Integrative Psychotherapy Works

A range of psychotherapy approaches have been recognized as effective and even the treatment of choice across the range of psychiatric diagnostic categoriesand-behavioural-conditions). However, in clinical practice, the choice of the most effective psychotherapy for each mental disorder is complicated by the existence of over 400 varieties of psychotherapy approaches that can be defined and classified in several ways according to their theoretical model individual, family, group), temporal length and frequency of the sessions, as well as any possible combination of these elements (Garfield and Bergin, 1994). Due to their different epistemologies and attempts to create rigid boundaries around the theories, dialog among these models has been limited. In part to bridge this historical division, a number of leaders in the field have proposed an integrative approach to psychotherapy, which since the 1990s has been gaining wider acceptance is an international organization with a growing membership that includes some of the world's leaders in psychotherapy practice and research. More commonly, psychotherapists choose one theoretical model and apply it in a flexible and integrative way in their therapy practice. In recent decades, an increasing number of psychotherapists do not prefer to identify themselves completely within a single approach, but prefer to define themselves as integrative or eclectic (Feixas and Botella, 2004). In a recent large survey of over 1000 psychotherapists, only 15% indicated that they used only one theoretical orientation in their practice, and the median number of theoretical orientations used in practice was four (Tasca et al., 2015). According to the integrative psychotherapy movement, a new research field is evolving toward the search for common goals, aiming at selecting theories and techniques among psychotherapy models and developing a new field in a collaborative and integrative manner. The integrative psychotherapy movement does not aim at combining all the psychotherapeutic models into one, but its purpose is to develop a new framework for dialog among different approaches (Feixas and Botella, 2004). The term " integration " may denote different meanings. The so-called " integrative perspective " indicates a general flexible and inclusive attitude toward the different psychotherapeutic models (Greben, 2004). It aims to see what can be learned and introduced from various perspectives in practice. Integration in psychotherapy involves four possible approaches: theoretical integration (i.e., transcending diverse models by creating single but different approach), technical eclecticism (i.e., using effective ingredients from different approaches), assimilative integration (i.e., working primarily from within one model …