A Message to Assimilative Integrationists: It's Time to Become Accommodative Integrationists: A Commentary

This commentary considers the six papers on assimilative integration in the larger context of the significance of this specific form of integration for psychotherapy integration in general. The author begins by revealing his bias that theoretical integration is the most mature form of psychotherapy integration. In this context, he views assimilative integration as an advanced form of eclecticism that absorbs technical eclecticism into the practitioner/theorist’s home orientation. Several of the papers present useful examples of assimilative integration, but they tend not to explore the implications of the successful application of “foreign” techniques for their home theories. The author concludes by suggesting that assimilative integrationists need to become accommodative integrationists by thinking through the implications for, and the implied modifications to, their home theoretical orientations. Accommodative integration would bring us a step closer to the author’s ultimate goal—an emergent, unifying, and integrative theory of psychotherapy.