Abstracts of 2001 Award Winners' Papers:

The Place of Humanistic Psychology in
Psychotherapy Integration

Georgios K. Lampropoulos
Ball State University

This paper reaffirms the great potential and value of humanistic approach to counseling, particularly as it can be disseminated to practitioners via the psychotherapy integration movement. It is argued that, even those that do not directly subscribe to the humanistic model of counseling, can benefit from its strengths if they practice in an integrative way that somehow incorporates a humanistic approach. This paper specifically examines five major ways to integrate the humanistic tradition to integrative/eclectic practice: (a) Client self-change; (b) Non-directive/humanistic counseling followed by more directive therapy, if needed; (c) Directive therapy followed by non-directive/humanistic counseling; (d) The assimilative integration route, and (e) Matching the counseling approach to client personality from the start.

All five proposals allow the practice of a viable humanistic approach to psychotherapy integration, which also correspond to the existing modes of integrative/eclectic practice: the first model is based on a common factors approach to psychotherapy integration (with client self-healing variables as common factors); the second and third approaches are more like complete and standard integrative models; the fourth approach is an assimilative integration model; and the fifth approach is a pure eclectic model. All these proposals for integrative practice allow clients to benefit from the strengths of humanistic philosophy and counseling, and have the potential to promote the much needed integration of humanistic/positive psychology with more traditional, pathology-focused psychology/psychotherapy.