Integrative family therapy

Integrative family therapy draws together many of the techniques from other schools of family therapy. Integrative family therapy incorporates ideas and methods from the wider psychotherapy world. Many contemporary evidence-based models of family intervention are examples of integrative family therapy. Integrative family therapy is particularly focused on the therapeutic alliance between family and therapist. Collaboration between therapist and family is the basic foundation of this approach. Integrative family therapy is also chameleon-like because it has not been averse to swallowing up ideas and techniques from other psychotherapies as it has gone along. This chapter describes Jay Lebow's integrative family therapy and takes attachment theory as an example of an approach that has been integrated into family therapy. Lebow highlights the complex definitions involved in integrative practice. The chapter considers the example of the new evidence-based approaches to demonstrate the integrative models.