Abstract
Abstract A comparison of personal construct theory and certain existential psychologies supports George Kelly's claim that important differences separate the two approaches. This article discusses the models in their ontological and clinical aspects. At the heart of Kelly's theory is a developmental/progressive cosmology that posits a universe whose gentle unfolding is organized as a hierarchy of exquisitely intercorrelated events. The implication of this model is that all disturbing experiences (perceived as negative feelings) indicate the temporary failure of one's construct system to assimilate events. The existentialists, by contrast, stop short of viewing all unpleasant constructions of events as necessarily implying incomplete understanding. Instead, many such experiences are treated as though they cannot be significantly reconstrued, and thus subsumed by the construct system, but must instead be accommodated as exceptions to the epistemic organization. The article is completed with an analysis of t...
Published Version
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