Bob Green noted:
<<Much PCP research appears to report constructs as if they are entities, the
above seems to emphasise construing as an ongoing process (which could
include non-verbal construing etc). I don't mean to suggest construing
isn't construed as 'ongoing' in PCP terms, but rather the issue may be a
limitation in how constructs are talked about. >>
Have been offline for a while so may not be in synch with discussions
generally, but I'm interested in this issue also from the point of view of
langauge (how one talks about stuff):
'Construing' is a present participle, if I remember my grammar, signifying
therefore an ongoing process; 'construct' however is from a past participle,
signifying something like a product or outcome - something made (put together
- latin = con-struere). So when one talks about a construct one tends to talk,
perhaps, about a thing, an entity, something which has been produced?
For me, however, a construct is easier to see (more correctly seen?) as an
action (process), as a constru[ing a]ction. This ties in (I think) with some
of the discussion on emotion I managed to pick up a while back, viz. e -
motion - s as constructs and vice versa? A construct is always a dynamic
process of distinction-making?
The word 'construct' as it is frequently used in PCT discussions is more akin
to 'concept' i.e. a mental representation of a category of 'objects'.
There is no such 'thing' as a construct'?
By talking of 'constructs' as if they were entities, is one running the risk
of (a) reifying an abstraction; (b) increasing the danger of confusing them
with concepts, and/or (c) concealing a really important/distinctive aspect of
PCT - the dynamic real-time nature of construct-ions?
Daragh O'Reilly
Bradford Management Centre
e-mail: daraghnjan@aol.com
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