The Unstable Subject: Public Constructs and Borderline Personality Disorder

Abstract

Kelly’s intense focus on personal construing processes is understandable given the aims he put forth when creating personal construct psychology and the socio-cultural context in which his theory arose. Plenty of space remains, however, to elucidate the interaction between public construing processes and personal constructs to the extent that these can be separated in a relational theory such as this one. Previously, this exploration was largely theoretical, and it involved drawing parallels between Kelly and theorists such as Foucault or Bauman. In this paper, the relationship between public and personal systems of constructs is theorized with clinical applications in mind, emphasizing its practical importance as a means of understanding clients and situating their change in a wider social context, while understanding the possibilities and limitations determined by constructs structuring and governing social relations. This paper will attempt to create a new framework for further expansion of Kelly’s theory. A brief clinical vignette will be used to illustrate how this approach reframes borderline personality disorder as a primarily relational issue.