Sociality, role, and embodiment

The author critically reviews Kelly's concepts of 'role' and sociality, which are seen as central to the project of personal construct psychology. 'Construing the constructions' of the other conjures us a picture of putting ourselves in the position of the other through an act of imagination, that is subsequently followed by action. It is argued here that this is not always (or even often) an appropriate description of what happens when we understand another person. Drawing on Merleau-Ponty's (1962) existential phenomenology, the author elaborates an alternative version of construing other's constructions. In this model, playing a role with another involves all the person's processes, without giving undue emphasis to the cognitive functions of deliberation and imagination. The clinical implications of this formulation are examined