Integrative Therapy

What Is Integrative Therapy?

Integrative therapy is a progressive form of psychotherapy that combines different therapeutic tools and approaches to fit the needs of the individual client. With an understanding of normal human development, an integrative therapist modifies standard treatments to fill in development gaps that affect each client in different ways. By combining elements drawn from different schools of psychological theory and research, integrative therapy becomes a more flexible and inclusive approach to treatment than more traditional, singular forms of psychotherapy.

When It's Used

Integrative psychotherapy techniques can be incorporated into almost any type of therapeutic work with children, adolescents, and adults, in individual practice or group settings. An integrative approach can be used to treat any number of psychological problems and disorders, including depression, anxiety, and personality disorders. The therapist matches evidence-based treatments to each client and each disorder.

What to Expect

Integrative therapy is more inclusive of the client than traditional forms of therapy, where the client plays a less active role in treatment. Integrative psychotherapists consider the individual characteristics, preferences, needs, physical abilities, spiritual beliefs, and motivation level of their clients and use their professional judgment to decide the best approach to therapy for each client. Different approaches may be used consecutively throughout different stages of the therapeutic process or they may be used as a single combined form of therapy throughout.

How It Works

There are more than 400 different types of psychotherapy, differentiated by their approach, the clients they serve, and how long and how often the therapist typically meets with clients. Research shows that even though each of these approaches vary somewhat, they can all result in similar outcomes. And because a single approach to psychotherapy does not always provide the best benefit to the client, therapists—who are trained in one particular therapeutic model, such as cognitive-behavioral, family, or gestalt therapy—often use tools borrowed from other therapies to come up with a unique and effective form of treatment that is suitable and effective for individual clients. Some psychotherapists simply refer to themselves as integrative therapists, rather than identify with one therapeutic model. Although similar in style, integrative therapy differs from eclectic therapy in that it uses techniques backed by scientific research and proven to treat specific disorders, whereas eclectic therapy focuses more on the effectiveness of a technique and is less concerned with whether or not scientific evidence has proven its effectiveness for specific problems.

The term "integrative" of Integrative Psychotherapy has a number of meanings. It refers to the process of integrating the personality: taking disowned, unaware, or unresolved aspects of the self and making them part of a cohesive personality, reducing the use of defense mechanisms that inhibit spontaneity and limit flexibility in problem solving, health maintenance, and relating to people, and re-engaging the world with full contact. It is the process of making whole. Through integration, it becomes possible for people to face each moment openly and freshly without the protection of a pre-formed opinion, position, attitude, or expectation.

Integrative Psychotherapy also refers to the bringing together of the affective, cognitive, behavioral, and physiological systems within a person, with an awareness of the social and transpersonal aspects of the systems surrounding the person. These concepts are utilized within a perspective of human development in which each phase of life presents heightened developmental tasks, need sensitivities, crises, and opportunities for new learning.

Integrative Psychotherapy takes into account many views of human functioning. The psychodynamic, client-centered, behaviorist, cognitive, family therapy, Gestalt therapy, body-psychotherapies, object relations theories, psychoanalytic self psychology, and transactional analysis approaches are all considered within a dynamic systems perspective. Each provides a partial explanation of behavior and each is enhanced when selectively integrated with other aspects of the therapist's approach. The psychotherapy interventions used in Integrative Psychotherapy are based on developmental research and theories describing the self-protective defenses used when there are interruptions in normal development.

The aim of an integrative psychotherapy is to facilitate wholeness such that the quality of the person's being and functioning in the intrapsychic, interpersonal and sociopolitical space is maximized with due regard for each individual's own personal limits and external constraints.

Within this framework it is recognized that integration is a process to which therapists also need to commit themselves. Thus, there is a focus on the personal integration of therapists. However, although a focus on personal growth in the therapist is essential, there needs also to be a commitment to the pursuit of knowledge in the area of psychotherapy and its related fields. There is a particular ethical obligation on integrative psychotherapists to dialogue with colleagues of diverse orientations and to remain informed of developments in the field.

Carl Jung argued that a significant goal of psychological development is the process of individuation—the ability to separate oneself from others as a unique personality. Integration, according to Jung, is the process during which both the individual and collective unconscious are integrated into the personality. Integration is a positive psychological development that indicates psychological maturity and may help an individual move past negative habits.

What is Integrative Therapy?

April 21, 2016 Counselling, Theory & training, Types of Therapy By: Steven-L-Johnson

What is integrative therapy? Just what it sounds like – a form of therapy that integrates different things. In this case what is being combined are different forms of psychotherapy, and the various tools that each one can offer to you as the client.

The main idea behind integrative therapy is that you are unique, and what would work perfectly for you is not necessarily what would work for other people. A integrative therapist therefore works to make a program of therapy that suits your personal needs and issues.

Integrative therapy is increasingly the most common type of therapy. Given the wide array of therapies on offer nowadays, most therapists have undertaken several forms of training and found a way to blend them together that produces results for their clients. Or, they have studied at a school that has a program of integrative therapy that unifies different schools of psychotherapeutic thought.

What is the aim of integrative therapy?

The aim of integrative therapy is to help you explore what is causing you problems in life and to create a bespoke program to help you begin to approach life in a more open and productive way.

But it is also about helping you function at your best levels in all areas of your life – mental, emotional, and physical.

Integrative therapy is about integrating yourself, and all of the various parts of your personality and being, into a balanced and effective whole.

The Main Theories of Integrative Therapy

1. There is no one theory that is the magic answer. 

Integrative psychotherapy believes that the human psyche can be accessed and understood in different ways.

2. Contradicting theories can work together.

Even if psychological theories appear to contradict each other, they might be helpful to you if they are combined. So an integrative therapist, if they feel two seemingly different approaches could help you, will find a way to use both with you.

3. The client-therapist relationship is itself an important part of therapy. 

Your integrative therapist commits to being part of your inner exploration and growth. They work to be supportive and non judgemental, listening with an open and present mind, and seeing you as their equal.

4. People, too, need be integrated. 

Integrative therapy is not interested in just pulling together approaches to helping you, but also in pulling together the different components that make up your psychological wellbeing. They look at ways to access and unite not just your behaviour, thoughts, and emotions, but perhaps also your physical wellbeing, social skills, and your sense of spirituality.

5. You are a whole being. 

Integrative counselling is fairly holistic, taking into account your mental and emotional wellbeing as well as your physical wellbeing.

How integrative therapy works

Integrative therapy draws its theories and tools from the three main schools of psychotherapeutic thought – psychoanalytical (which includes psychodynamic), humanistic, and cognitive behavioural. While there is some crossover between these schools (one grew out of the other, with psychoanalytic being first) one could define them each other by something along the lines of:

Psychoanalytical therapy explores your unconscious to discover how your past experience has informed your future and can involve free association and dream analysis.

Humanistic therapy is interested in your capacity to achieve your potential and believes you know best what works for you. It might look to the past for patterns but also focuses on helping you address present day behavioural patterns.

Cognitive behavioural therapy mostly focuses on changing your present day behaviour to improve your moods and ability to cope. It focuses on the connection between thought, emotions, and actions.

Mindfulness is also increasingly used. It is a set of tools that help you be more present to what you are thinking, feeling, and experiencing right now, instead of always being caught up in worries about the past and future.

Which approaches your therapist uses, and in what order, depend on you and what your issues and challenges are. For example, if you have come to see your integrative therapist as you are troubled by a childhood trauma they might use psychodynamic tactics, helping you remember what happened and examining the way you interpret your past. If this trauma has led you to behave in ways you don’t like, perhaps your therapist would then use cognitive behavioural techniques to help you gain more of an ability to monitor and choose your reactions on a day to day basis.

How is integrative therapy different than other forms of therapy?

Ways integrative therapy can be different to other forms of therapy are:

·      there is no exact model of working (although therapists might have some of their own models)

·      the therapy is fitted to you, instead of vice versa

·      it is flexible, it can be changed mid-process

·      it is less structured or rigid

Does integrative therapy have no structure at all, then?

Integrative therapy does not mean your therapist just randomly picks what they think would work from you from all the training they have. 

While integrative therapists do use different schools of therapeutic thought, they will have learned or developed over time a structured way to combine their knowledge base, or, again, will be trained in the best ways to use different techniques together. There is still room for making your program of therapy bespoke and flexible, but it is not so loose as to feel experimental.

What are the benefits of integrative therapy?

You might find integrative therapy beneficial in the following ways:

·      you will understand more clearly what causes you to feel challenged in life

·      you will learn to recognise what triggers you into unhelpful behaviours and be supported in trying new, more productive ones

·      you can recognise limitations you’ve set on yourself and find ways to move beyond them

·      you can integrate all the different aspects of yourself (mind, body, emotions, social skills, spirituality)

·      you can set goals that lead you toward the life you feel happy about

·      you can begin to face your life in a more open, available, and less judgemental way

What issues is integrative therapy recommended for?

Integrative therapy is beneficial for the following issues:

·      anxiety

·      depression

·      low self-esteem

·      phobias

·      addictions

·      bereavement

·      trauma

·      learning difficulties

·      autism

CONCLUSION

Like all forms of therapy, integrative therapy requires that you are open to exploring your fears, your hopes, your life, what is causing you challenges, and what you hope for your future.

But if you like the idea of a therapy which is a bit more bespoke and less rigid than other forms, then integrative therapy might indeed be for you.