George Kelly is a famous American psychologist. His popularity, he acquired for the developed concept, concerning the cognitive activity of the individual.
George Kelly, having received a bachelor's degree in physicsand mathematics, changed the direction of his interests. He began to study social problems. Defending the master's thesis, the scientist for several years taught. After that, he was awarded a bachelor's degree in pedagogy at Edinburgh University. In the University of Iowa, George Kelly defended his doctoral dissertation. A few years before the Second World War, he organized a program of mobile psychological clinics. They acted as a base for students' practice. During the war, Kelly was an aeronautical psychologist. After the end of hostilities, he became a professor and head of the program in clinical psychology at Ohio State University.
J.Kelly developed a concept in accordance with which the formation of mental processes of the individual is carried out on the basis of how a person anticipates ("simulates") the upcoming events. The author considered people as researchers who constantly make up their own image of reality with the help of their own structure of categorical scales. In accordance with these models, a person puts forward hypotheses about upcoming events. In the event that the assumption is not confirmed, there is a reorganization of the scale system to some extent. This allows us to increase the level of adequacy of the forthcoming predictions. This is, as George Kelly believed, the cognitive theory of personality. The researcher also developed a special methodical principle. It is called "repertory grids". With their help, methods for diagnosing the specifics of individual modeling of reality were formed. Subsequently, in various fields of psychology, the methods developed by George Kelly have been successfully applied.
In the 1920s, the researcher usedclinical works of psychoanalytic interpretation. George Kelly was surprised at the ease with which patients perceived the concepts of Freud. At the same time, he considered his ideas absurd. As part of the experiment, George Kelly began to change the interpretations that his patients received, according to various psychodynamic schools. It turned out that people equally perceive the principles that were offered to them. Moreover, patients were willing to change the course of their lives according to them. Thus, neither the analysis of children's conflicts according to Freud, nor the study of the very past itself is of decisive importance. This is the conclusion made by the results of the experiment, George Kelly. Personality theory was associated with ways of interpreting the individual's experience and foreseeing future events. Freud's conception of the research was successful because they shook the thinking pattern that was familiar to patients. They offered to understand events in a new way.
George Kelly believed that anxiety and depressionpeople arise due to falling into the trap of inadequate and rigid categories of their thinking. For example, some believe that authoritative persons are right in any situation. In this regard, criticism from such a person will be depressing. If you use any technique that contributes to changing this setting, it will have an effect. At the same time, effectiveness is assured regardless of whether it is based on the theory linking this belief to the oedipal complex, the need to have a spiritual mentor, or to lose the love and care of parents with fear. Thus, Kelly came to the conclusion that it is necessary to create techniques that directly corrected inadequate models of thinking.
Kelly asked patients to be aware of their owninstallation and verify them in reality. So, one woman experienced anxiety and fear at the thought that her opinion may not coincide with the conclusions of the spouse. Nevertheless, Kelly insisted that she should try to express her thoughts to her husband on any issue. As a result, the patient was convinced in practice that this does not pose a danger to her.
George Kelly became one of those psychotherapists,who for the first time tried to change directly the thinking of their patients. This goal underlies many existing methods today. All of them are united by the term "cognitive therapy". However, in modern practice, this approach is almost not used. Basically, behavioral techniques are realized.
