George Kelly (psychologist)

I have been so puzzled over the early labelling of as ‘cognitive’ that several years ago I set out to write another short book to make it clear that I wanted no part of cognitive theory.

— George Kelly (psychologist)

Man develops his way of anticipating events by construing, by scratching out his channels of thought. Thus he builds his own maze. His runways are the constructs he forms, each a two-way street, each essentially a pair of alternatives between which he can choose.

— George Kelly (psychologist)

Johann Herbart’s work on education and particularly mathematical psychology influenced me. I think mathematics is the pure instance of construct functioning—the model of human behaviour.

— George Kelly (psychologist)

Man anticipates events by construing their replications.

— George Kelly (psychologist)

Fundamental Postulate and its Corollaries

— George Kelly (psychologist)

The classic threefold division of psychology into cognition, affection, and conation has been completely abandoned.

— George Kelly (psychologist)

[The evildoer's] behavior has been threatening to those whose own morality is insecure; and as long as he is seen as having exemplified the tempting way of life, there are those who will need to punish him as a prophylaxis for their own temptations.

— George Kelly (psychologist)

We attempt to use the phenomenologist's approach to arrive at personalized constructs which have a wide range of meaning for the given individual; then we attempt to piece together this high-level type of data with what we know about other persons.

— George Kelly (psychologist)

While we could agree with the psychological phenomenologists and assign an important place to generalization within the realm of the individual, we were quite sure that some data must be lifted from the realm of the individual and construed nomothetically that is, in a realm comprising many individuals.

— George Kelly (psychologist)

Diagnosis is all too frequently an attempt to cram a whole live struggling client into a nosological category.

— George Kelly (psychologist)

From the standpoint of the psychology of personal constructs we may define a disorder as any personal construction which is used repeatedly in spite of consistent invalidation.

— George Kelly (psychologist)

I sketched an epistemological position that assumed the reality of events, independently of how they are perceived. In taking this stand I broke off with the position known as phenomenology; at least I broke off with phenomenology to the extent that it is a form of pure philosophical idealism.

— George Kelly (psychologist)

It is important, then, to see confirmation, or the validation of one’s constructs, as securing a base upon which one can build major revisions of [one’s] construct system. This is why we so often cite security as necessary for broad advancement, whether in a person or in society. This is why the arts and sciences flourish at a higher level when nations and people are led to believe they are on the right track.

— George Kelly (psychologist)

What I am saying is that it is not so much what man is that counts as it is what he ventures to make of himself. To make the leap he must do more than disclose himself; he must risk a certain amount of confusion. Then, as soon as he does catch a glimpse of a different kind of life, he needs to find some way of overcoming the paralyzing moment of threat, for this is the instant when he wonders who he really is - whether he is what he just was or is what he is about to be.

— George Kelly (psychologist)

There is another meaning that might be attached to this admonition to be oneself; that one should not try to disguise himself. I suspect this comes nearer to what psychologists mean when they urge people to be themselves. It is presumed that the person who faces the world barefaced is more spontaneous, that he expresses himself more fully, and that he has a better chance of developing all his resources if he assumes no disguises.

— George Kelly (psychologist)