Imperatives and perspectives of psychotherapy integration

The last 25 years have seen the development of a significant integrationist movement, which aimed at finding ways of blending the theories and practices of the four foundational schools of psychotherapy. Over 400 approaches have now evolved from these schools, which alone suggests that no one therapy is correct. A number of socio-economic, philosophical and scientific reasons have driven this integrationist trend, which seem to cluster around a number of imperatives and perspectives on integration identified by the author. A professional and economic imperative to find more efficacious treatment methods has led to constructive integration. The evolutionary imperative for higher order patterns to emerge from complex dynamic relationship has led to complicit integration, and an exoteric imperative for models of psychotherapy to have application in the world at large has led to contiguous integration. The author suggests that these patterns reflect the developmental process of psychic integration and individuation, and could form a context for professional reflection and reflexivity for therapists wishing to develop a personal integrative model. The author shows how this has brought meaning to his own work, and concludes that such reflection is one way in which treaters might become more efficacious than the treatments.