The Encounter With the Other: The Space Where Love and Threat Confront Each Other

Abstract

The construing process allowing people to give shape and meaning to their experience is what personal construct psychology (PCP) is primarily interested in. Particular emphasis is placed on one’s construction of experience of other people, which makes PCP psychology concerned first and foremost with relationality. It would therefore be improper to speak of a relational turn in PCP, as is often done about the recent developments in psychoanalysis and in other psychological and psychotherapeutic approaches. But, based on the PCP literature of the last few decades, it is our opinion that we are witnessing what seems to be an attempt to highlight even more clearly the centrality of human relatedness in Kelly’s theory, to the point of clarifying, extending, or partially revising its original formulation. The contributions to this special issue of the journal present varying aspects and ways of being in relation through a diversity of lenses in terms of approach (philosophical vs psychological research), contents and focus.