Competency in integrative psychotherapy: Perspectives on training and supervision.

Abstract

Increasingly, many psychotherapists identify with an integrative approach to psychotherapy. In recent years, more attention has been directed toward the operationalization and evaluation of competence in professional psychology and health care service delivery. Aspects of integrative psychotherapy competency may differ from competency in other psychotherapy orientations, although convergence is more often the case. Despite the potential differences, there exist very few formal training programs or guidelines to systematically guide clinicians in developing a competent integrative practice. This paper attempts to distill the essential elements of competent integrative psychotherapy practice and focuses on how these might be developed in training and supervision. We address most of these complex issues from a specific integrative perspective: principle-based assimilative integration.

Research on psychotherapy integration: Building on the past, looking to the future

“…For both clients and therapists (who represented a diversity of approaches including cognitivebehavioral, humanistic, and psychodynamic), the most frequent type of helpful events reported were those that facilitated an increase in self-awareness. Interestingly, for both therapists and clients, the therapeutic relationship was the most frequent focus of both the helpful and hindering events (Castonguay, Boswell, et al, 2010). This is an example of how research, practice, and psychotherapy integration can converge and be mutually beneficial.…”

“…(Castonguay, 2005;Eubanks-Carter et al, 2005). In addition, several competencies of integrative therapists, as well as core elements, seminars and systematic models of integrative training have been proposed and could be the focus of future investigation (Boswell & Castonguay, 2007;Boswell, Nelson, Nordberg, McAleavey, & Castonguay, 2010;Castonguay, 2000Castonguay, , 2006Lecomte, Castonguay, Cyr, & Sabourin, 1993).…”

Learning Objectives for Supervision: Benefits for Candidates and Beyond

“…The use of clear competencies and learning objectives has also been empirically studied in family therapy training (Carrigan and Bambrick, 1977). Other groups of educators have developed objectives that suggest areas of focus without specifying how attainment of those objectives should be measured (Boswell et al, 2010;Farber, 2010).…”

The Importance of Competency-based Clinical Supervision and Training in the Twenty-first Century: Why Bother?

“…A testament to their far-reaching impact, in addition to Benchmarks, competency-based approaches are available for entry-level supervisors ), practicum students (Hatcher and Lassiter 2007), multiple supervisory theoretical orientations including psychodynamic (Sarnat 2010), cognitive behavioral (Newman 2010), humanistic-existential (Farber 2010), couple and family therapy (Celano et al 2010), integrative (Boswell et al 2010); multiple specialty areas and settings including academic health centers (Kaslow et al 2008), clinical health psychology (France et al 2008), neuropsychology (Stucky et al 2010), rehabilitation psychology (Hibbard and Cox 2010), and gerontology (Karel et al 2010). This brief inspection of recent developments in the field points to competence as the unifying thread in the discourse about graduate education, training and career-long professional development.…”