The movement toward integrating the psychotherapies: an overview

Abstract

There is a growing tendency among psychotherapists to ignore the ideological barriers dividing schools of psychotherapy and to define what is common among them and what is useful in each of them. After a brief introduction the authors provide a short glossary of terms often associated with psychotherapy integration. They then characterize integrative-eclectic therapists, describe the forces fostering their emergence, and outline recurrent themes of the movement and points of contention within it. The authors hope to encourage clinical thinking about the less ideological approaches to psychotherapy and to advance the integrative movement, which is likely to influence psychotherapeutic practice for decades to come.