What Does Integrative Counselling Actually Look Like?
If you've been looking into counselling, you may have come across the term integrative counselling. It sounds professional enough, but it doesn't necessarily tell you much about what actually happens in the therapy room.
Put simply, integrative counselling means drawing on different therapeutic approaches rather than following one model rigidly. For me, this means having different ways of understanding your experience and being able to move between different points of view depending on what might be most helpful.
My approach brings together humanistic, cognitive, psychodynamic and existential perspectives, with a strong relational foundation.
That might sound like a lot. But it isn't about applying a different theory to you each week. These perspectives simply give us different ways of looking at what you bring to therapy.
The aim isn't to fit you into a model. The models are there to help me understand you.
Image of Kaleidiscope by Susan Wilkinson on Unsplash
Understanding you as a whole person
The humanistic tradition, particularly the work of Carl Rogers, is an important foundation for how I work.
At its heart is the belief that you are the expert on your own experience. Therapy offers a space where you can talk openly about what is happening for you, with empathy, acceptance and without judgement.
This doesn’t mean I’ll simply agree with everything you say or tell you what you want to hear. I believe therapy can be both supportive and challenging. Sometimes being genuinely heard and understood creates the safety to look more closely at something that may be difficult to face.
Exploring patterns of thought
Cognitive approaches, influenced by thinkers such as Aaron Beck, offer another way of understanding what may be keeping us stuck.
Our thoughts, feelings and behaviours are closely connected. We can develop familiar ways of thinking that become almost automatic — perhaps expecting the worst, assuming we know what someone else is thinking or holding ourselves to standards we would never expect of anyone else.
Noticing these patterns can create space to consider whether they are helping us or keeping us stuck.
This isn’t about forcing yourself to think positively. It’s about developing a more flexible understanding of what is happening and considering whether there might be other ways of seeing things.
Understanding where patterns come from
A psychodynamic perspective, influenced by thinkers such as Sigmund Freud and Melanie Klein, can help us explore how earlier experiences and relationships may have shaped the ways we understand ourselves and relate to other people.
Sometimes we find ourselves repeating patterns without fully understanding why. We may expect rejection, struggle to trust, take responsibility for other people’s feelings or find it difficult to ask for what we need.
Looking back doesn’t mean everything has to be traced to childhood, or that the past determines who you are. It can simply help us understand how some of the ways we have learned to cope came to make sense.
An attachment-informed perspective can add to this by helping us think about what we have learned to expect from relationships and how those expectations may continue to influence us.
Understanding where a pattern came from can sometimes make it easier to decide whether it still serves you.
Making sense of the bigger questions
An existential perspective brings a different set of questions.
What matters to you? Who do you want to be? What choices do you feel you have? How do you make sense of your relationships, your circumstances and the direction your life is taking?
These questions can become particularly important during periods of change, loss or uncertainty, but they are also part of ordinary life.
Sometimes the difficulty isn’t something that needs to be fixed. It is something that needs to be understood and made sense of.
The relationship between us
Running through all of these perspectives is something I consider particularly important: the relationship between therapist and client.
Therapy isn’t simply something that happens to you. It is something we work through together.
How easy or difficult it feels to talk about certain things, moments when we misunderstand each other and the ways we respond to one another can sometimes offer useful insight into how you experience relationships more generally.
I’m influenced here by relational thinkers including Mick Cooper, as well as Martha Stark. Sometimes therapy calls for support, understanding and acceptance. At other times, it may be helpful to gently challenge a familiar way of seeing yourself or the world.
The important thing is that the work responds to you and what you need, rather than applying a fixed formula.
Past, present and future
An integrative approach also allows us to move between different points in time.
The past can help us understand where patterns developed. The present gives us an opportunity to notice what is happening now — your thoughts, feelings, relationships and ways of responding. The future gives us space to consider what you want your life to look like and what choices may be available to you.
We don’t need to spend our time looking backwards. Sometimes understanding the past helps make sense of the present; sometimes focusing on what is happening now is most useful; and sometimes the most important question is where you want to go from here.
So what does this mean for you?
You might arrive at counselling feeling stuck, struggling with your sense of self, overwhelmed by your circumstances or simply aware that something isn’t quite working.
There isn’t necessarily one approach that explains all of that.
We might explore what you’re experiencing now, look at patterns that have developed over time, consider how you relate to yourself and others, question some of the assumptions you carry or think about what you want for the future.
Sometimes I’ll offer a different perspective or gently challenge something. Sometimes the most useful thing I can do is listen carefully and help you stay with something that is difficult.
The work depends on you, what you bring and what we discover together.
Ultimately, my aim isn’t to apply a particular theory to you. It’s to understand you as a person and find a way of working that helps you develop greater understanding, greater choice and a greater sense of being able to live your life on your own terms.
🌱 BSP Counselling | Bexleyheath & Online
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