Neimeyer R. A. & Winter D. A. (2015) Constructivist theory and psychotherapy. In: Wright J. D. (ed.) International encyclopedia of the social & sciences. Second edition. Volume 4. Elsevier, Amsterdam: 729–732.
Constructivist psychotherapy is not so much a single model of therapy as it is a metaperspective that informs many contemporary approaches to psychological treatment. This article reviews several traditions of clinical practice that are informed by a constructivist emphasis on meaning-making in personal, family, social and linguistic domains, and notes their extension in the work of numerous international contributors to this perspective.
Toomey B. & Ecker B. (2007) Of neurons and knowings: Constructivism, coherence psychology and their neurodynamic substrates. Journal of Constructivist Psychology 20: 201–245. https://cepa.info/3743
This first of three articles creates a framework for bringing the phenomenology of psychotherapy into fruitful coordination with neuroscientific knowledge. We suggest that constructivism is a conceptual paradigm adequate to this task. An examination of the main features of psychological constructivism and of neural constructivism serves to demonstrate their strong convergence. Attention then turns to a particular implementation of psychological constructivism, the relatively recently developed psychotherapeutic system known as coherence therapy or coherence psychology. We provide an account of the extensive neuroscientific evidence supporting this system’s model of clinical symptoms as being produced by coherent, unconscious knowledge structures held in implicit, subcortical memory. Suggestions for research that could test our analysis are the focus of our conclusion.