“From the
Wabash,” PCM Revisited
By Dr.
Ryan Donlan
Department
of Educational Leadership
Bayh
College of Education
Indiana
State University
In September of 2012, I shared one of our first ISU Ed.
Leadershop articles highlighting Taibi Kahler’s Process Communication Model®
(PCM) entitled, “From the Wabash, Now Worldwide.” As I think ahead to an upcoming report I’ll
deliver in Hot Springs, Arkansas, this October regarding the model’s research worldwide
(and not knowing who had the chance to log-in prior), I thought a Leadershop
update would be timely.
What follows is the original article, updated with additional
information for consideration.
In 1969, a Purdue
University Ph.D. student in psychology, Taibi Kahler, was interning at a mental
health facility in Northern Indiana. While
there, he became interested in the psychological theories of Transactional
Analysis (Kahler, 2008).
Shortly
thereafter, Kahler created an inventory to collect data for his dissertation on
predicting academic underachievement. While
performing an analysis to study his instrument’s validity, he noticed data
falling into six mutually exclusive clusters that later served as the basis for
a theory on personality structure (Kahler Communications, Inc., n.d.; Kahler,
2008).
The
uniqueness of Dr. Kahler’s discovery was that human behavior could be
identified, second-by-second, as being productive (communication) or non-productive
(miscommunication) with both patterns sequential, measurable, and predictable.
For
this discovery, Dr. Kahler was later awarded the 1977 Eric Berne Memorial
Scientific Award and honored by more than 10,000 of his clinical peers from 52
countries as having provided the MOST SIGNIFICANT SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY IN THE
FIELD OF PSYCHOLOGY (Kahler, 2008).
Dr.
Kahler’s discoveries in the field of communication assisted NASA for decades in
the selection of astronauts and have enhanced the business of global corporations.
His discoveries have assisted practitioners in the fields of therapy, health
care, and education. Because of the
power and relevance of his theories, Dr. Kahler served as communication advisor
to President William Jefferson Clinton and provided psycho-demographic polling analysis
for his campaigns.
In
2012, two colleagues and I conducted a formal validity study on Kahler’s
Personality Pattern Inventory (PPI), an instrument that analyzes one’s
personality structure. We performed a
statistical factor analysis on data from over 53,000 persons.
This research affirmed PPI’s validity and reliability (Ampaw, Gilbert,
& Donlan, 2012), as we first reported in Vienna, Austria, with experts from
Europe and Oceania, as well as Dr. Kahler, in attendance.
This
week, I’ll present some information on Dr. Kahler’s model at a transnational
conference for an international group. It
is all quite sophisticated theoretically, yet can be unpacked nicely in its leadership
applications. It seems as though PCM is garnering
even more relevance worldwide, as we now live, play, and work, both locally and
globally.
What is ironic is
that Kahler current enjoys a relatively low-profile status in education: Known
throughout the world for his contributions in bringing people together … having
changed the lives of millions through his books and seminars … a member of four
international high-IQ societies … and delightfully humble in spite of all this –
Dr. Kahler, is currently “not” on most American educators’ “Who’s Whom” lists.
Yet, he should
be.
The Process Communication
Model’s impact on professional and personal experiences of persons from around
the world is most certainly one that bears a closer look, as for one thing, it
is “a catalyst” for better student achievement in our schools (Donlan, 2013).
Items possibly of
interest:
PCM is a subtle, yet sophisticated method of differentiated
communication that can minimize drama and maximize togetherness;
PCM is a model that allows for deeper understanding of other
people, within seconds of meeting them, from diverse backgrounds or cultures;
PCM allows us to communicate more effectively, so that
others can understand our good intentions.
If you decide to
study the model further, a number of open-source articles exist, and I can
direct you to them. I’d love to get your
thoughts, feelings, and opinions, as we share reactions, reflections, and even
some actions that we can take toward better understanding of local, and global,
relationships.
References
Ampaw, F. D., Gilbert, M. B., &
Donlan, R. A. (2012, August). Verifying the validity and reliability of the
Personality Pattern Inventory. Paper presented at the 4th International
Congress on Process Communication, Vienna, Austria.
Donlan, R. (2013). The Process Education
Model (PEM): A catalyst for school improvement.
Journal of Process Communication,
1(1), 45-67.
Kahler Communications, Inc. (n. d.). Personality Pattern Inventory validation procedures. Little Rock,
AR: Author.
Kahler,
T. (2008). The process therapy model. Little Rock, AR: Taibi Kahler Associates.
__________________________________________________
Dr. Ryan Donlan is
involved in research and training in the Process Communication Model (PCM) and
the Process Education Model (PEM) and wishes to partner with corporate groups
or with K-12, college, and university educators who are interested in research
on professional development and learning outcomes in their organizations.
No comments:
Post a Comment