In recent years there is an increased interest about eclecticism among psychotherapists. Therapists realized that there is not only one way to treat the client. It is better to use techniques, which are taken from different theories and way of thinking, on the client because there is not an orientation which is efficient in all cases.
Eclecticism means that taking the best and the most useful ways from a theory or a method and using it.
Eclecticism exists since long years. It is used by many psychotherapists. Freud also used eclecticism by integrating different methods.
Frederick Thorne was the first psychotherapist who thought that one way of treatment from a single theory is not good enough and Lazarus is the one who has brought the term technical eclecticism.
The authors in this article states that if a technique is successful to solve the problem, it does not mean that the theory is also a good one which the technique is belong to. It means that technique of the theory is good. It is not the theory used on people; it is the technique which is used on people.
Also it is stated that there cannot be a single technique or a theory to treat all the problems. There should be many and the most suitable one should be used according to the characteristic of the client and the type of his/her problem.
The other idea in this article is, not only the technique taken from a theory, also therapeutic relationship between the therapist and client is also important and the best fitting should be used. How close their relationship is whether client oriented or therapist oriented therapy is applied and etc. is also important.
According to the authors, all the theories almost equally effective for some cases like diagnosis of the problem but it is needed to select the best fitting technique from various theories for the treatment.
Another idea from this article is that not only the students match the patient and the therapy technique for the problem; they also should be competent to treat all these problems and should be able to use multiple theories in the future.
The last point mentioned about in this article is that didactic courses about technical eclecticism should be given, different kind of textbooks should be read in order to have an eclectic idea, and training institutes should be established in order to teach eclecticism and so on.
A. Lazarus, L. Beutler & J. Norcross, The Future of Technical Eclecticism, Psychotherapy, Spring 1992, Volume 29, N:1, pp.11-20
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