Putting the pieces together: The rise of integrative psychotherapy

A typical integrative brand of therapy is Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing, (EMDR), about which its originator, Francine Shapiro, speaks to New Therapist in the coming pages of this edition (see page 18). But the history of EMDR is illustrative of the very problem to which Rapp is alluding in her comments about the advance of integrationism: That of the emergence of discrete new schools which then have to define their allegiances in the modality wars, much in the same way Jung broke from Freud in the early history of psychoanalysis. The history of EMDR has been dogged by controversy which makes other, more traditional modality wars look tame by comparison. Those opposed to the method have slated the lack of evidence and theoretical grounds for its claimed efficacy (see page 16). In response, its proponents have scrambled for more research-based evidence of its value and recruited thousands of practitioners as trainees and advocates of the method.

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English

John Soderlund

Soderlund, J. (2000, September/October). Putting the pieces together: The rise of integrative psychotherapy. New Therapist, 9, 8-9