Small steps against the tyranny of distance in isolated communities
RIS ID
86102
Abstract
Collecting a history of the use of personal construct ideas in an isolated community like Australia from 1970 serves a number of purposes. Normally one purpose of collecting this history is to learn from it for the future. However, given the constructive alternativism which must permeate this chapter, this can only be my view, and so the lessons too may only be mine. I have drawn much from the very helpful history of these ideas in Victoria, Australia (Costigan, 2000). This chapter can add to Costigan's paper by dealing with something of the New South Wales and Western Australian history, as well as the Victorian. The West Australians (Stein, 2001) have also provided very useful information. There have been other attempts to encourage the sharing of personal construct ideas, such as the Australasian Personal Construct Newsletter, and the organisations that have been developed with this same aim. My main lesson has been that the effects of geographical distance have been as threatening to the development of personal construct ideas in this vast but isolated country as they have been to so many other endeavours here.
Publication Details
Viney, L. L. (2006). Small steps against the tyranny of distance in isolated communities. In P. Caputi, H. Foster & L. L. Viney (Eds.), Personal Construct Psychology: New Ideas (pp. 71-80). England: John Wiley & Sons.