Integrative Psychotherapy

Integrative psychotherapy may involve the fusion of different schools of psychotherapy. The word 'integrative' in Integrative psychotherapy may also refer to integrating the personality and making it cohesive, and to the bringing together of the "affective, cognitive, behavioral, and physiological systems within a person".

In Integrative and eclectic counselling and psychotherapy, (Palmer and Woolfe, 1999), the authors make clear the distinction between integrative and eclectic approaches: "Integration suggests that the elements are part of one combined approach to theory and practice, as opposed to eclecticism which draws ad hoc from several approaches in the approach to a particular case."

Psychotherapy's eclectic practitioners are not bound by the theories, dogma, conventions or methodology of any one particular school. Instead, they may use what they believe or feel or experience tells them will work best, either in general or suiting the often immediate needs of individual clients; and working within their own preferences and capabilities as practitioners.