Integrative Therapy

Abstract
Psychotherapy’s historical development has come a long way from its initial single approach to today’s multifaceted integrative methods. Commonality among psychological schools of thought was briefly hinted at in the 1930s and 1940s but true growth and assimilation would have to wait nearly twenty years until the first integrative counseling approach was defined and publicized in 1950. Changing climates among all areas of society, throughout the second half of the 20th century fostered a “re-approachment” attitude to psychotherapy and counseling. Since this time, integrative therapies have become the norm across the world and most current therapists when posed with the question regarding their chosen therapeutic orientation will no
Therapists, who are drawn to an integrated approach, tend to hold the view that no one single approach will work for all clients or for all situations. Viewing the client as a unified whole, rather than a sum of parts, builds the foundation of integrative counseling and allows for a choice of techniques in order to tailor effective therapies to a client’s individual needs and personal circumstances. There is no one particular integrative approach that holds esteem over another and the term, itself, is meant to describe any combination of approaches a therapist may choose to use in order to effectively assist their
He noted that the field ‘was in a mess’, that theoretical orientations within which therapists had typically functioned were starting to break down” (Norcross, 2005, p. 27). Others began to publically call upon the limitations of individual schools and with the shifting societal and political tides in the second half of the 20th century, as well as a substantial growth in research and publications, an emerging attitude to explore and question pushed through the paradigm. This created a secure environment in which to “re-approach” psychology and therapy, blurring the dividing lines between schools of thought and progressing integration in pursuit of client health. Cooper and McLeod (2007) defines this psychological phenomenological shift the starting line of a movement from “schoolism” to “specialism” that allowed for the collaboration of therapies we seek today. Integrative counseling, itself, has since become a specified practice known as pluralistic therapy that suggests the integration of methods and concepts, as well as, emphasizing collaboration and negotiation across the client-therapist