The Personal Position Repertoire Method (PPR)

Personal Position Repertoire method, developed by Hubert Hermans, can be used in individual coaching as a means to investigate the content and organization of one's I-positions. It helps to understand one's self better, define directions of personal and professional development. It allows to explore inner conflicts and ways the person relates to others.

A PPR investigation gives an insight in the complexity and contradictions as part of one's self-organization in the context of relationships of the person with significant others.

The basic idea of the PPR procedure can be explained by the metaphor of stage (Hermans, 2001). During an investigation the stage is entered by a number of internal I-positions (or characters) from the left and by external I-positions (or characters) from the right. Internal I-positions are appropriated by the person as belonging to himself, (e.g. I as a perfectionist, I as a mother), while external I-positions refer to persons or groups in the environment that are experienced as “mine” (e.g. my mother or my sport club). Also important aspects of life (e.g. my favorete art or my professional work) can be seen als external I-positions. The method assesses the extent to which particular internal positions become prominent in relation to a series of external positions. On the basis of this framework the client investigates the way the internal domain of the self is related to the external world of significant others. Insight in these relationships forms a starting point for the formulation of appropriate action plans.