Psychotherapy integration training around the globe: A personal and empirical perspective.


Psychotherapy integration is now common practice around the globe. Despite its popularity, and the many clinical writings on the application of different types of psychotherapy integration, very little is known about exactly how psychotherapists are being trained in psychotherapy integration and whether these trainings are effective. In line with the theme of integration, we aimed to answer these questions from a scientist-practitioner perspective, reporting on our subjective clinical training experiences as well as the current empirical evidence. First, as early career practitioners, we briefly describe how we ourselves were trained in psychotherapy integration and reflect on our training experiences in the Czech Republic, United Kingdom, United States, and Argentina. Then, as scientist-practitioners, we turn to the research literature to examine how psychotherapy integration may be taught effectively. We conducted a systematic literature review of the available empirical evidence on the efficacy of training in psychotherapy integration. We report on the characteristics and findings of the identified 9 empirical studies. This low quality and quantity of studies illustrates the lack of empirically supported trainings in psychotherapy integration. However, together with our personal experiences in different countries, it provides some indication of future directions with regard to how and when psychotherapy integration might best be taught. Suggestions for further examinations into the effectiveness of trainings in psychotherapy integration around the globe are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2018 APA, all rights reserved)