Extracting information from Repertory Grid data: new perspectives on clinical and assessment practice

The repertory grid technique devised by Kelly (1955/1991) can be useful in clinical practice and research, because it provides significant information in terms of the respondents' mental structure. However, it is a complex technique calling for a substantial investment of time and effort by both clinician and respondent if the information obtained is to be relevant and useful. Its main advantage is that it allows the patient's personally relevant data to be subjected to the rigor of the mathematical-statistical elaboration of underlying structures in the data provided by computer analysis. The present article shows how this can be undertaken using a grid completed by a woman with an eating disorder. Additionally, the paper provides a historical context for grid analyses carried out with a freeware computer program available in English and Italian that incorporates recently developed methods of grid analysis.