just an enthusiast for much of PCP and someone getting
a lot from clinical supervision from a Jungian!) would be much more
difficult to define, so much so that the notion of "incompatibility"
rather goes out of the window from where I see things. I see both as
having very complex construction systems.
> to find links to positions which do
> have very similar underlying assumptions.
See response to previous quote: I think it is precisely because you
are using a prejudgment of what is "similar" that you are preemptive!
Finally, I find it interesting to consider your use of "us" in that
paragraph: to me it sounds as if you seek a discussion of
membership rather than of belief and of areas of overlap and of
tension in different construct systems. That again strikes me as
preemptive!
I clearly need to think more about why this touches a raw nerve in me
but it does. I think I have always felt a tension within PCP as a
movement, between the elegance and creativity of Kelly's (and many
others') ideas, and this sense of signalling allegiance to a
religion or a club. I am increasingly interested by the way that
many PCP discussions seem to borrow words and terms from other areas,
particularly the many other constructivisms that are developing of
late, rather than writing in Kelly's own language. I suspect this is
something about the need for a club and the challenge of the dryness
of Kelly's system of words and its internal problems. I think the
personal construct underpinning my touchiness is probably close to
the one so central to Jim's core structures concerning Vietnam, funny
that it seems to put us to far apart at times!
Chris Evans
P.S. Hugely enamoured of Pirandello and Shakespeare. While I can
claim to have read most of the latter I've only seen and read "6
characters". Why is there so little other Pirandello performed? Is
that just British?!
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