Table Of ContentKey Concepts in
Psychotherapy
Integration
APPLIED CLINICAL PSYCHOLOGY
Series Editors:
Alan S. Bellack
University of Maryland at Baltimore, Baltimore, Maryland
Michel Hersen
Nova Southeastern University, Fort Lauderdale, Florida
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Key Concepts in
Psychotherapy
Integration
Jerold R. Gold
Long Island University
Brooklyn, New York
Springer Science+Business Media, LLC
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
On file
ISBN 978-1-4899-1871-0 ISBN 978-1-4899-1869-7 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-1-4899-1869-7
© 1996 Springer Science+Business Media New York
Originally published by Plenum Press, New York in 1996
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 1996
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
All rights reserved
No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted
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For Natan, Roseann, and Daniel
Preface
This book has been 20 years or more in the making. When I began
my training as a psychologist and psychotherapist in 1975, the idea
of integrating psychotherapies was barely alive, and far from well.
My professors and supervisors seemed convinced of the certainty of
their theories and methods. Clinicians and scholars who identified
with any of the dominant therapeutic schools were intolerant of al
ternative points of view and were clearly unwilling and unable to
converse cordially about any overlap in approach. Yet, my experi
ences with patients did not teach me the way to orthodoxy. If any
thing, I became, and remain today, puzzled by the ability of others
to identify any psychological or behavioral event as proof of any par
ticular conceptual system or therapeutic ideology.
A few years ago I had the good fortune to coedit, with George
Stricker, the Comprehensive Handbook of Psychotherapy Integration
(Stricker & Gold, 1993). This volume was one of the many indications
that the field of psychotherapy integration had made it through
rougher times and now had reached a point of "coming of age" (Ark
owitz, 1991). However, the handbook raised many questions for me
about the status and future of psychotherapy integration. The con
tributors all wrote worthwhile and valuable chapters, and I learned
a great deal. But there was little cross-referencing in these contribu
tions: It seemed that integrators of psychotherapy were not learning
very much from each other. Instead, there appeared to be emerging
a new set of sectarian psychotherapies that shared a common interest
in synthesizing elements of preexisting treatments and theories.
Do we really need, and will we benefit from, a new group of
therapies, be they sectarian or integrative? Or, I asked myself, have
vii
viii Preface
I set out, with others, to add to the clinical Tower of Babel? Where
was the larger view of integration in the field of psychotherapy in
tegration? And in what language or metaphor can and should it be
expressed?
This book is an attempt to answer these questions. By reviewing
psychodynamic, cognitive-behavioral, and humanistic therapies with
regard to certain key psychotherapeutic concepts, and then by looking
at integrative contributions to the same variables, I hope to set the
stage for a larger, more general level of integrative discourse and prac
tice. In borrowing the theoretical framework of narrative from many
disciplines, my goal is to offer one alternative for theory building
that allows many models to be synthesized without preference or ex
clusion. The central point of this book is to redirect the path of in
tegrative efforts in specific, and of the broader field of psychotherapy
in general, toward the search for fewer and more powerful therapies.
I leave it to the reader to judge the worth of this effort.
Acknowledgments
I would like to thank a number of people, without whose efforts this
book would never have made it into print. Eliot Werner at Plenum,
Alan S. Bellack, and Michel Hersen were involved in this project
when it was just an idea. Their encouragement, interest, and editorial
acumen helped to turn an unwieldy and cumbersome proposal into
a more streamlined and reader-friendly volume. Mariclaire Cloutier
and her staff at Plenum ushered the manuscript through the process
of editing and production efficiently and painlessly. Many thanks are
due to Margaret Ritchie for her superb copyediting.
To Gary Kose, Chairman of Psychology at Long Island University,
I owe many thanks for good friendship, hours of good talk, and a
great deal of professional support and freedom. Joseph Newirth, Di
rector of the Postdoctoral Program in Psychotherapy and Psychoanaly
sis at the Derner Institute of Adelphi University, helped me to find
the magic and joy associated with writing and being productive.
George Stricker, Distinguished Research Professor at the Derner
Institute, was as always a source of collegial advice and encourage
ment. Able and invaluable research assistance was contributed by An
nie Chanler, David Baldwin, Elizabeth Potter, and Isabel Sanchez of
the Doctoral Program in Clinical Psychology at Long Island University.
Part of Chapter 1 appeared in an article in Clinical Psychology:
Science and Practice. Parts of Chapter 9 appeared in earlier forms in
articles in the Journal of Psychotherapy Integration and Applied and
Preventive Psychology.
This book is dedicated to three people, who represent three criti
cal elements in my narrative: the past, the present, and the future.
Natan Sarotzkin, my grandfather, was my first storyteller and my most
ix
X Acknowledgments
important caretaker. He taught me the value of the examined life and
of caring for others and was a model of quiet courage and strength.
Roseann Ungaro has shared and created a story with me for almost
20 years. She has been a better companion, lover, friend, and col
league than I could ever have imagined for myself. Daniel Gold is
the future and the point of the story. Each day his tale unfolds a
little more with great joy and energy, and with the promise of more
magic to come.
