How to Coach Yourself and Others Essential Knowledge For Coaching | Page 281

constructs within whose range of convenience the variants lie".
By this I understand that our construct system is only as flexible
as we allow it to be. If our constructs are 'open to suggestion'
then so will we.
The Fragmentation corollary - "A person may successively
employ a variety of construction systems which are inferentially
incompatible with each other". In other words we can hold
contradictory constructs at the same time.
Constructs in use
Constructs form the building blocks of our 'personality' and as
such come in various shapes and sizes. From the Organisation
corollary it follows that some constructs are more important
than others. The most important constructs are those which are
'core' to our sense of being. These are very resistant to change
and include things like moral code, religious beliefs etc. and
cause significant psychological impact if they are threatened in
any way. The other constructs are called 'peripheral' constructs
and a change to them does not have the same impact. It also
follows that some constructs will actually subsume other
constructs as we move up the hierarchy.
Categories of constructs come in three types. There are 'preemptive' constructs, these are constructs which are applied in an
all or nothing way. If this is a ball then it is nothing else but a ball
- very black and white type of thinking. The second type is
'constellatory' constructs. These constructs are the stereotyping
constructs - if this is a ball then it must be round, made of leather
and used in football matches. Constructs in this category bring a
lot of ancillary baggage with them (be it right or wrong). The last
type of construct category is 'propositional'. This one carries no
implications or additional labels and is the most open form of
construct. It should be noted that constructs do not have to have
'words' attached to them. We can, and do, have constructs which
were either formed before we could speak or which has a non
1159