This paper examines critically a number of central assumptions underpinning the quest for integration within contemporary psychotherapy. It presents a view of experiential dissociation that, it argues, epitomises the current stance, and its resulting difficulties, adopted by the great majority of integrative psychotherapists. The paper provides an alternative interrelational focus that is derived from the writings of various major existential-phenomenological theorists, and the work of Martin Buber in particular, in order to highlight and offer potentially worthwhile possibilities and implications for the integrative enterprise.
dis-integration, therapeutic relationship, existential phenomenology, interrelation
The tPeP (Journal Person-centered experiential Psychotherapy) is the scientific journal for Dutch and Flemish psychotherapists, psychologists, and psychiatrists, that work from, or are interested in a client-centered perspective.