Final: GENERAL CONSTRUCTIVISM

Question 1

GENERAL CONSTRUCTIVISM: View of psychopathology

Answer 1

○ Constructivist theory: emphasizes an individual’s creation of his/her reality. Individual’s perception of reality is deciding factor in determining behavior
○ Holds at its core that individuals create their own views of events or relationships in their own lives

Question 2

GENERAL CONSTRUCTIVISM: 5 Themes of Constructivism

Answer 2

○ Active agency
■ People are active participants in shaping their own lives
■ We continuously influence our experiences

○ Order
■ Too much order–overcontrol
■ Too little order–loss of balance and direction

○ Self and identity
■ Fragmented or inflexible view of the self can lead to intra and interpersonal difficulties

○ Social symbolic processes
■ Social interactions/symbolic processes (language, images, etc.) create order/meaning/identity

○ Dynamic dialectical development
■ We seek balance and resist change

Question 3

GENERAL CONSTRUCTIVISM: Three types of Constructivism

Answer 3

○ Radical Constructivism
■ Reality different for everyone
■ Limited by biological brain: Can never know if reality exists outside of it.

○ Social Constructivism
■ Reality socially constructed (language, culture, society)
■ Not one reality, but many
■ Cohesive sense of self not possible

○ Critical Constructivism
■ Similar to Social Constructivism, but social AND individual processes create reality.
■ Meanings enacted between individual and world. Reality exists, even if we can’t
know it directly.