I subscribe to the theory of "whatever works".
All you have to do is read Alternatives Magazine to understand
what I mean by "whatever". If a person goes to a
psychic reader and as a result of that visit they are helped
to make some improvement in their life, are they wrong for
using this non-scientific, "far fetched" alternative
approach to address their problem? I don't think so…
I think, they had a problem; they sought help for their problem.
The helping person took them through a process and they were
helped thereby, if they indeed did show improvement after
going through that process.
Lucky coincidence? Perhaps! … I personally don't believe
in any of this "woo-woo" stuff. It's not scientific.
It can't be proven. And I doubt that it can be replicated.
Yes, I subscribe to the belief that it only works because
some other factors must have come into play. Maybe the person
was going to improve at that precise moment anyway. Maybe
they were on the verge of a breakthrough and something about
the "woo-woo" process they went through only helped
to trigger what was already there.
In therapy as in pool, I will gladly accept the benefits
of "slop". If my approach, techniques, delivery,
and therapy are all wrong, but I get a good result, I'll take
it. I'm not going to refuse a client her breakthrough insight
or behavioral change just because I can't explain how it happened
or because, in fact, I believe that it can't happen that way.
No, I'll take it, however it comes, as long as it's to the
good.
One of my favorite therapy stories, and I have a lot of them,
is about the client who had just such a breakthrough. He came
into my office for his regular weekly visit in a state of
excited enthusiasm. He announced that something I had said
to him the week before had been enormously helpful and led
him to a profound insight that had changed his life. He seemed
certain that I knew exactly what he was talking about and
that I had said what I said because I knew that it would have
this profound affect on him. In spite of my desire to not
rain on his parade, I did burst his bubble a bit, I'm afraid,
when I asked him what it was that I had said. Undaunted, he
quoted me verbatim. The only problem was that what he heard
was not what I had said. He had misheard me.
Not only did I not know what I was doing, in the sense that
I did not make a precise intervention to produce a calculable
result. It wasn't even what I did that produced the result.
It was a distortion of what I did. In short it was "slop".
But I'll take it. I didn't have the heart to disillusion my
client further. So I just nodded knowingly.
You see, I'm no more scientific than that psychic reader
that I was maligning earlier. Of course she doesn't admit
to being non-scientific. And, by the way, neither do I. The
science is this: The client heals himself. My job is simply
to bring her through a process that pulls the edges of the
wound together so that they can heal. Just as the body has
natural healing mechanisms that can come into play and do
their job as long as the conditions are right, so does the
psyche have natural healing mechanisms.
Integrative psychotherapy simply means that I will use anything
and everything I know to help facilitate and enable (make
able) that healing process. I would use Tarot cards if I knew
how to read them. I would use them whenever my gut (intuition)
told me that this is what I should do with this particular
client at this particular time. (Intuition is another one
of those highly scientific concepts. But that is a discussion
that I am going to save for another time.)
I recently accepted help from a friend who took me through
a process to aid my recovery from a cold. I believe she said
it was Reike but I'm not sure if it was that or some other
form of bodywork. Anyway, I'd had the cold for over a month.
I had shown considerable improvement in that some of my symptoms
had subsided a great deal. But, I just couldn't shake it.
Anyway, she did what she did, took me through the process
she took me through. And I got better. The more "woo-woo"
readers are saying, "Of course." The more "scientific"
ones are waiting for me to reveal that I was also taking an
antibiotic at the time. All I know is that with the antibiotic
after three days of a five-day regimen, I was little or no
better and that after my friend did what she did, I was a
lot better. The next time I'm sick, I'm going to her first.
Or not!
I don't really believe in Reike. It might have been a fluke,
a lucky coincidence, the antibiotic working, or whatever.
Maybe it was the placebo effect. I believed Reike would help
and consequently it did. Actually, in this case, I didn't
believe it would help and it did anyway. Of course, I am scientific
enough to realize that on some unconscious level I may have
believed it and this caused it to work. Or I wanted it to
work and so it did. The point is that the body-mind has a
natural healing mechanism and something enabled that to work.
That's all that really matters; whatever works. And that's
integrative psychotherapy.
There is a double or even triple or quadruple meaning in
the use of the term "integrative". It means that
I willingly integrate any and all useful techniques into my
approach to my practice. It also refers to the process the
client goes through in allowing new perspectives and new behaviors
into her approach to all the various aspects of her life.
Thirdly, it refers to the healing that takes place when the
client (and the therapist, if truth be known) re-integrates
the various parts of his psyche, which had become fragmented
and disconnected through various emotional injuries and trauma.
And a fourth meaning contained in the phrase "integrative
psychotherapy" refers to the client's integration or
reintegration into society and into greater connection with
her fellow human beings as the barriers she had created to
intimacy fall away or get torn do
John C Flanagan, LCSW
818 NW 17th Avenue, Suite 7
Portland, OR 97209-2327
503-228-7574
www.johncflanaganlcsw.com
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