Where Thesis and Antithesis were fighting,
Integration came to reconcile them
Integration is an ideology occasionally applied to various sciences and arts.
In the field of mental health, Integration, commonly referred to as Psychotherapy Integration, is the most modern approach to Psychotherapy. Initially, this new approach became known as the Psychotherapy Integration Movement, which peaked in the 1980s, while since then it has been established as an official psychotherapy approach with its own international scientific societies, scientific journals and representations in the various scientific associations and psychotherapy federations.
Although Psychotherapy Integration is undeniably the most modern approach to psychotherapy, it nevertheless has deep roots to ancient holistic medical philosophy. It has overcome the intemperate dogmatism that dominated the thinking of classical psychotherapy approaches. It embraces the sense that experts will best serve the advancement of psychotherapy and if people who need it put aside their scientific confrontations and devote themselves to partnerships, the best possible therapeutic outcome may be achieved. Therefore, Psychotherapy Integration accepts the Principle of Complementarity. According to this, the various treatment models, even when these appear diametrically opposed, have room to exchange elements and utilize them in a way that enhances their effectiveness.
Psychotherapy Integration attaches importance to substantiation of the therapeutic efficacy. The purpose is not the whimsical theories but the tangible therapeutic results. Therefore, procedures for monitoring and controlling therapeutic performance are incorporated in many models of Psychotherapy Integration in ways that are as much reliable as possible.
Psychotherapy Integration is developed rapidly and four different paths have established to date. These paths, called mainstreams, lead to the creation of psychotherapy integration models and are briefly described below:
- Technical Integration is chronologically considered as the first path was established in order to develop models of Psychotherapy Integration. Technical Integration is not interested in theory formation in its models. It focuses on combining techniques from psychotherapeutic models, even from different theoretical approaches, developing a new «package» of therapeutic techniques that in several cases focuses on a more active therapy of specific mental problems.
- The Common Factor Theory looks for the common factors between psychotherapeutic models of different approaches in order to identify the common factors that have high therapeutic value and to exploit them by formulating new therapeutic models based on them. Some of these factors mostly featured are: the establishment of a strong therapeutic relationship, the establishment of procedures that promote «explanation in therapy», the penetration to the interaction between thought, emotion and behavior, the enhancement of the psychotherapeutic process through coaching, the stages through which is carried out the psychotherapeutic process.
- The Idealistic Integration (Theoretical Integration) is the path of psychotherapy integration that seeks to develop new models of therapy by taking technical and theoretical elements from models of different approaches. It aims at an even more complex process combining material not only from the techniques of different models of Psychotherapy, as Technical Integration does, but also from the techniques, theoretical principles and assumptions of sciences beyond the field of Psychotherapy, even from Arts. Idealistic Integration is considered as the most difficult level of Integration.
- Incorporating Integration is the most recent path established for the development of Psychotherapy Integration models. It was based on the sense that even a model’s «mild modification» may lead to a new integration. This means that if an existing therapeutic model undergoes mild modifications and incorporates elements of models with different approach, then it can be included in the Integration Models. It is easy to see that this path strengthens the perspective for higher turnout of psychotherapists who come from classical psychotherapeutic approaches in the field of Psychotherapy Integration.