Multitheoretical psychotherapy

Abstract: Therapeutic integration has increased in recent years with respect to the helping profession and training within the field. The integrative features of therapy have widened in their scope to address the needs of the individual, family, and couple. Models of integrative adherence provide flexible and innovative ways for practitioners to utilize an assortment of clinical tools that best meet the needs of the client. Consequently, the multitheoretical psychotherapy integration model (MTP) offers an integration of unitary models and applied conceptualization skills to attend to the presenting problems faced by couples' and family therapists. The authors provide an overview of psychotherapeutic integration and offer an application of the MTP to family therapy. Implications for professional practice and recommendations are provided.

Abstract: Student counsellors must develop introspective awareness over the course of their programs. This may be a difficult task for some, as it requires patience, self-awareness, and the motivation to develop the skill more fully. As a skill, introspection is necessary to uncover bias, strengths, and the motivations of counsellors in order to better assist their future clients and communities. Psychology further acknowledges the necessity of this skill, as many psychologists and psychotherapists in practice today emphasize the importance of moving toward integrative praxis—which is to say, using an integrative approach to counselling, while incorporating the self within such theoretical orientations. To incorporate the self, then, refers to building on our self-awareness and utilizing the strengths that we identify, or uncover, within our self-awareness practices. As a counselling student myself, the need of self-awareness must be demonstrated and reflected on in order to further my training. This paper examines the nature of multitheoretical integrative models, and more specifically, examines the Multitheoretical Psychotherapy model, in relation to my own epistemological underpinnings. In this paper, then, I argue that while the Multitheoretical Psychotherapy model is a useful tool in addressing the varied needs of clients, the model must be complemented with other ways of conducting knowledge in order to more effectively evoke change in client narratives. I demonstrate this through a thorough reflection of my own epistemology as feminist, queer, postmodern, and critical in nature. In doing so, I integrate the Multitheoretical Psychotherapy model’s concepts of Systemic-Constructivist and Multicultural-Feminist, and argue for the complementary nature of my background in integration of the two. Ultimately, I hope to underline that counsellor strengths can provide a richness that may not otherwise be present in many mainstream theories of psychology.