engleski

Integrative Psychotherapy

The main purposes of the article are to present the history of integration in psychotherapy, the reasons of the development integrative approaches, and the approaches to integration in psychotherapy. Three approaches to integration in psychotherapy exist: theoretical integration, theoretical eclecticism, and common factors in different psychotherapeutic trends. In integrative psychotherapy, the basic epistemology, theory, and clinical practice are based on the phenomenology, field theory, holism, dialogue, and co-creation of dialogue in the therapeutic relationship. The main criticism is that integrative psychotherapy suffers from confusion and many unresolved controversies. It is difficult to theoretically and methodologically define the clinically applied model that is based on such a different epistemological and theoretical presumptions. Integrative psychotherapy is a synthesis of humanistic psychotherapy, object relations theory, and psychoanalytical self psychology. It focuses on the dynamics and potentials of human relationships, with a goal of changing the relations and understanding internal and external resistances. The process of integrative psychotherapy is primarily focused on the developmental-relational model and co-creation of psychotherapeutic relationship as a single interactive event, which is not unilateral, but rather a joint endeavor by both the therapist and the patient/client. The need for a relationship is an important human need and represents a process of attunement that occurs as a response to the need for a relationship, a unique interpersonal contact between two people. If this need is not met, it manifests with the different feelings and various defenses. To meet this need, we need to have another person with whom we can establish a sensitive, attuned relationship. Thus, the therapist becomes this person who tries to supplement what the person did not receive. Neuroscience can be a source of integration through different therapies. We may say that both neuroscience and neurobiology offer yet another bridge for integration of different schools of thought and supports the importance of the developmental relational model during the developmental phases and relational process in psychotherapy in which the quality of therapeutic relationship is the primary healing process. Furthermore, the development of integrative psychotherapy in Croatia and the organization of the Croatian program, which is identical to the program of the European Association for Integrative Psychotherapy is shortly described.

Integrative psychotherapy

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