The monthly DiS podcast

This month’s episode is focussed on Finn Tschudi’s ABC. This is a great tool for exploring change to a preferred pole of a construct and elaborating some of the barriers to change. I use two examples and talk through them in the podcast. There are a couple of references you may want to follow up:

Tschudi, F. (1977). ABC model' (Loaded and Honest Questions: A Construct Theory View of Symptoms and Therapy. In Don Bannister (Ed.), New Perspectives in Personal Construct Theory. Academic Press: London).

Tschudi, F. and Sandsberg, S. On the advantages of symptoms: Exploring the client's construing. Scandinavian Journal of Psychology, 1984, 25, 169-177). 

Tschudi, F. and Winter, D. (2011). The ABC Model Revisited. In Personal Construct Methodology (eds P. Caputi, L.L. Viney, B.M. Walker and N. Crittenden). 

Atomic Habits by James Clear

PCPA You Tube interview about ABC, with John Fisher and Helen Jones

ABC examples can be viewed here.

This month’s episode features an interview with Dr. Diane Allen, Counselling Psychologist and PCP Psychotherapist, who is an experienced and creative PCP therapist. Diane has been using PCP in her work with adults for many years. You can hear how Diane has used PCP throughout her career as a nurse, university tutor, and counselling psychologist and psychotherapist. She has worked in the NHS and privately.

Diane’s chapter (Chapter 17) in this book is titled:  Working with People who Hear Voices.

In David A Winter & Linda L Viney, (2005) (Eds.)

Personal Construct Psychotherapy: Advances in Theory, Practice and Research: Whurr.
https://amzn.to/2JskjGW. You can get a secondhand copy of this book much cheaper - check that link on Amazon.

October’s episode is about the importance of the choice of a bag and its contents. This was inspired by an episode of Thinking Allowed (BBC Radio 4) where a paper was discussed about handbags and identity in dementia, and I give an outline of what they had to say. It made me think more about the bag in Drawing the Ideal Self and the way a bag and its contents illustrate the construing of self - both non-ideal and ideal. You can read the paper free using the link below.

Interview on Thinking Allowed: 
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b04kf607   

• Buse, C. & Twigg, J. (2014) Women with dementia and their handbags: negotiating identity, privacy and 'home' through material culture. Journal of Aging Studies, Aug; 30:14-22

https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/191458846.pdf

• The psychology of stuff and things. Christian Jarrett on our lifelong relationship with objects. 

• The Guardian. What’s in your man bag?

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandhealth/gallery/2008/mar/28/fashion1 

• Identity Kit series of photos of the bags of homeless people by Moyra Peralta

http://www.people.virginia.edu/~ds8s/moyra/identity.html 

• Interview with Moyra Peralta about her photos of homeless people:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/womanshour/2001_50_mon_05.shtml

• Handbags as time capsules of self-identity:

http://sites.tufts.edu/handbags/timeline/ 

September's episode is about the way Kelly defines guilt - it is very different from the dictionary definition and is a really useful construct. I give a very personal example of my recent experience of being stuck because of experiencing guilt and how I was able to reconstrue and move on. I hope this helps you to understand what it is about and how you might help someone else or yourself.

You can find out more about Kelly’s definition of guilt in The Psychology of Personal Constructs Vol. 1, Chapter 10, Dimensions of Transition.

Bannister’s (2005) helpful rewording of Kelly is in an interesting chapter:

“Your core role structure is what you understand yourself to be.… guilt is experienced not because one has defied and upset social taboos but because you have misread yourself.”

Bannister, D. (2005): the Logic of Passion. Chapter 2 in Fransella, F. (Ed.) (2005) The Essential Practitioner’s Handbook of Personal Construct Psychology.

August 2020's edition is in in a better podcast style. It tells the story of how the technique came out of a session with a young person at a time when I was stuck in my work with him. On the day it emerged, I had no idea that it would be so successful. I hope you will find it useful and it will encourage you to design your own techniques. Show notes below: 

1. Can boredom ever be good? All in the Mind ABC National Radio

Part 1: The benefits of boredom

Part 2: The benefits of boredom

This is a link to the Boredom Proneness Scale test if you fancy trying it out.

2. Tom Ravenette: “Never, never, never give advice”: An essay in professional practice. Ch. 8 in Personal Construct Theory in Educational Psychology.

3. Tsudi’s ABC John Fisher and Helen Jones talk about Finn Tsudi’s ABC technique

4. Harry Procter’s work can be found here on Researchgate and YouTube.

5. Salmon (1995) Psychology in the Classroom: Reconstructing Teachers and Learners

Find yourself: Salmon line