Editorial – Second Edition of the Psychotherapy and Counselling Journal of Australia (PACJA)

Abstract

This second volume of PACJA begins with an article by Denis O'Hara and Fiona O'Hara on the need for an integrative approach to psychotherapy and how this will help with our collective, albeit fractious, identity. The basic argument-and it is one I adhere to-is that the discipline of counselling and psychotherapy is both eclectic and united, a broad church that can come together under one professional umbrella while embracing our internal diversity. However, not content to accept a token pluralism, O'Hara and O'Hara promulgate a non-dualistic stance founded in philosophy. Drawing on the meta-theory of critical realism they provide an illuminating account of how to hold together opposites (theoretical, conceptual, experiential) while eschewing the pitfalls of relativism.