Family constructs and semantic polarities: a convergent perspective?

The Authors present in this chapter the similarities of their independently developed perspectives: the family constructs psychology (H.P.) and the family semantic polarities model (V.U.). For both, meaning making is a joint enterprise with emotions at its core and requires contrast poles. The two perspectives have also some differences. For example, the concept of semantic polarities is a triadic one, whereas the family constructs psychology stresses more than Ugazio's model the uniqueness of individual positions. The differences arise from the clinical and research tradition from which the two perspective derive. Kelly's constructivism had a great influence on Procter's psychology of family constructs, whereas the systemic psychotherapies and the Milan approach, of which Ugazio has always been a part, are the background within which the semantic polarities model has been developing.