How to Coach Yourself and Others Essential Knowledge For Coaching | Page 279

Kelly defined his theory in a formal structured way by devising
what he called his 'fundamental postulate' - basically a posh term
for the statement which underpins the whole of Personal
Construct Psychology. A further eleven corollaries (or clarifying
statements) were also developed which extended the theory and
added more elaboration to how the theory impacts and is used.
These eleven have over time been expanded and added to as the
range of the theory has been developed (e.g. see Dallos 1991,
Procter 1981, Balnaves and Caputi 1993). In fairness it must be
said that these additions have not been universally acclaimed
and many people only recognise the original eleven.
You may have got the impression that Personal Construct
Psychology is very individual focused - which it is - and that it
has nothing to offer in terms of group development. The
principles of Personal Construct Psychology can be applied to
individuals, groups and culture with equal ease. Various books
and papers have been published exploring the nomothetic
aspects of Personal Construct Psychology (e.g. Balnaves and
Caputi 1993, Kalekin-Fishman and Walker 1996).
Te fundamental postulate and the eleven corollaries
The Fundamental Postulate states that "A person's processes are
psychologically 'channellised' by the ways in which they
anticipate events". My interpretation of this is that our
expectations dictate our choice of action.
The Construction corollary - "A person anticipates events by
construing their replication". Again I interpret this as meaning
that we approach the future by looking at similar past
experiences and basing our actions on those previous events.
The Experience corollary - "A person's construct system varies
as they successively construe the replication of events". I take
this to imply that our construct system is in a state of constant
change based on our experiences.

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