ABSTRACT
Integral metatheory is a conceptual framework that promotes and facilitates a more comprehensive, coherent understanding of any phenomenon; this has involved applying the integral framework to issues of human development and personality, methodological and epistemological issues in psychotherapy research, the development of psychopathology, the psychotherapy intake process, and psychotherapeutic interventions. Integral theorists recognize that people have many different aspects—or lines—of experience and functioning that often are not equally developed. Integral metatheory takes a step beyond most pluralistic stances by revealing how the diversity can be unified in a more encompassing and compassionate framework (AQAL) that salvages the validity of each stance by relieving each of its absolutisms. Integral metatheory affords an unusually comprehensive way of conceptualizing, researching, and practicing psychotherapy because it honors the validity of each major psychotherapy theory and its associated set of methodologies and techniques while simultaneously recognizing the incompleteness and blind spots of each.
