Towards a Theoretically Individuated and Integrated Family Therapist

I wanted to warn them how such egocentricity of thought has hurt the advance of the science of psychotherapy in the West. I warned that it should not be copied in Russia. I explained that we hopefully mature as individuals from our family's biases. Similarly, as therapists, we need to individuate from rigid schools of thought. I argued for knowing how all the main theories provide interventions useful for different sorts of people and situations. However, the best theory for understanding and formulating cases was psychoanalytic. It had the best theory for a deep understanding of people. Although some patients might be too concrete and not self-reflective enough for psychoanalytic work, it is always valuable for a therapist to use a psychoanalytic formulation. For example, is the personality structure primitive with mainly primitive defenses such as denial, projection (putting the denied faults on to someone else), splitting (seeing things in black or white), and projective identification (provoking others to make them feel similarly disturbed)? Alternatively, is the personality structure neurotic with mainly higher level defenses such as repression? Patients who favor repression as a defense can respond better to interpretations than those patients who favor denial. With evidence, a patient can lift the repression and grow. After the therapist has an understanding of the patient’s dynamics, the therapist should then decide what interventions would best suit the patient. I advocate familiarity with all the major theoretical orientations and their techniques. I base the interventions on the needs of the patient and not theoretical biases. Psychotherapists professionally mature by individuating from their theoretical family of origin. They learn to integrate concepts and techniques from most of the major schools of thought based on the needs of the family or patient. I will focus on the family unit as a pragmatic starting point, which can later lead to individual psychotherapy. No one theory has been able to deal with the full range of psychological problems. I will offer a philosophical, theoretical and personal review of the theories of therapy. Therapists can work from their favorite core theory, and branch out from that. I will explain why I prefer a combination of Systems theory and Object Relations theory. These theories explain both the interpersonal and intrapsychic worlds and they regulate one another. The combination allows for interventions at either the interpersonal level or intrapsychic level, depending on the degree of accessibility.