Accessible summary
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People with intellectual disabilities are still not being listened to by services.
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When upset, people with intellectual disabilities are often seen as mentally ill.
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This paper describes a procedure [repertory grid] for understanding how people with intellectual disabilities make sense of their experiences.
Summary
Many people with intellectual disabilities are still not being listened to by the services providing them with care and support, and when they become upset and frustrated, they are all too readily regarded as being mentally ill. To help people with intellectual disabilities describe and make sense of their experiences and feelings in a non‐judgemental manner, and without the need for these experiences to be interpreted and explained, this paper describes the use of an adapted repertory grid procedure developed from George Kelley’s personal construct psychology. Although such an approach has been identified as being particularly suitable for working with people with intellectual disabilities in a person‐centred manner, little information has been presented and to remedy this, this paper presents an outline of PCP, its application with people with intellectual disabilities and two case reports to illustrate its use in clinical practice.