‘We are scientists of our own lives’

For the first time ever, the International Congress on Personal Construct Psychology (ICPCP) is coming to Quebec, courtesy of a group of Concordia researchers from the Department of Education. The event takes place from July 6 to 9.

“This congress will celebrate the worldwide use of personal construct psychology (PCP),” says associate professor and organizer Ann-Louise Davidson.

“It will highlight the broad range of its applications and emphasize its evolution in a variety of disciplines that go above and beyond its original application to psychology.”

PCP stems from the work of George Kelly, the American psychologist who developed a psychotherapy approach and interview technique called the repertory grid interview to help patients analyze their own constructs or ways of seeing the world.

“According to PCP, we are scientists of our own lives, and we develop constructs that we use to anticipate events,” Davidson explains.

The theme of this year's congress is Reconnecting and Celebrating Diversities. It will create synergies between the fields where PCP is applied and encourage scholars, students and practitioners to reflect on innovative research methods.

These include the repertory grid, perceiver grids, narrative and other more qualitative approaches that are being used in the exploration of personal meaning.
 

‘Understanding human experience’

Associate professor Davidson, PhD candidate Nadia Naffi, assistant professor Giuliana Cucinelli and professor Richard Schmid co-organized the ICPCP 2017 congress.

“Nadia was really the driving force in putting this event together,” Davidson points out.

Indeed, the idea of hosting the congress at Concordia came to Davidson when Naffi encouraged her to travel to last year’s European Personal Construct Association Conference in Padova, Italy.

“Nadia developed a new methodology to engage youth from host societies in a reflection on online comments about the Syrian refugee crisis,” Davidson says.

“She wanted to present her methodology in front of experts and I wanted to present a new social approach to using PCP.”