Journal of Psychotherapy Integration

The authors in this series present innovative training programs in integrative psychotherapy. Although they approach integration from different starting points, they converge in their emphasis on principle-based thinking as it applies to understanding the process of change and the selection of interventions. What is not made as clear is how to conceptualize clients' problems from this principle-based level of abstraction. In this paper, the strategy of pattern identification is discussed as one approach. Together, these approaches to training teach clinicians to think at a level of abstraction that provides a structure for integrating theory and technique from a constantly evolving knowledge base so that a wide variety of clinical problems can be addressed.

The purpose of this article is to demonstrate that unconscious cultural values are an unrecognized source of resistance. In this view, resistance may be result of conflict in a patient between unconscious cultural values and the values consciously espoused or, may result from conflicting (unconscious) cultural values held by therapist and patient. These sources of resistance may operate in situations in which therapist and patient share such parameters as race and class.

The purpose of this article is to outline a prescriptive eclectic model of psychotherapy training. We begin with an overview of our approach to integration and describe our current efforts in training psychotherapists. Ten core, research-based principles for facilitating psychotherapist development are then advanced. We conclude by presenting two ideal models—depending on the consensus and control of the training faculty—for preparing integrative therapists.

The “visions of reality” refer to assumptions about the nature and content of human reality and have been used to describe different genres of literature as well as psychoanalytic, behavioral, and humanistic modes of therapy. In this paper, four visions—the tragic, romantic, comic, and ironic—are applied to a single case, spelling out the way in which each can direct the focus of a therapist's attention to different aspects of a client's problems. Each vision can also influence the process of therapy and its goals. Keeping the several visions in mind can broaden both the therapist's and the client's view of the client's life situation and problems, thereby opening up possibilities for integrative work. The paper also spells out the shift in visions of reality that is necessary when conducting brief versus long-term therapy.

This article addresses training in psychotherapy integration from the perspective of common factors. Problems related to this training perspective are first reviewed. As an attempt to deal with such problems, current teaching and supervision efforts by the author are briefly described. Based on a developmental model of clinical learning, a sketch of a more comprehensive program of integrative psychotherapy training is advanced.