Psychological Eclectic Theory �FR�

�The purpose of this research is to examine psychological eclectic theory as an integration of theoretical schools, including psychoanalytic, dispositional/trade, phenomenological, behavioral, and classical. The plan of the research will be to set forth the context in which eclectic theory has arisen in connection with psychotherapy, and then to discuss various approaches to the subject in the literature.

Controversy exists in the psychotherapeutic community with regard to whether the theoretical orientation of eclecticism is either appropriate or useful as an approach to psychotherapy. Chater and Oaksford (1993) deplore a whole range of attributes associated with eclectic theory on several grounds. Lumping a number of different, often opposing, theories into one, they say, amounts to a theory that is defined in terms of itself, or is the result of a circular argument. Picking and choosing from among theories and calling the result an integrated approach amounts to a less rigorous intellectual and theoretical enterprise on this view. The result, according to Chater and Oaksford, is a "holistic" view of to create alternative accounts of concepts that are not helpful in applying the methods in therapy practice. Chater and Oaksford hold that amalgamating a variety to theories leads to no theory in particular. Another view is that the very process of theoretical integration has the potential toe takes what is most valuable from a variety of theoretical emphases and reinterpr

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ods (21%). The theoretical content of such self-described eclecticism has been more difficult to pin down in the professional community than the fact of eclecticism as a phenomenon. Indeed, some commentators specifically resist such an enterprise, for a variety of reasons. Norcross's discussion (1985) of the wide variety of definitions and opinions regarding what properly constitutes the form and content of eclecticism or integrative therapy is on point in this connection. It is not settled, he suggests, whether the proper theoretical and clinical perspective for eclecticism is psychodynamic (involving patient-therapist interaction), phenomenological (involving therapist intuition or insight into the underlying essence of personality), or behavioral (involving therapist-directed change in patient behavior). Nelson-Jones (1985) differentiates between eclectic and integrative therapy, the former referring to a kind of free-association borrowing from various theories and sources and the latter referring to more a formal practice of combining various parts of various theories. In either eclectic or integrative practice, he says, the emphasis is on client needs in the therapy situation, and this appears to be the implicit benefit of

Category: Psychology - P