Psychotherapy Integration is a Two-Way Street

Most of us draw from more than one therapeutic theory in our work. But how do we integrate different approaches into one coherent way of understanding & helping our clients? Even with the same client, we may think psychodynamically about early relationships and defences, cognitively about beliefs and interpretations, behaviourally about patterns of avoidance, systemically about the relationships and contexts shaping the client’s life, and experientially about what is happening in the room. How do these different ways of understanding the client fit together? Do they point to entirely different therapeutic processes? Or do they sometimes use different language to describe similar processes? In this live seminar, we’ll have the opportunity to learn from Dr. Paul Wachtel, one of the pioneers of psychotherapy integration, as he takes us inside the evolution of his own integrative thinking. Dr. Wachtel began his clinical work with a psychodynamic foundation. He will discuss how and why he added first behavioural, then family-systems, then humanistic-experiential, and finally third-wave cognitive-behavioural perspectives. He will also explore how the process of integration changed his understanding of each perspective. His “psychodynamic” thinking is no longer what it was when he began incorporating these other approaches. At the same time, using these perspectives within a psychodynamic context has also reshaped how he understands them. Through clinical case examples, Dr. Wachtel will show what this integrative thinking looks like in the therapy room.