REFLECTIONS ON PSYCHOTHERAPY INTEGRATION

Psychotherapy integration can refer to a common factors approach to un derstanding psychotherapy, to assimilative integration (a combination of treatments drawn from different approaches but guided by a unitary theoretical understanding), or to theoretical integration (an attempt to understand the patient by developing a superordinate theoretical fr amework that draws from a variety of different frameworks). In contras t to eclectic psychotherapy, it is based on theoretical understanding. It recognizes the central role of the therapeutic relationship and th e value of techniques drawn from disparate approaches. Because it tran scends the limits of any single, pure-form approach to treatment, it h as promise to become the defining process (not school) for future gene rations of psychotherapists