Joining up the map: Integrative psychotherapy explained

While some forms of therapy may offer a useful perspective on one aspect of modern life, such as work or friendships, this may not apply to other areas of life. In this fascinating article, highly respected chartered clinical psychologist and occupational psychologist Dr Jeremy Slaughter offers expert insight on how a combined approach of more than one type of therapy can benefit those working through a variety of problems. The leading specialist also details the key principles of integrative psychotherapy and how they contribute to personal development.

What is an integrative psychotherapy?

Say you’re looking for the best therapy for you. You look into some of the most popular single therapies, such as CBT (Cognitive Behavioural Therapy) and psychodynamic therapy. Each has its attractions but it’s hard to know which is best, if you have several issues to sort out.

That’s where an integrative therapy is useful. An integrative therapy combines several single therapies to create a more complete solution, thus resolving the dilemma of which therapy to go for. It says “go for many in one”! Whereas a single therapy sees problems and finds solutions from one perspective, an integrative therapy sees problems and offers solutions from several perspectives. There are over one thousand single therapies that group into twelve perspectives. An integrative therapy combines several perspectives.

Say you have problems with your work, your mind, your health, and your relationships. A single therapy will take the same perspective on all those issues. But other therapies may have more relevant perspectives on each issue. An integrative therapy brings several perspectives together to tackle more problems, better.

Research shows that integrative therapy works (Boswell, JF et al., 2019), and it can be more effective than single therapies, both because it focuses on the common factors which make any therapy effective, and because it tailors therapy to you (Norcross & Wampold, 2018).

What are the principles of integrative therapy?

Unification

An integrative therapy joins therapies like a mapmaker joins maps; it finds points in common to line up each therapy with others. That’s how the therapist knows which solutions to take from each therapy. Then, if you have problems in different areas like work, family, friendships, and health, integrative therapy finds solutions in different therapies and unites them using its joined-up map.

Harmony

You may have conflicting roles – worker versus lover, parent, child, or friend. Or you may have conflicting sides of your personality: hero versus failure, saint versus sinner. These conflicts cause your emotional problems of anxiety, depression, stress, anger and shame. Integrative therapy resolves conflicts by using solutions from several therapies to address all sides of the conflict.

Balance

Conflict comes from imbalances between different areas of life, roles, or sides of the personality. It comes from imbalances between activity and rest, work and play, self and others, mind and body. Integrative therapy looks for the balance which it finds missing in single therapies. CBT favours reason whilst psychodynamic therapy favours intuition. Psychiatry favours medication whilst transpersonal therapy favours spirituality. There’s a place for each: integrative therapy does the tricky job of putting them together.

How does Kipapa integrate therapy?

Most integrative therapies just join two perspectives. Kipapa joins many more by putting solutions into Psycnav, our multidimensional grid, as we find them. The dimensions give us the coordinates of each solution so we can join solution to solution in order, like a path. We use Journeybuilding to tell the story of how you can take that path to a better emotional place. A good story blends information about who you want to be, where you want to go in life, what you need to get there, and how you’re going to make it happen.

If life’s a journey, Kipapa puts together several maps to life, which I bring with me to the therapy session. Firstly we find out where you are now, psychologically, and your history: where you’ve come from. Then we get the different parts of you on the therapy bus, and look for a route through that navigates several problems, and helps you operate effectively across all areas of your life. Our integrative therapy aims to be an “all-terrain” approach to do this.

Dr Slaughter is a highly esteemed chartered clinical and occupational psychologist who uses innovative tools, including Kipapa software, which he created to help others with their journey of personal development. If you would like to learn more about him or wish to schedule an appointment, you can do so by visiting his Top Doctors profile.

Boswell, JF, Newman, MG, & McGinn, LK. (2019). Outcome-Research-on-Psychotherapy-Integration.pdf. In Handbook of Psychotherapy Integration (3rd ed., p. 405).

Norcross, J. C., & Wampold, B. E. (2018). A new therapy for each patient: Evidence-based relationships and responsiveness: Journal of Clinical Psychology, 74(11), 1889–1906.