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This is an ambitious book. Jeremy Holmes and Anthony Bateman are both well respected and prolific writers, both working as Consultant Psychiatrists in Psychotherapy within the NHS. In this multi-author book they attempt to ‘explore and expound … integrative currents as they impact on the spectrum of contemporary psychological therapy’ (p. 2). They continue: ‘(W)e are not advocating integrative therapy as a modality of therapy in its own right, nor do we see it as inherently valuable … Rather we are attempting to capture a particular moment in the history of psychological therapies in which flux, crossover, and recombination … are in the air’ (p. 2).
The book is divided into two parts. In Part I, ‘Theory’, leading practitioners within traditional modes self-critically look outwards towards the limits and links between their own approaches and others. Thus Bateman himself describes ‘Integrative therapy from an analytic perspective’, while Power, Asen and Mace approach the question from the perspectives of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT), Systemic Therapy and Group Therapy, respectively.
Part II, ‘Models and Practice’, is described as a ‘showcase for the cutting-edge modalities in psychological therapy, all of which are, at this stage of their evolution, integrative’. Chapters in this part are on Cognitive Analytic Therapy (CAT), Psychodynamic Interpersonal Therapy (PIT), Interpersonal Therapy (IPT), Dialectical Behavioural Therapy (DBT), the Therapeutic Community (TC) and Supportive Psychotherapy (LTST — Long Term Supportive Therapy).
The Chapters in Part I, together with that by Denman on CAT, were most interesting to the reader. Bateman gives a historical perspective on integrative therapy from an analytic perspective, starting with Freud's own recommendation of an integration of behavioural and analytic techniques in the treatment of an agoraphobic patient. He describes how psychoanalysis over the years has become not only the prototypical therapy on which other t