An Introduction to Repertory Grid Theory and Technique

This article is to introduce the reader to repertory grid theory and technique, and to describe some applications of the technique to psychotherapy research. The research potential of the double dyad grid, a development from the repertory grid, will also be discussed.

The late George Kelly, an American psychologist and engineer, drew together a philosophical background, a theory of human personality, a therapeutic approach and a research methodology in the two volumes of The Psychology of Personal Constructs (1955). His style is ‘homespun’, gentle and full of humour in places. Yet his endeavour was serious - to develop an internally coherent theory of human personality. Repertory grid theory and technique have their roots in Kelly's publication. Since 1955 there have been many reviews of, and developments in, Kelly's work. The applications of repertory grid techniques have diversified. The technique is extremely flexible and has been applied in very different research and clinical settings. Grid studies have been carried out in social anthropology (Orley 1976) to investigate Ganda mythology, in the area of architectural and environmental design (Honikman 1976, Stringer 1974), in assessing training programmes (Lipshitz 1974, Ryle & Breen 1974), and in the study of cognitive structure and complexity (Bieri 1955, Epting 1972, Honess 1976). In this article only some of those developments obviously relevant to psychotherapy will be discussed. In formulating his theory of personality, Kelly used a philosophy of ‘constructive alternativism’;. ‘Constructive alternativism falls within that area of epistemology which is sometimes called gnosiology - the systematic analysis of the conceptions employed by ordinary and scientific thought in exploring the world’. Kelly takes an exploration of the ‘theory of theories’ as his starting point for the development of the theory of personal constructs. Events are open to an infinite number of theoretical constructions, the number only li