What is Personal Construct Coaching or Counselling?

It is not a magic formula. Nor is it a branch of medicine. Rather it is based on The Psychology of Personal Constructs, sometimes called The Psychology of Change or just abbreviated to PCP.

Personal Construct coaching is focussed on the opportunities available to a person to develop him or her self. PCP coaching is focussed on the re-construing by individuals to release and enhance their performance in the workplace. While PCP is geared towards looking inwards, the aim is to look at personal change/self analysis to increase insight and wisdom as a way of doing something differently. The PCP coach facilitates a ‘transformation’ in the client leading to more satisfaction in how he or she delivers work, expands on their style, experiments with influencing behaviours, and develops collaborative relationships.

Personal Construct counselling is focussed on the distress experienced by a person in response to life events. In both contexts the Personal Construct approach helps the client to a clearer understanding of him or her self. It unlocks an inner awareness. To ‘know’ is to be able to develop potential.

PCP coaching or counselling is based on the principle that throughout life we develop a hierarchy of ‘constructs’ which form the basis of our understanding of the world and our behaviours. To construe is to give meaning to actions, whether our own or other people’s.

We each see our personal world through a network of these constructs and we behave according to the ways in which we construe- or interpret-events.

The individuality of our interpretations-or constructions-of reality often produces conflicts, which may impair performance.

At the same time, our individuality is a basis for our creativity. Years of practical work have shown that PCP coaching or counselling can find an appropriate balance between these, sometimes conflicting constructs.

By gaining an understanding of our own construing systems and those of others we are better able to understand those other’s behaviour and relationships, as well as our own.

The coaching and counselling process

This is designed with two prime objectives in view:

1. To help clients change their behaviour in ways they choose.
2. To facilitate change at the level of insight and understanding.

The least important function of the consultant is to give advice.

The process is seen as helping the client to discover how he or she ‘ constructs’ a personal world, knowingly or unknowingly. It is then a matter of deciding how far the desired personal reconstruction is possible and helping the client to bring this about.

The typical areas of attention for coaching are goal setting, competency development, performance improvement, leadership challenges, life, and career issues. Typical areas for attention for counselling are role performance problems, relationships with colleagues and to the organisation e.g. conflict, stress or duress at work, and domestic concerns affecting performance at work.