The Creative Cycle: A Concept from Constructivist Psychotherapy

There is an underrated but deeply inspired concept in constructivist psychology that I rarely see discussed in other frameworks. It’s called the Creative Cycle.

One of the reasons I love constructivism is because of the revolutionary stance it takes toward the person: not as a fixed identity, but as a process, a living system. Rather than assessing people based only on static traits or pathologies, we observe how they move - how they adapt, shift, and reconfigure meaning.

Living, and constructing meaning about life, is as much a creative act as it is a scientific one. We believe that humans are scientists: we build hypotheses, test them in the world, evaluate the outcomes, and revise meaning based on our experience.

The Creative Cycle is a model that helps us understand what happens when one of those hypotheses fails - when we are invalidated by life, and must reorganize.

Let’s say you’ve just experienced an invalidation, minor or major. Maybe you’ve lost your job. Maybe a relationship just ended. Maybe you lost a padel match or your favorite cereal was sold out. How does your mind adapt? What does it do when the reality you expected is no longer possible?

A well-adapted system would enter the Creative Cycle.

Stage 1: Loosening

When we experience invalidation, especially a core one, the natural impulse is often to double down. We keep applying the same hypothesis, hoping for different results. This is what Kelly called hostility.

But when we reach the limits of that strategy, when repeating the same response fails us, we’re invited into something deeper.

We begin to loosen our constructs. We play. We entertain new ideas and approaches. We explore once-unthinkable options. We ask questions we never dared to ask. We gather new data, try on new roles, and let the problem mutate in our minds.

Suddenly, what once felt like a wall becomes something else: a field of possibility.

Stage 2: Tightening

Loosening without structure doesn’t help much - ideas floating untethered don’t integrate.

The next step is tightening. Here, we take what we’ve learned and begin to build new constructs from it. We make decisions. We form sentences. We give our ideas shape and direction. We create hypotheses that are internally consistent with the rest of our system.

This is the architect phase - you take the wild clay of possibility and mold it into something you can live by.

Stage 3: Validation

But meaning isn’t truly constructed unless it’s tested.

This is where we validate (or invalidate) our new system. We apply it to our lives. We act on it. We observe how others respond to it, how it feels, and what it produces. Does this new construct work for us? Does it help us live more fully, more coherently?

If it does, we keep it. If it doesn’t, we revise again - begin the cycle anew.

Why This Matters

People often get stuck in one phase.

• Highly structured, rigid individuals often struggle with loosening. They cling to predictability, fearing the chaos of openness.

• The “creative souls” of the world may loosen beautifully, but struggle with tightening. Everything is possible, so nothing is chosen.

• Others may tighten but never validate - they live in theories, not in action.

Constructivist therapy notices this rhythm - the loosening and tightening of constructs like a heart, a breath, a living pulse of psychological life. And we get to work to ensure it functions at full capacity.

Because the tragedy, as George Kelly observed, is that most people only become good at one part of the cycle. But health lies in the cycle itself.

How to Spot It in Your Own Life

• Are you clinging to an old story because loosening feels too threatening?

• Are you spinning in too many possibilities without anchoring to a path?

• Are you forming new insights but never living them out?

Ask yourself where you are in the cycle. Not in judgment, but with curiosity.

Because these movements-your loosening, your tightening, your validation-are more telling than any label you could apply. They reveal how alive your system is. How much you’re learning. How much you’re still willing to change.