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Abstract
Responses to the COVID-19 pandemic are considered in terms of personal construct theory, including the diagnostic constructs proposed by George Kelly. The pandemic is seen to have caused transitions in people’s construing, experienced, for example, as anxiety, threat, guilt, and shame; and strategies to cope with it have included constriction and hostility. The reactions both of individuals and of governments differ, reflecting the individuality of construing, and can be usefully viewed in terms of personal construct perspectives on choice and decision-making. Losses resulting from the pandemic may be dealt with by a process of meaning reconstruction, and alternative constructions of it may usefully include consideration of positive changes that it has brought about, including reevaluation of the superordinate constructs of individuals and societies.
Notes
1 We acknowledge the observations on this matter of Dr. Angie Jenkin.
2 This is arguably only one of several examples of the use of a strategy of hostility by US President Donald Trump (Winter, Citation2020).
3 Kelly’s (Citation1955) term for switching from one pole of a construct to the other.
4 Again, this, as well as advice that has been provided on social activities that can be enjoyed during lockdown, assumes that the individuals concerned have loved ones, or at least opportunities for contact with these. As poignantly expressed by a correspondent in the Letters pages of The Guardian, “I can completely understand the value to family groups of your feature on board games…However, for us oldies living on our own, can I make a plea for a special column…with tips on masturbation. One is never too old to learn something new” (Brief letters: Coronavirus Outbreak, Citation2020).
5 The philosophical assumption underlying personal construct theory, namely “that all of our present interpretations of the universe are subject to revision or replacement” (Kelly, Citation1955, p. 15, italics in original).