The Work Repertory Grid

Abstract

The Work Repertory Grid was developed to investigate a Personal Construct model of burnout for an empirical study involving 60 mental health professionals working in the Illawarra area. This paper backgrounds some of the theories of stress and burnout and the traditional methods of measuring predictor and dependent variables. It also describes the development of the Work Repertory Grid and how it was derived from both Personal Construct and burnout theory. Results from the empirical study suggest a valuable role for the instrument in interpreting and exploring results from future research in conjunction with other objective measures, which, in turn, tend to validate the instrument. By fixing constructs relating to personal attributes and relating styles the Work Repertory Grid holds the promise of early prediction of burnout in stressful work environments.