Recordings of the Second PsychLab Virtual Laboratory Conference now available
Watch the conference sessions on Canal UNED: PsychLab developments, research, assessment and intervention protocols, and clinical experiences.
What do we do?
The Constructivist Research Group of the UNED (GICUNED) has been developing its research work in the exploration of the world of personal meanings of individuals, with specific actions in the exploration of the cognitive structure of clinical and non-clinical subjects, studies on cognitive complexity, as well as the exploration of meanings related to specific health problems, such as the acquisition of healthy habits, meanings associated with the implementation of breastfeeding, assessment and attribution of meanings of the different parts of the body in mastectomized women, etc., and their application for psychotherapeutic work.
For the exploration of the world of meanings we use both the Repertory Grid Technique and narrative techniques.
The group has developed specific protocols for the use of the Repertory Grid Technique to generate homogeneous samples for analysis, as well as tools to evaluate the quality of the data obtained and tools to explore the change in personal meanings over time and detection of atypical changes. We have a database of more than 12.000 interviews.
About our team
The members of GICUNED are expert doctors in the study of the construction of personal meaning systems or doctoral students who are doing their doctoral theses on it, the vast majority. One of the strengths of this work team is its multidisciplinary nature. We have members who apart from psychologists are engineers, which helps in planning and developing software for our research purposes. In addition, from applied or health disciplines we have a medical doctor and a nurse on the team, as well as clinical psychologists who help us in testing the models of mental representation that we develop, with clinical patients both in a public hospital context, as well as private clinician.
News and Blog
New article: event integration and well-being through repertory grids and laddering
A study with 101 students examines constructivist indicators, integration of pandemic experiences and psychological well-being.
New article: the SSI index for studying similarity between the current and ideal self
The Similarity Self/Ideal Index models shared features and discrepancies between current self-perception and the ideal self.
New article: WimpGrid, a weighted implication grid for studying psychological change
WimpGrid represents anticipated implications between constructs as a directed, weighted network, connecting constructivist interviewing and graph theory.
New article: PB Space for analysing the position of personal constructs
PB Space combines presence and implication balance to examine each construct’s role within a personal meaning network.
New article: generative AI in constructivist psychotherapy and clinical supervision
Luis Botella and Luis Ángel Saúl explore how AI can support case conceptualisation and supervision under the therapist’s responsibility.
New article: detecting systemic patterns in psychological case formulations
A rule-based framework identifies configurations inspired by systemic archetypes while preserving the meanings of each individual case.
AEI funding awarded for technological development and mathematical modelling of psychological change
Project PID2024-157970NB-C21, led by Luis Ángel Saúl, has received €37,500 in funding for 2025–2028.
Alejandro Sanfeliciano defends his doctoral thesis on modelling psychological change
Alejandro Sanfeliciano has defended his doctoral thesis at UNED and received the highest grade, Sobresaliente cum laude.
May 27, 2024
Free. Online or In-person.
Salón de Actos, Facultad de Psicología, UNED, Madrid
UNED is requesting candidates to apply for the position of Technical Support Personnel of the PsychLab Laboratory (3 years), https://psychlab.uned.es/
At present, we have nine members of GICUNED with their doctoral theses in progress