[Evaluation of the therapeutic process in inpatient psychotherapy with the Repertory Grid technique]

With a sample of 155 patients undergoing psychoanalytic inpatient psychotherapy, the clinical relevance of nomethetic measures derived from Repertory Grids (Role Construct Repertory Test; Kelly 1955) shall be demonstrated. Results lead to the conclusion that valuable findings concerning the psychotherapeutic process can be obtained from the grid without necessarily recurring to the framework of Personal Construct Psychology. In general, cognitive differentiation seems to diminish as therapy goes on. Successful patients start to deal with their parental imagines earlier in the therapeutic process than less successful ones. Moreover, they adapt the construction of their Self to the one of their Ideal Self, just as they construe the treating therapist increasingly similar to their Ideal Self. This points to the eminence of the therapeutic relationship for successful therapy outcome. Finally, the paper presents some possibilities to demonstrate transference processes within the scope of inpatient psychotherapy by means of grid measures. All in all, we consider the repertory grid technique as a promising tool for the evaluation of therapeutic processes, but it requires considerable expenditure to fit into clinical routine.