Dialectically Integrated Psychotherapy

This book describes the development of a new theoretically unifying approach to psychotherapy integration.  It supports the theoretical and philosophical validity of integrative practice, celebrates the wealth of understanding provided by our five major approaches, and explores the ways in which they echo and support each other. It argues that all of our validated therapy theories relate to the one theoretically unified human mind we each possess; the differences between them need to be compatible with each other and incompatibilities have to be resolved. The work is supported throughout by the core principles of Roy Bhaskar’s critical realism. Attachment theory, humanistic theory, psychodynamic theory, and cognitive and behavioural theories are brought together on this basis. Analysis of their overlaps and compatible differences feeds into the development of a unifying model of human psychological functioning and processes of change. This model takes central place in a meta-framework which supports the mutual, integrative impacts of our different approaches to psychotherapy, and incorporates the importance of the therapeutic relationship and clients’ demographic/psychosocial environments. Dialectically Integrated Psychotherapy supports single model and integrative therapies, particularly individualised formulation-led approaches, and is brought to life by the analysis of an example of integrative work. It is also compared with other key approaches to psychotherapy integration, and its implications are considered in relation to theory development, and psychotherapy research, practice and training.

The book will be of value to clinical and counselling psychologists, psychotherapists and counsellors interested in integration, those new to their profession and experienced practitioners. The author has thirty years of experience as a clinical psychologist in National Health Service and university settings in the UK. 

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