Introduction
Psychotherapy integration has been defined as including various attempts to look beyond the confines of single-school approaches in order to see what can be learned from other perspectives. It is characterized by openness to various ways of integrating diverse theories and techniques (Stricker 2010).
Theoretical Context for Concept
There are four generally accepted approaches to psychotherapy integration. These include the following:
- 1.
A common factors approach to understanding psychotherapy, which identifies those aspects of psychotherapy that are present in most, if not all, therapeutic system
- 2.
Technical integration, in which a combination of techniques is drawn from different therapeutic systems without regard for any specific theoretical approach
- 3.
Theoretical integration or an attempt to understand the patient by developing a superordinate theoretical framework that draws from a variety of different frameworks
- 4.
Assimilative integration, which combines treatments...
References
Castonguay, L. G., Newman, M. G., Borkovec, T. D., Grosse Holtforth, M., & Maramba, G. G. (2005). Cognitive-behavioral assimilative integration. In J. C. Norcross & M. R. Goldfried (Eds.), Handbook of psychotherapy integration (2nd ed., pp. 241–260). New York: Oxford University Press.
Duncan, B. L., Sparks, J. A., & Miller, S. D. (2006). Client, not theory, directed: Integrating approaches one client at a time. In G. Stricker & J. Gold (Eds.), A casebook of psychotherapy integration (pp. 225–240). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.
Lambert, M. (2007). Presidential address: What we have learned from a decade of research aimed at improving psychotherapy outcome in routine care. Psychotherapy Research, 17, 1–14.
Stricker, G. (2010). Psychotherapy integration. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.
Stricker, G., & Gold, J. (2005). Assimilative psychodynamic psychotherapy. In J. C. Norcross & M. R. Goldfried (Eds.), Handbook of psychotherapy integration (2nd ed., pp. 221–240). New York: Oxford University Press.
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Stricker, G. (2016). Assimilation in Integrative Couple and Family Therapy. In: Lebow, J., Chambers, A., Breunlin, D. (eds) Encyclopedia of Couple and Family Therapy. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-15877-8_509-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-15877-8_509-1
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