Psychology Primer: The modern movement towards integration or an eclectic approach

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Psychology Primer By Cyndi Lupo, BA Psych Introduction Tutorial 1: Theory The Definition of Psychology Psychoanalytic Theory Behaviorism and Cogn... Humanistic Psychology The modern movement... Tutorial 2: Application Introduction Role of a Ship's Counselor? Sim Strategies Ethics Counseling Styles Etiquette Preparation Counselor (Duty Post) Counseling Duty Post Forums Edit this nav The modern movement towards integration or an eclectic approach Obviously we are not going to be able to cover each and every permutation of psychological thought in this tutorial, however the concepts presented above do represent the major influences on the modern world of psychotherapy. Many other approaches, centered around primarily therapeutic techniques have developed their own camps and associations as well, however most of these have their roots in one or more of the schools of thought presented. Many in the field, myself included during my time working as a counselor and pursuing my degree in psychology, have adapted a more integrated understanding of psychology to encompass portions of virtually all of the previous schools of thought, because as working counselors we often found that certain aspects of one or another school were better suited to the client we were serving at the time. Rather than present my own integrationalist theory, a term I coined in college in my senior thesis “Beyond Eclecticism: an introduction to Formal Integrationalist Theory”, I would encourage each of you to examine the concepts presented previously and draw your own conclusions as to what your theoretical framework will be. I would encourage you to find something that you can draw on from each school of thought, see where they complement or dovetail each other and discard what you feel doesn’t fit or is too dogmatic. In Tutorial #2 I am going to give examples where each of the varying paradigms might be helpful in dealing with various situations and circumstances, and most likely I will be able to make use of one aspect or another of virtually all of them. In many instances, this is representational of the general practice of modern psychotherapy. Time and money constraints, HMO restrictions, and a general impatience on the part of many for quick results have forced a great number of counselors to work within fixed parameters to achieve the best results in the shortest amount of time. While the efficacy of such an arrangement can be debated with regards to long term goals for treatment, this sort of pragmatic approach works well within the constructs of simming the Ship’s Counselor Role.